Tony C.’s Legacy: The Long Goodby

Tony Conigliaro’s career as an Angel was as short as it wasn’t sweet, just 74 games and 226 at-bats, barely enough time to say hello.

His legacy, instead, was the long goodby.

Conigliaro’s last game as an Angel began on July 9, 1971. It ended on July 10. In between, the Angels and the Oakland Athletics played 20 innings--the first 19 1/2 without a run--before the game was won by an Angel.

But not the Angels.

At 1:05 in the morning, Angel Mangual, a reserve outfielder with the A’s, finally lined an RBI single to right field, coming with two outs in the bottom of the 20th and more than five hours after the opening pitch.

The hit gave Oakland a 1-0 victory and ended the longest scoreless tie in American League history. The game remains the longest played by the Angels, sharing the distinction with another 20-inning affair against Seattle in 1982.

It was even longer for Conigliaro. He went 0 for 8, struck out five times and, in an act of mercy by home-plate umpire Merle Anthony, was thrown out of the game in the top of the 19th.

Less than five hours later, at 5 in the morning, Conigliaro summoned traveling Angel beat writers from their sleep for a motel lobby press conference, where he announced he was retiring from baseball.

“This is something I had to do or I’d end up in a straitjacket with the other nuts,” Conigliaro said.

“I almost lost my mind out there tonight. I was doing things on the field and saying things on the bench that I didn’t know I was saying or doing.”

The late Lefty Phillips, then the Angel manager, couldn’t argue with his ex-player.

“The man belongs in an institution,” Phillips said.

A sympathetic group, those Angels. During Conigliaro’s struggles that season--he batted just .222 and took 20 cortisone injections for a pinched nerve in his neck--some of his teammates grabbed his uniform and a pair of crutches and laid it all out on a stretcher in front of his locker. For added effect, they then splashed the whole thing with ketchup.

That passed for humor on a team that featured Alex Johnson, who thought it great fun to dump coffee grounds into a reporter’s typewriter, and Chico Ruiz, who kept a gun in his locker.

Conigliaro should have heeded the clues. This was a relationship doomed from the start.

In 1967, the Angels nearly killed Conigliaro. It was an Angel, Jack Hamilton, who threw the pitch that beaned Conigliaro in the left eye, an injury that should have ended his career then and there.

But Conigliaro came back in 1969 and hit 20 home runs for Boston. The next year, he hit 36 more and drove in 116 runs. The Angels, finishing a close third in the AL West in 1970, figured the 1971 pennant was only a Tony C. away, so they traded a couple of Tatums--Ken and Jarvis--and Doug Griffin for him during the off-season.

But by early July, Conigliaro had four home runs and 15 RBIs and the Angels were on their way to finishing 25 1/2 games out. The weight of fallen expectations hung heavy on Conigliaro, and on July 9 in Oakland, he finally gave way.

Conigliaro had already had one run-in with Anthony--after an 11th-inning strikeout--before he stepped to the plate with Ken Berry on first base in the top of the 19th. Phillips ordered Conigliaro to bunt. Conigliaro tried.

He missed all three attempts.

Called out again on strikes, Tony C. saw red. Protesting that he hadn’t bunted on the third strike, Conigliaro shouted and stomped after Anthony, flailing his arms in the air. Soon to follow were his batting helmet and his bat, both landing 50 feet down the first-base line.

Anthony immediately ejected Conigliaro, who retired to the visitors clubhouse and, then, retired.

“I was on the ledge tonight,” Conigliaro would tell bleary-eyed writers before the next sunrise. “When I came back to the (hotel) room, I was twitching and my stomach was in knots. I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ ”

Conigliaro also divulged, for the first time, that the sight in his left eye had begun to deteriorate again.

“It’s like a hole that will always be missing dead center in the eye,” he said. “When the pitcher holds the ball, I can’t see his hand or the ball.”

The Angels responded coldly, placing him on the voluntary retired list and terminating his salary. Conigliaro, claiming the eye injury had forced him to quit, had to file a grievance to receive his full 1971 pay.

Tony C. sat out three seasons before attempting one more futile comeback with the Red Sox. He lasted just 21 games. He batted just .123.

Last weekend, when kidney failure claimed Conigliaro, reams were written about what he had represented to the Red Sox. He was the embodiment of that franchise’s cursed fortune, the Boston slugger who had the strength, the skills, the personality and the looks--everything he could possibly want, except luck.

With the Angels, Conigliaro represented the first broken promise. Before Conigliaro, any success the Angels encountered was a pleasant surprise. But his acquisition legitimized the Angels. In 1971, for the first time in their history, the Angels were preseason favorites.

That year’s failure set a trend the team hasn’t lived down since. Be it 20 years or 20 innings, the Angels haven’t yet disappointed in their ability to disappoint.

Tony C.’s eyesight was bad, but by his lead, we should have seen what was coming.