Agony of Defeat : For a Bar Full of Sinking Angel Fans, the End Came at 8:03:57 P.M.

It was 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, and Jim Maynard was leaving the bar and heading home to Laguna Beach. “Don’t bother, man,” he shouted to someone heading in. “It’s 7-nothing.

“Don’t go in there. It’s full of Angel fans and they’re depressed.” He grinned. Maynard is a Mets fan, and he therefore was a happy man. Hours before, the Mets had won the National League pennant.

There was more than depression among the regular crowd inside Bilbo Baggins, a bar on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa. There was disappointment, discouragement and pain, pain, pain.

The posters on the wall had turned into taunts: “Redsox in Trunk” and “Congratulations, California Angels, American League West Champions.” The two TV sets and the big-screen TV were showing what seemed the inevitable, bitter end of the pennant hopes that had been within the Angels’ grasp and had slipped away.

“The place was packed,” said Jim Esposito, the owner. But at that moment there was plenty of room if you wanted to sit down and watch. “Typical California crowd,” Esposito said. “Dodgers, Rams, Raiders--they’re all falling apart.”

But, he said, “they’ve pulled it off before. They were a pitch away from winning. God Almighty, let it happen just once! “

“Poor Autry,” he added, offering his sympathy to Angels’ owner Gene Autry.

In anticipation of the first pennant in Angel history, Esposito had laid out a free feast of tacos, hot dogs and sauerkraut for his regulars at the bar. The food was gone, and so was the levity. Hard liquor had begun to outsell beer at the bar.

Don Fisher of Costa Mesa was pumping up his optimism. “You’ll see a different Angel team next year. And it’s not done till it’s all done. Anything can happen.”

What happened just then was that Bobby Grich struck out swinging at a high pitch out of the strike zone.

“(Bleep),” shouted Fisher.

Fisher had attended the infamous game in Anaheim last Sunday in which the Angels, leading in extra innings, were one strike away from winning the playoff series. “Everyone was so high. Then to lose it!” Fisher said.

Was Angel manager Gene Mauch wrong to have changed pitchers when he did Sunday? The new pitcher hit the batter, and the next pitcher allowed the winning hit. “If I was the manager I’d have done the same thing,” Fisher said.

But Fisher was in the minority. The informal vote at the east end of the bar was Mauch-is-a-jerk 7, Mauch-did-the-right-thing 2.

Lisa Samsel had arrived with her friends early to get the best table in front of the big screen. But at this point, she didn’t bother to shoo away someone who sat down in front of her. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’re losing anyway.”

Virgil Stafford of Fountain Valley had the worst seat in the place--actually outside the place. From his chair on the patio, the TV screen looked the size of a postage stamp. “When we got here, this was as close as you could get,” he explained.

By that time, however, there was plenty of room inside.

“I don’t think I want to get any closer than where I am,” he said. Too painful. “Especially when you’re an Angel fan for 19 years. That’s me.”

Top of the eighth, and the Angels began to get things rolling. Around the room, the expressions were of grim, gloomy concentration. Samsel’s voice rose above the TV sound: “Come on, Reggie, do it now!”

Reggie Jackson fouled one away, then another. The bar began to get noisy, and someone started hooting. And Reggie swung and missed for a third strike.

The sound of a breaking glass came from far back in the room. From a few points came uninhibited fiery language, most of it along the common theme of naming specific players after various body parts.

The Angels scored one insignificant run.

Steve Maynard of Newport Beach, sitting right up front all night, seemed tired. He had World Series tickets that were three outs away from becoming waste paper. “Next year, buddy,” he said to a bystander.

Maynard saw the season end before him at 8:03:57 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Across the TV screen poured happy Boston players and fans.

“Jim,” he said to the owner, “change the channel, OK?”