Riding Off Into Sunset

The Wave was the event of the year within the Orange County sporting world, and we’re not talking about the knee-jerk, monkeys-on-cue exercise in mob dynamics that refutes centuries of study suggesting humankind to be the most advanced life form on the planet.

We’re talking about the raised right arm, the open right palm and the gentle wobble of the wrist. We’re talking about The Wave in its traditional usage--to say goodby, farewell, so long, see you later and no, I won’t let the door hit me on the way out.

In Orange County, in 1991, The Wave was all the rage.

John Robinson did it.

Wally Joyner did it.

Doug Rader did it.

Bill Mulligan did it.

Mike Port did it.

Gaston Green and Mike Lansford did it.

Dave Winfield and Kirk McCaskill did it.

And Cal State Fullerton’s football program came exceedingly close to doing it.

No decade ever cuts truly clean--the ‘60s didn’t really end until Watergate and The DeFranco Family--and locally, the ‘90s will officially get rolling in 1992. The last remaining institutions of the ‘80s crumbled in 1991, save Gene Murphy and Jim Everett, although it has been argued, and with effectiveness, that Everett has been missing since that pass to Flipper Anderson in the 1989 NFC semifinal.

After nine years, the Rams will have a new head coach in 1992.

After six years, the Angels will have a new first baseman, if not one worthy of his own world.

After 11 years, UC Irvine has a new basketball coach, Rod Baker already knee-deep in Bill Mulligan’s old problems.

The Angels also have a new manager, which is not really new, considering the Autrys’ notoriously feeble memory. (“Doug Rader won 91 games in 1989? Get rid of him.” “Wally Joyner hit .301 last season? Get rid of him.”) Actually, Rader lasted a Methuselah-like 2.75 seasons as Angel manager. In the franchise’s 31 years of existence, only Bill Rigney (eight-plus seasons), Jim Fregosi (three) and Gene Mauch (three) held longer successive terms.

Breaking up is hard to do only in bad pop songs. The Angels couldn’t get enough of it in 1991, with an eager new CEO, Richard Brown, intent on setting up his own house. Brown replaced his general manager in April, his manager in August and introduced his presumed ace-in-the-hole, Director of Baseball Operations Whitey Herzog, in September.

Herzog was supposed to lend instant credibility to a front office long perceived as hopelessly in over its head, but first impressions can be deceiving. Since Herzog’s arrival, the Angels have witnessed the departure of their best player (Joyner), their best home run hitter (Winfield), their best pitching prospect (Kyle Abbott) and the dean of their starting rotation (McCaskill). At the same time, Herzog has brought in Von Hayes, Hubie Brooks and Chuck Crim and that, Herzog notes, is “better than nothing.”

We shall see.

The mass exodus from Anaheim began as early as January, when Chili Davis became the first man in America to consider a jump from the Angels to the Minnesota Twins career enhancement. The Twins had been scraping the bottom of the American League West for a good while, finishing 29 games back in 1990, but Davis has always been the iconoclast--and suspected any team with Jack Morris, Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek can’t be all bad.

Sage of the season, Davis hit 29 home runs for the Twins, played in his first AL playoff, won it, played in his first World Series and won that, too.

The Angels? They replaced Minnesota in last place, the place to be in Orange County in 1991, as they and new manager Buck Rodgers closed the season at 81-81--the best record for a last-place major league team ever.

It’s good to be the best in something.

The Rams, not knowing any better, considered their 5-11 standing in 1990 the ultimate humiliation and vowed that heads would have to roll as a consequence.

Robinson was allowed to keep his in exchange for defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur’s and half of the coaching staff’s. Goodby to the old 3-4 soft zone that bent, broke and shattered in 1990. Hello to Jeff Fisher’s 4-3 blitz-first and think-later defensive scheme, complete with reduced roles for the two remaining vanguards of the Shurmur regime, Kevin Greene and Jerry Gray.

