Angel Brass Keeps Falling Off Truck

The Toronto Blue Jays went pigeon-hunting at the baseball winter meetings last December, desperate to unload a third baseman with a bad neck, a bad knee, a bad shoulder and who knows what else.

Slick Pat Gillick and his men didn’t have to look hard. The Angel contingent was easy to spot, cinching up their bib overalls and tugging on their straw hats as they wandered, barefooted, into the hotel lobby. Gillick noticed that the overalls were dirty. Outside, a turnip truck pulled away, tires squealing.

“Psst,” Gillick whispered from behind a corner, nodding in the Angels’ direction. “Over here. I need to talk to you.”

“Us?” said Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe, jaws agape.

“Yeah, you. Look, you need a third baseman, I got a third baseman. Kelly Gruber. Won a couple Gold Gloves, used to be great. You want him, you got him. I’ll give him to you cheap.”

“Kelly Gruber?” said Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe, jaws agape.

“Cheap?” said Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe, jaws agape.

“Listen,” Slick Gillick said, jamming his fists into the pockets of his black London Fog overcoat. His black Wayfarers slid halfway down his nose. Sweat glistened on the Dep gel in his black hair. He looked nervous.

“OK, what’s the deal with the Abbott kid? You still trying to unload him?”

“Uh, sorry, Mr. Gillick,” Richie Bob said. “We just traded him to the Yankees.”

“But you can have Tim Salmon!” Danny Joe blurted.

“No, no,” Gillick muttered under his breath. “Too easy.”

“What’d ya say there?” asked Whitey, squinting and plucking the piece of straw from between his teeth.

“Uh . . . I said ‘Sojo.’ Yeah, ‘Sojo. Good ol’ Louie.’ That’s what I said. So how about it? Sojo for Gruber. Straight up.”

“Nah,” Whitey said. “We like that kid.”

“Yeah, we must!” Danny Joe blurted. “We protected him instead of Bryan Harvey in the expansion draft.”

Gillick pulled a softball-sized wad of $100 bills out of his pocket and fanned the money in front of the Angels’ noses.

“Gulp,” said Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe.

“I’ll throw in a million dollars,” Gillick said.

Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe just stood there, stunned.

“OK. A million-five.”

“Wow!” Danny Joe blurted. “We could’ve used that money to re-sign Abbott.”

“Shut up,” Whitey shouted.

Gillick glanced at his watch.

“You got five minutes,” he told the Angels. “Take it now or leave it forever. And no questions asked.”

“Wow!” Danny Joe blurted. “That man from the Montreal Expos said the exact same thing when he asked about Lee Stevens.”

“We haven’t made that trade yet,” Richie Bob said.

“Oh, but we will!” Danny Joe blurted.

Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe stared at the money.

Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe stared at each other.

“OK!” Whitey, Richie Bob and Danny Joe blurted. “You got yourself a deal!”

In case you’re wondering how these things happen, this is how these things happen.

The Angels, the only team in organized sports with a front office that needs a mercy rule, are on pace to set a major league record this winter--Most Trades Rescinded in One Off-Season: Two.

Last month, it was Jeff Tuss-for-Lee Stevens, Jeff Tuss being the former Montreal Expo pitcher who plans to play quarterback at Fresno State. Despite a nagging lack of depth at the quarterback position, the Angels asked the Expos to scotch the deal in order to save face. The Expos, feeling sorry for old buddy Buck Rodgers, agreed, tossing them another prospect instead.

“Oh well,” Whitey Herzog said of Tuss at the time. “We weren’t expecting him to be Walter Johnson.”

Now it’s Kelly Gruber, apparently a one-man disabled list who underwent surgery Tuesday for a shoulder injury the Angels claimed to have no clue about. This came three weeks after Gruber, at an Anaheim Stadium news conference arranged to trumpet the arrival of the third-base hero/savior/.229 hitter, revealed that he had a painful bulging disk in his neck. The Angels claimed to have no clue about that injury, either.

It turns out that Gruber has a torn rotator cuff and will be out a minimum of eight weeks.

Any minute now, Herzog should be chiming in with, “Oh, well, we weren’t expecting him to be Pie Traynor.”

The Angels are considering appealing to Bobby Brown, the American League president, for a restructuring or a cancellation of the deal. Someone needs to remind the Angels that there are no mulligans in baseball--and that you get three swings only at the plate, not at the trading table.

But, then, trading with the Angels has become something akin to playing basketball in the driveway with your little sister. You get one shot at the hoop, she gets two to make one.

So it is with the Angels, poor little sisters to the Blue Jays and the Expos and every other franchise in the sport. Even the expansion teams are starting to feel sorry for them.

Marlins or Angels--which team has Bryan Harvey, Junior Felix and Marcel Lachemann . . . and which one has the broken down third baseman?

Most of baseball knew of Gruber’s knee problems. He spent time on the disabled list last season because of them. Most of baseball knew of Gruber’s neck problem. He spent much of the season complaining about it.

Maybe the Angels should have had Gruber consent to a physical examination before completing any transaction. Maybe a doctor then would have detected the bad shoulder and advised the Angels not to bank on Gruber to be in the middle of their batting order in 1993.

But you know the Angels. Team Leap Before We Look. Why would anybody trade us somebody who can’t, or won’t, play anymore, they say to themselves. We always trade away people who go on to play in the World Series.

“Thank God we’ve got Rene Gonzales,” Herzog said Monday night, the second funniest Whitey Quote of the Week.

Funniest Whitey Quote of the Week: “Dr. Yocum seemed to think it wasn’t that serious, but who the hell knows?”

Who The Hell Knows?

An Angel slogan for this season if I’ve ever heard one.

In the meantime, I’m considering asking Bobby Brown to rescind another Angel trade. See, I hear Russ Springer has this sore shoulder. And, you know, J.T. Snow used to play quarterback in high school, and John Robinson is looking for a new quarterback at USC, so . . .