Forget the Shuffling, Angels Must Get New Deck

At some point, the Angels are going to get around to getting rid of their manager, Doug Rader, which is what baseball teams do whenever things go wrong. Yet the solution to what ails the Angels is so simple, so obvious, that it amazes me that the Autrys and all their hired hands haven’t thought of it before.

Trade everybody.

I have never been more serious in my entire life. Trade everybody. Trade every single person wearing an Angel uniform, with the possible exception of the children who carry the players’ bats. Have a fire sale. Fire ‘em all.

What has anybody on the California Angels done to deserve being kept? All this team has done is sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand, and all management ever does is acquire more and more experienced, established players who do absolutely nothing to make this team any better?

Trade everybody.

Why should we keep some of them? Because they are nice guys? Sure they are. Lance Parrish, Kirk McCaskill, Dave Parker, Jim Abbott, Max Venable, Dave Winfield . . . these are not bad human beings. They lend class to an organization. But are the Angels any better because of them? Not so anybody could tell.

How are we expected to distinguish which players should shape up and which ones should ship out? Do we automatically say that Wally Joyner bats for a high percentage, and therefore should remain a mainstay of the club? Have the Angels done any better with Joyner at first base than they did with Rod Carew there?

By the time the Angels get around to getting enough good players to join Joyner, Joyner will be as old as Parrish, Parker or Winfield. The club will keep on weeding out the older people, the Bob Boones and Brian Downings, and continue searching for those ever-elusive “missing pieces of the puzzle” that we are always hearing so much about.

Everybody laughs and laughs at the Cleveland Indians or other clubs that lose for a living. The Angels are as embarrassing as anybody out there. They don’t have the excuse of free agents being unwilling to play here. They can’t blame a lack of fan support, or the need for a new stadium. They have no excuses whatever for never having appeared in a World Series.

Trade everybody.

Shop the entire roster around the league for new players and prospects. Let’s not have another of those spring trainings where the Angels go around saying: “Now we’ve got Mark Langston, the missing piece of the puzzle.” Or: “Now we’ve got Gary Gaetti, the missing piece of the puzzle.”

They don’t need new pieces. They need a new puzzle.

The Angels have an enormous payroll and are able to meet it because their fans are among the most loyal in pro sports. Why these people keep coming, I have no idea. The Angels certainly put forth a lineup of popular players--walking bubble-gum cards. Maybe that’s why. Maybe when your team is made up of interesting individuals, your fans are content to come out and watch them play, win or lose.

All I know is that practically anyplace else, the fans would boo this team off the field. Perhaps Californians take pride in their proper behavior, but for once I would like to see them stop being so hopelessly devoted and begin to let Angel management know that they are as mad as the devil and not going to take this anymore.

Trade everybody.

Don’t back up the truck; back up a van. Waive the ones with fat contracts and sign some kids who are hungry. Start building this ballclub anew with prospects and stop signing the Mike Marshalls after sending away the Dante Bichettes. If we have to watch the Angels lose for a couple of more seasons because of their inexperience, hey, Angel fans are used to it. They’re so used to it, they’ve built up an immunity.

One of the blind spots of the Angels is that, like George Steinbrenner and Ted Turner, they have had a fatal attraction to names of fame such as Parker, Winfield, Marshall and Fernando Valenzuela that offer, at best, short-term help. They did get Winfield for Mike Witt and that was a steal, although a can of tuna fish for Mike Witt would have been a steal.

They have a character named Luis Polonia who is a great guy to have on a baseball team as long as he doesn’t have to wear a glove. Polonia gives the Angels a choice of having a young, small, speedy designated hitter--rather than an old, large, slow DH--or having an outfielder who handles fly balls as though he is being attacked by bees. This guy makes Chili Davis look like Roberto Clemente.

Also, I believe the Angels are now going into their 47th consecutive year with Dick Schofield at shortstop, so maybe we can try somebody else one of these seasons. I see where Schofield is currently batting about .235. Now, there’s a news bulletin.

The Angels must stop rewarding their players for mediocrity and forgiving them for their lousy luck. Let’s bring in nine new players next spring and see how they do. From now on, as long as the Angels are around, I am going to stop picking on the Clippers.