Wathan Has a Long Wait for Another Loss

When second base umpire Vic Voltaggio ejected him in the eighth inning of Sunday’s game, interim Angel Manager John Wathan didn’t expect it to be all but a life sentence.

“That’s the longest I ever spent in the penalty box,” said Wathan, who had to wait through six more innings--including a second rendition of “Take me out to the ballgame” during the 14th-inning stretch--before the White Sox completed a 12-8 victory over the Angels before 25,401 at Anaheim Stadium. “I expected to just be there for a couple of innings.”

When Wathan was dismissed, the White Sox had an 8-7 edge. The Angels pulled even in the bottom of the inning, abetted by the fourth of Chicago’s season-high five errors. But singles in the 14th by Shawn Abner, Lance Johnson and Ron Karkovice off Scott Bailes (3-1) gave Chicago a lead the Angels couldn’t overcome in their longest game of the season.

“They hit one ball hard that inning--Karkovice,” Bailes said of a single up the middle. “Everything else was through holes or in the dirt. It’s kind of the way it’s gone this year for me, personally.”

After Karkovice’s single, Chicago padded its lead on a two-run single by shortstop Esteban Beltre and right fielder Chad Curtis’ error on Tim Raines’ fly ball in the late-afternoon sun. “I like the fact (Beltre) got the hit because he had a tough day,” White Sox Manager Gene Lamont said, “but it still didn’t completely alleviate his errors.”

Beltre’s misplay of Luis Polonia’s bouncer to shortstop contributed to a four-run fourth inning that put the Angels ahead, 5-3. An error charged to catcher Carlton Fisk after Junior Felix kicked the ball out of his glove while sliding home also scored Von Hayes, and Gary DiSarcina’s lone hit in six at-bats provided the fourth run.

The White Sox tied it in the fifth inning when George Bell dumped a two-run single in front of Polonia, but the Angels came back with two in the bottom of the inning, helped by reliever Wilson Alvarez’s wild pickoff throw to first. Gonzales’ single to left scored Hayes, and Lee Stevens’ broken-bat grounder to third scored Gonzales with the seventh run.

Donn Pall (5-2) allowed one hit over three innings to earn credit for the White Sox’s seventh triumph in eight games, one that brought a sigh of relief from Lamont. His bullpen depleted, he planned to keep Pall in the game the rest of the day and into the night. “He could have gone six if we needed,” said Lamont, whose emergency backup was starter Kirk McCaskill.

The White Sox didn’t need him, thanks to Abner’s hustle--he somersaulted into first to be sure he would beat out a grounder to the right side--and the feats of Johnson, Karkovice and Beltre. “Look who beat us. It wasn’t even guys that started the game,” Polonia said after the Angels’ fifth loss in six games. “But what can you do? We came back and tied the game, but we just couldn’t do that much.”

Doing anything constructive in the 84-degree heat and intense humidity was difficult. “Conditions were terrible. It got hotter as the day went on,” said first baseman Frank Thomas, whose three-run home run in the seventh inning off Chuck Crim gave the White Sox that 8-7 edge and extended his hitting streak to 19 games. “I thought after my home run it would be over, but those guys were battling.”

They battled through five hours, 23 minutes, but they lacked a potent arsenal. Although they collected 13 hits, only one went for extra bases--Gonzales’ second-inning double--and they had only three hits over the last nine innings.

“We just didn’t have a knockout punch today--no big blow that could put them away,” Gonzales said. “In a game like that, a big hit or a big inning will kill a team. We kept answering back, but we didn’t put pressure on them to answer us.”