Goodby, too, to a good many Rams, Ye Olde and otherwise. Gaston Green, the tailback no one in the Ram hierarchy apparently wanted yet blindly drafted in 1988’s first round anyway--gone. Mike Lansford, the reliable bare foot that went astray--gone. Pete Holohan, Everett’s third-down security blanket--gone. Irv Pankey, valued protector of Everett’s blind side--gone.

Before the end of 1991, Robinson would be gone as well, avalanched by an incredible chain of events, 10 of them linked to the same word: defeat. From 3-3 to 3-13, the Rams’ 10-game losing streak was a single-season record for a 55-year-old franchise, culminating in the Rams’ worst season since 1962.

On a bizarre Wednesday afternoon in mid-December, shortly after posing and grinning alongside owner Georgia Frontiere for the 1991 team photo, Robinson announced his resignation by accepting the Rams’ $550,000 buyout of his through-1993 contract. As he had through most of his nine years in Anaheim, Robinson made the announcement alone, accompanied by only a terse press release distributed by the most introverted front office in organized sports.

Possible replacements? That one-time scourge of Ramland, Buddy Ryan, who’d at least give Whitey Herzog someone to fish with, and Chuck Knox, whose bore-them-till-they-drop approach to football suddenly has Ram hearts aflutter after a two-year flat line on the EKG.

Everybody’s favorite Irish comedy team, Murphy and Mulligan, had an 11-year run in Orange County before a lack of material prompted a breakup. Mulligan ran out of players and victories at Irvine, announcing his retirement in February near the end of a third consecutive losing season. Murphy, for eight nether-worldly days in January, lacked everything--players, a program, a team--as Cal State Fullerton contemplated euthanasia for its budget-busting millstone, otherwise known as Division I-A Football.

A reprieve from university President Milton Gordon and the promise of a multimillion dollar fund-raising campaign gave Murphy’s Titans new life, albeit suspiciously similar to the old one. In 1991, a breathing Fullerton football program won only two more games than a defunct one, but that was a 100% improvement over 1990, when the Titans were 1-11 and ranked 106th (i.e. last) in Division I-A.

For the colleges, it was a bad year all around, even when it was good. Augie Garrido’s Titan baseball team, for instance, went 34-22, placed second in its conference, swept Long Beach State--and failed to receive an NCAA playoff invitation. Long Beach and Fresno State, Fullerton’s Big West rivals, went instead--and both reached the College World Series in Omaha.

Irvine’s baseball program was thrust into financial limbo for a few weeks before it, too, was saved by a budgetary soft-shoe. Fullerton’s basketball team mutinied against John Sneed after a 14-14 season, calling on interim Athletic Director Steve DiTolla to fire the Titans’ third-year coach. DiTolla instead kept Sneed, who in turn got rid of the ring-leading players, and now has a group capable of pushing UCLA to the outer limits inside Pauley Pavilion.

The best sporting news Orange County could deliver, as usual, was provided by the lower levels. Rancho Santiago Community College won its second consecutive state basketball championship and Cypress College had the premier JC baseball team in the state.

Among the high schools, Tustin (boys’ Division II), Estancia (boys’ Division III) and Brea-Olinda (girls’ Division II) won state basketball championships; Capistrano Valley won the 4-A baseball title; and Mater Dei (Division I), Irvine (Division II), Los Alamitos (Division III), Valencia (Division VI), Laguna Hills (Division VII) and Southern California Christian (Division X) provided a six-pack of football championships.

Notable in a supporting role was Esperanza High, which had a 27-game winning streak in football and the nation’s top-ranked team in baseball, but came up short in both postseason tournaments. The Aztecs lost to Long Beach Millikan in the 5-A baseball semifinals and Los Alamitos in the Division III football final.

Also notable was the way in which Mater Dei won in Division I. The Monarchs upset Eisenhower, ranked No. 1 in USA Today’s national prep football poll, by a rousing 35-14 margin and in front of 33,204 rowdy fans.

At last it was proof, when proof was needed most, that good things can happen to the home team at Anaheim Stadium.

The best move the other tenants made all year happened last night, right around the stroke of midnight. It was then that the Angels and the Rams, and all their remaining fans, took a last look at 1991 . . . and waved goodby.