Decking the Hall With L.A. Rams and Orioles

It isn’t easy trying to fill an Orange County Sports Hall of Fame, professionally speaking.

The Angels have been in Anaheim for 27 years, and all they have to show for it are eight winning seasons, three divisional titles and no American League pennants.

The Rams have been in Anaheim since 1980 and haven’t gotten past the conference championship game yet. They qualified twice, in 1985 and again in 1989, and were outscored by Chicago and San Francisco by a cumulative margin of 54-3.

Fame has been in short supply for this hall. Actually, what Orange County needs is a Sports Hall of the Pretty Good-- The Wild Card Wing is over here, the .500 Room is to your left --but who wants to shell out a $1,000 donation for that?

So Hall of Fame it is.

And being creative is what this Hall of Fame must do if it is to show something on its shelves.

So it cribs a little and bends the rules and adopts Vince Ferragamo, the quarterback who led the Rams to their only Super Bowl appearance but did so in 1979, a year before the Rams moved south.

It also forgives and attempts to forget a grievous transgression by Doug DeCinces, who kept the Angels out of the 1979 World Series by interrupting Jim Anderson’s bases-loaded smash and turning it into a momentum-squashing, rally-ending double play--one of the great defensive maneuvers in the history of the Baltimore Orioles, post-Brooks Robinson era.

A cynic might also note that DeCinces helped keep the Angels out of the 1986 World Series by swinging at the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the ninth inning--Game 5, American League playoffs, tied score, one out, bases loaded--and sending an excruciatingly short fly ball to right field.

But this is no time to open old wounds or dredge up old insomnia fits. Tuesday night, DeCinces and Ferragamo were inducted, along with Steve Busby and Al Carmichael, into the county Hall of Fame--a happy occasion, then, reserved for wistful recollections of home runs and touchdown passes and the heady sensation of knocking on heaven’s door, once upon a time.

Without DeCinces, there would have been no Game 5 for the Angels in 1986. Nor in 1982. Twice, the Angels got close enough to the World Series to taste it--a game away in both ’82 and ’86.

No DeCinces, however, no taste test.

Traded from Baltimore, where he could never replace Brooks, no matter how many line drives he backhanded, DeCinces arrived in Anaheim in 1982 needing only to replace Butch Hobson and Bert Campaneris. He was deadly on arrival, hitting 30 home runs and driving in 97 runs--more than any Angel third baseman before or since--and batting .301 for the first and only Angel team to win 93 games.

It was an MVP-caliber season, but DeCinces had to settle for third in the American League voting. Robin Yount won it, en route to the pennant, and old Oriole teammate Eddie Murray placed second. In those days, MVP candidates had stiffer competition than Mike Devereaux and Brady Anderson.

DeCinces was also handicapped in ways Yount and Murray never were. He batted next to Reggie Jackson, which meant batting in a media vacuum. Mr. October sucked the spotlight dry, so DeCinces labored away in solitude and did what he could to carve his own niche.

He became Mr. August, striking 11 home runs during that month in 1982 and nine more in August of ’86. The second jolt broke open an annoyingly tight AL West race with the Texas Rangers and lifted Gene Mauch’s last batch of angry old men to their second divisional championship in five years.

Postseason heartbreak, coupled with the near-misses of ’84 and ‘85, clouded those years for a while. But today, viewed from beneath the manhole of the AL West, they have taken on new light.

The good old days. The salad days. The Angels’ golden era--’82 through ’86.

Where have you gone, Bobby Grich and Brian Downing and Bob Boone and Doug DeCinces? A depressed franchise turns its lonely eyes to you.

Ram success has had a longer run in Anaheim. During the 1980s, seven Ram teams qualified for the playoffs. Three of them went 11-5. And two reached the NFC final--once with the quarterback steering the way (Jim Everett ‘89), once with the quarterback stashed away in the overhead bin (Dieter Brock ‘85).

But only one Ram quarterback, in Anaheim or Los Angeles, has reached a Super Bowl. The name is Ferragamo, which is knowledge guaranteed to earn you a free round or two in bets with out-of-town friends.

Ask them to peruse the following list and find the only Ram Super Bowl quarterback in the bunch:

Roman Gabriel.

John Hadl.

James Harris.

Ron Jaworski.

Pat Haden.

Joe Namath.

Vince Ferragamo.

Dan Pastorini.

Bert Jones.

Dieter Brock.

Steve Bartkowski.

Jim Everett.

Quite a roll call. But only Ferragamo could fill the role.

He got there by accident--actually, two: Haden’s broken pinky finger and a tipped pass in the playoffs against Dallas, which wound up in the arms of Ram wide receiver Billy Waddy, who carried it the rest of the way to the winning touchdown.

He played well in that Super Bowl, too--a rarity for Ram quarterbacks in big postseason games. But his 212 passing yards went for naught, the 9-7 Rams were overmatched by the end-of-the-dynasty Pittsburgh Steelers, and both Ferragamo and his teammates returned to earth promptly after crossing the county line.

Ferragamo spent only three full seasons as an Anaheim Ram, a career truncated by an ill-advised one-year foray in the Canadian Football League and a broken hand three games into the 1984 season.

But there were moments: 3,000-yard seasons in 1980 and 1983. An 11-5 record in 1980. A 509-yard performance against the Bears in 1982 on the day after Christmas.

The Rams lost that game, too. Of course. Fame seldom cuts cleanly on this corner of the map.

But it is fame nonetheless, and Orange County has a museum for it.

Might as well put the house to good use and find some room for the Angels’ finest third baseman and the Rams’ only Super Bowl quarterback.

Might as well do some home improvement.

* O.C. SPORTS HALL OF FAME: Ram executive Jack Faulkner received the Lifetime Achievement award at the induction banquet. C11