Angels Show a Little Fight as Rader Era Opens

You’ve heard of bench-clearing brawls? The Angels invented a new version of that in their season opener Tuesday--the Stadium-clearing brawl.

The Angels and White Sox mixed it up after Angel relief pitcher Bob McClure had dusted off Ivan Calderon and Calderon charged the mound, flinging his helmet at McClure.

You might say Calderon was throwing out the symbolic first helmet of the Doug Rader era. Play ball.

Finally, after eight innings of frustration in what was already a long season in Anaheim, baseball’s politest fans had something to take their minds off the usual grandstand activities, the beach balls and the napping and the knitting.

When “the obligatory wrestling match,” as Rader called it, finally ended, most of the fans headed for the exits, drained.

Knowledgeable in their club’s history, the fans were not anticipating a comeback from the 9-2 deficit, and they weren’t disappointed.

Still, it was an important day for the Angels, and not just because of the extension of their losing streak, which began late last season and is now at 13.

It was the start of that long-awaited Rader era. With the Santa Ana winds blowing in hot and wild off the Orange Freeway, the Angels showed off new uniforms (with belts), new grass (thicker), new manager, a new outfielder and maybe a new attitude.

When was the last time an Angel manager made a last-minute lineup switch on opening day, sticking a rookie into the batting order in place of a veteran? Rader put Dante Bichette in left field instead of Chili Davis, because Bichette had been swinging well in spring games.

“It was not done for the purpose of shocking anyone,” Rader said, and Bichette’s 0-for-2 performance was a quiet big league beginning.

But it was the kind of nonpassive move the Angels are likely to be featuring this season, not so much out of desperation as out of Rader’s desire to make things happen. Another example will be demonstrated Saturday night, when rookie pitcher Jim Abbott makes his first start.

Rader, apparently, is not mentally timid, and neither is his team.

Inept at times, perhaps, but not timid. McClure, who came over from the Mets and the tough-as-nails National League, gave the traditional pitcher’s response after Harold Baines had hit a home run deep down the right-field line in the ninth, giving the Sox an 8-2 lead.

McClure buzzed the next batter, Calderon, nicking him on the hand. Calderon sprinted for the mound and threw his helmet from point-blank range, barely missing McClure. Then they both disappeared into a sea of converging ballplayers.

Nobody was hurt, no serious blows thrown. It looked more like that male bonding psychologists tell us is so important to character development, than a seriously angry altercation.

It was pure, old-fashioned baseball. Guy hits home run. Frustrated pitcher plunks next batter on first pitch. Batter, pride and manhood challenged, charges mound. Wrestling match ensues.

It’s not clear who won this one, and it is rumored that Lovely Elizabeth has not decided whether to sign up Calderon or McClure as her next wrestling protege.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the Angels got into a fight on opening day with the fiery Rader at the helm. But it’s a fact that Rader has made a career, as a player and as a manager, of happening to be around being around when things are happening.

He almost surely did not instruct McClure to stick Calderon. Maybe it’s just a National League trick McClure brought with him. But Angel fans would like to think that the opener was a metaphor for the style of play the Angels will feature, that they won’t surrender meekly, even if they hit that way.

It would be a welcome change in Anaheim, where baseball fever is closely related to sleeping sickness.

This season, for a while anyway, the Angels just may compel their fans to pay attention to the action on the field.

To keep that attention, the team will have to come up with some snappier pitching, fielding, hitting and thinking, but those are minor areas that will pretty much take care of themselves, as long as the team’s spirit is in the right place.

The Angels, for instance, didn’t deny trying to buzz Calderon.

“If you get hammered around a little bit, you dust someone off and go on with the game,” McClure said.

Angel catcher Lance Parrish, asked if McClure had been trying to hit Calderon, said he wasn’t sure. “Usually, if you get hit after someone gets a hit like that (homer), you can figure something fishy’s going on,” he said.

Especially if the pitcher has already decorated that inning with a balk, a wild pitch, a couple of base hits and then the homer, you can pretty much figure out his mood.

If nothing else, the little 60-man tussle took the edge off the Angels’ embarrassment at losing their home opener to Jerry Reuss, a pitcher they dumped two seasons ago when he was obviously over the hill.

Ideally, you like to begin a new era with a victory, or at least a close ballgame. But the Angels did show signs of life. That will do for openers.

Let the era continue.