Angel Notebook : With ‘Magic’ Joyner Out, Armas Draws Laughs

They hung a basketball hoop over the locker stall of Angel first baseman/point guard Wally Joyner Friday morning. Hung a new nickname on him, too.

“His name is Magic now,” Angel Manager Doug Rader pronounced. “Magic Joyner.”

Jammin’ Joyner and his newly sprained ankle were welcomed to Angel Stadium with a touch of good humor, which, considering the circumstances, was really the only way.

After watching what Wally’s injury had wrought--the much-awaited debut of Tony Armas at first base--there wasn’t a dry eye or frown to be found in the Angel clubhouse.

Armas, with 11 years’ experience in the outfield and not a day’s worth of experience at first base, set some sort of major league record on the first ground ball hit his way:

Two errors, one fielding and one throwing, on the very first play of the day.

Seattle Mariners leadoff hitter Harold Reynolds set the circus in motion by bouncing a grounder toward Armas. Armas immediately responded by bouncing the ball off his shin.

Still, enough time remained for a play at first base--or so Angel pitcher Chuck Finley thought, at least until he slipped while trying to cover the bag. Suddenly, there was no play, but Armas tried to make one anyway.

The result was an off-balance throw to an off-balance Finley, and the sight of the baseball sailing over the pitcher’s head. Reynolds was on his way to second base and Armas was on his way to his second error--all on his first chance.

And all because Joyner can’t shoot a shoot-around jump shot without twisting his ankle.

“I should go in there and slap Wally,” Finley joked afterward. “They should’ve had a camera on that play. Tony’s down there looking for ants, and I’m sitting in the sandbox, playing with trucks.”

Finley had slipped in the loose dirt around first base--”It was so loose, it looked like somebody was buried there,” he said--and was sitting on the bag when he watched Armas grab for the ball, wind up and throw.

Armas had to alter his throw in mid-motion, aiming low with a sidearm release, and never came close to the target.

“He’d have had a better chance kicking it to me,” Finley said.

The entire Angel dugout broke out laughing. So, eventually, did Armas, Joyner’s newly christened error apparent at first base.

Armas had begun working out at first base in Mesa, Ariz., in accordance to Rader’s wishes. With Claudell Washington and the emerging Dante Bichette crowding things in the Angel outfield, Rader saw first base as a place to play Armas on occasion “in order to get Tony the at-bats he needs.”

But what Armas truly needs are more lessons at first base.

“I swear he’s got good hands,” Rader said. “I promise you.”

Angel Notes

The Angels eventually outscored the Mariners, 9-8, to win their Palm Springs opener. After the leadoff error, Chuck Finley pitched four hitless innings, but left trailing, 3-1, after surrendering a two-run home run to Jay Buhner and a run-scoring double to Harold Reynolds in the fifth. Angel reliever Willie Fraser wound up the winning pitcher despite two ragged innings (4 runs on 4 hits, including a pair of triples), cashing in on the Angels’ eight-run outburst in the fifth and sixth. In the sixth, Devon White and Dante Bichette hit back-to-back home runs. White’s homer, a three-run shot, left him with a team-high 11 RBIs this spring. Bichette’s home run was his third, also a team high.