A New Angel Manager Takes Charge : Baseball: Buck Rodgers may look the same, but his outlook on life has changed since he was seriously injured in a bus crash last May.

He no longer awakes in the middle of the night, Buck Rodgers said, tormented by the May 21, 1992, bus crash that left him wondering whether he would live.

Rodgers’ body may not be pain free, but he certainly has baffled medical experts by returning to a normal lifestyle--managing the Angels again and even sneaking in a few rounds of golf during his spare time.

Yet, while Rodgers’ physical appearance is virtually unchanged, his spirit and psyche have been cleansed, creating an outlook he never knew existed.

“I learned a whole lot about myself when I was laid up,” Rodgers said. “For those first 2 1/2 months, I could care less about the California Angels. I was worried about the manager. I didn’t know whether I’d be a whole, a half or three-quarters of what I was.

“Now, things just aren’t as important as they seemed. Managing is a job, but not an obsession.

“It’s hard to explain, but I’ve changed. Everything has a purpose now. I know there will be mornings I wake up where I don’t feel like a million bucks.

“But at least I’ll wake up.”

Rodgers, who sustained a broken kneecap, elbow and wrist and broken ribs in the accident, said one of the most telling changes in his demeanor is his tolerance level.

“I hated liars before,” he said, “but now I despise them. I can’t stand a malingerer anymore, either. If a guy doesn’t want to use his full talent and doesn’t want to improve, then let someone else have him.”

And, yes, there will be one more change, Rodgers says--on bus trips.

“The next time we go from city to city on a bus,” Rodgers said, “I’m not sitting in the front seat. No one’s going to sit up there.

“That’s going to be for the pizza and garbage.”

While Rodgers found his rehabilitative treatment grueling, he was amused when the medical staff assigned him a psychiatrist.

“They sent me a psychiatrist one day,” Rodgers said, “and I ended up listening to her problems. Finally, I told my doctors to get this . . . out of my room. She was driving me nuts.

“I became an expert about medical care and how to milk the system. Now I know why our insurance rates are five times what they should be.

“She poked her head in my room two other times and asked how I was doing. That cost me $150 each visit.”

One of the reasons the Angels let outfielder Junior Felix go in the expansion draft to Florida, Rodgers said, is that he believes Felix is lying about his age. Although the media guide lists him as 25, Rodgers claims Felix is at least 30. “Everything is the honor system in the Dominican,” Rodgers said, “and I don’t believe for a second he’s only 25. I’ve talked to people, and they know he’s at least five years older than that.”