AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : California vs Boston : How Angels Lost a Run and a Manager on a Bizarre Play

See Wally Joyner run.

See Rich Gedman catch and tag.

See Terry Cooney yell, “Safe!” Then, “Out!”

See you later, Gene Mauch.

And so it went in the fourth inning of Friday night’s game between the Angels and the Boston Red Sox. No matter how hard they try, their games occasionally have the look of a situation comedy gone bad.

By the time a 10-minute debate was completed, the Angels had lost an apparent run, a chance to tie a 1-0 game and Mauch, their manager.

“It’s a play that’s going to happen one time out of a million,” third base umpire Rich Garcia said.

It began with one out and a looping single to right by Joyner, the Angels’ first hit of the game off Red Sox starter Oil Can Boyd. Then Brian Downing added a single, this time to left, and Joyner was on second.

Reggie Jackson popped to shortstop Spike Owen, leaving Boyd just one out from the safety of the Boston dugout. But nothing comes easy in this series. The bizarre refuses to take a game off.

Doug DeCinces is partly to blame. So is fate and a squibbed hit that twisted, turned and spun its way crazily down the first-base line.

Waiting for DeCinces’ cued ground ball was Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. Plate umpire Cooney also was there, inching his way down the line, preparing to signal fair or foul.

Then the ball smacked against the first-base bag and toward second. Boyd, who had hurried over to first, reached for the ball. “It was still spinning,” he said. “I missed it.”

Good thing, too, since the right-handed Boyd couldn’t have done what the left-handed Buckner would do, which was grab the ball and throw to home plate in one motion. It was there that Gedman stood, waiting for Joyner to arrive. Confusion arrived moments later.

Joyner had hesitated at third and then dashed for home when DeCinces’ hit caromed off first base. Now for the testimony.

Joyner said: “As I was approaching the plate, I saw Gedman reaching for the ball. I figured I’d be out if I slid, so I tried to step around him. My foot landed on his foot and the plate at the same time. The home plate umpire signaled me safe, which was correct in my opinion. I continued on into the dugout and then saw all the commotion out there and figured the Red Sox were trying to get the umpires to change their call.”

Gedman said: “I just tried to get in the best position I could, and when I caught the ball, I just turned and hit him. I don’t know why he didn’t slide. I expected it. I knew he was.”

The plot thickens.

Cooney, after consulting with third base umpire Rich Garcia, changed his call from safe to out. “If (Joyner) had been tagged, he was out,” Cooney said later, after reviewing a videotape of the play in the umpires’ dressing room. “He wasn’t on the plate.”

Imagine Mauch’s surprise.

“Garcia said he saw a tag, so Cooney changed his decision,” Mauch said. “After that, Cooney seemed to know all about it and maintained that Joyner was far enough up the line when Gedman first made contact with him.”

And this from Red Sox Manager John McNamara: “The throw beat him, and I thought Richie tagged him, but the umpire was up the line where he was supposed to be, and the third base umpire made the final call at the plate. From my viewpoint, (Joyner) was out.”

So was Mauch, who retired to the Angel dugout runway shortly thereafter, courtesy of first base umpire Nick Bremigan. Just two days ago in a press conference, Mauch praised this umpiring crew. Friday evening, he was less than impressed, and told them so, specifically Bremigan.

Bremigan took exception to Mauch’s language and a not-so-gentle reminder of a failed balk call in a recent regular-season game against the Texas Rangers. And when Mauch remained in the dugout, McNamara emerged and reminded the umpires that the Angel manager should be gone.

Part of the problem was that Cooney had made the initial call, according to Garcia, about 40 feet from home plate. He had to, since a ruling was required on DeCinces’ hit. “I didn’t plan that,” Cooney said later. “But that (ball) was my responsibility.”

Added Garcia: “I’d stand up here and probably be called a liar if I told you (Cooney) was in the the right place to be. Certainly he wasn’t in the right position. He was over on the left. But you have to understand that the ball was hit down the line. If you don’t know if the ball is fair or foul, that play at the plate doesn’t mean anything.”

Cooney also didn’t plan on asking Garcia for help. But he did, and Garcia confirmed that he had seen Gedman tag Joyner.

Said Cooney: “It was a freak play.”

Indeed it was