Anaheim Is Where All the Stars May Not Come Out at Night

In preparing for the baseball All-Star party that they will be throwing come July 11 at Rancho Autry, the Angels have but one minor headache, that being: Will there be enough Stars left to field nine on a side?

Without Jose Canseco, Dave Winfield, Andre Dawson, George Brett, Kirk Gibson, Eric Davis, Teddy Higuera, Jim Gott and assorted others, all of whom are hurtin’ for certain, we wonder if the Angels will be forced to bill the event as the No-Star game.

Furthermore, with Jack Clark, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry, Benito Santiago, Alan Trammell, Dale Murphy, Juan Samuel, Gary Carter and your Wally World impresario himself, Wally Joyner, all nearer .200 than .300 on the latest batting charts, and with Frank Viola, Jack Morris and Fernando Valenzuela armed but no longer as dangerous, Anaheim Stadium figures to be filing a missing-persons report on All-Star night.

Then again, what the heck, we will simply have to entertain a new bunch of rising stars, provided the voters are wise enough to choose performance over marquee value. The show must go on, so we will gladly settle for Will Clark instead of Jack, Alvin Davis instead of Eric, and-- egad--Lonnie Smith instead of Ozzie?

Tough break for the Angels, losing all of those superstars to injuries this year of all years. The public generally likes to see them, no matter how they are doing. Even if Gary Carter does happen to be 9 of 79, he probably will get his name punched on a whole lot of ballots. Somebody who is a nobody--say, Milt Thompson or Paul O’Neill will probably have to watch the midsummer classic on their TVs at home, even if they deserve to be in it.

Already we are looking forward to the All-Star contest, with hope that Kevin Mitchell catches one one-handed, that Nolan Ryan whiffs nine in three innings, and that Wade Boggs confines his Will Call pass list to family and relatives. Boggs, by the way, will be appearing in Anaheim, also known as Margoville, beginning Tuesday for a series against the Angels, and we advise him to keep his red sox on.

Who is going to represent the old home team in the All-Star game? Interesting question. The Angels, naturally, hope to put two or three players on the field of dreams.

Kirk McCaskill, of all people, currently stands the best chance, although Bert Blyleven, Devon White and Brian Downing are definitely in the running. What a story McCaskill is, coming back, as he has, from the Pitch Sematary. We figured McCaskill would be lucky this season to make the Angel rotation; instead, he looks better than ever.

Doug Rader’s Angels keep acting as though they intend to stay in the American League West race, from April to October. Nice surprise, this. With all the muscle the Oakland Athletics still flex, and with the fast starts of the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals, the Angels looked destined to curl up into the middle of the pack and hibernate there. But we appear to have underestimated them.

The pitching, for starters--and we do mean starters--has really come around. We have no intention of getting into that gobbledygook about Bob Boone not ordering his pitchers to work the inside corner, but we do know that Lance Parrish always has been and always will be an expert handler of pitchers, so the Angels remain in good hands.

Jim Abbott will make every attempt at hanging onto the No. 5 starting job that he earned, but just in case the rookie does have to go down to the minors to refine his pitches--and we are not at all certain this will be necessary--Dan Petry is making noises as though he is ready to go nine. Petry looked sharp against the Yankees last Friday, in what Rader referred to as an “almost heroic” effort. In his prime, Petry was an All-Star type of star.

Behind their pitchers, the Angels have a sound defense, anchored by their center fielder, White, who has a chance to become a real star. Tony Kubek was saying on television the other day that the Angels believe White capable of crunching 25-30 home runs a year, on top of the base stealing and Gold gloving he gives them. That’s a lot to ask, but White does put his whole self behind that swing.

Defense in the outfield became a priority for the Angels when Chili Davis for some reason started playing the field like Dave Kingman, but we prefer to believe that 1988 was a mirage, and that the Chili Man won’t repeat that 19-error season that gave Angel fans heartburn. Chili’s too capable a player to let that happen again.

The guy for whom we feel sorry, the guy who must be knocking his head against a wall while watching infielders such as Glenn Hoffman and Kent Anderson getting big-league playing time, is Mark McLemore, the kid who cannot catch a break. Worthy of starting for somebody, McLemore has the misfortune of playing the same position as Johnny Ray. Ray’s a player; he has to play. We might have seen the last of McLemore.

All in all, the Angels hope to host two main events at the Big A, one a classic of midsummer, one a classic of fall. Dave Henderson is definitely invited to one, but please, not to the other.