COMMENTARY : They Had a Big Chance With Bo at Bat

The home team was down, 9-0, in the middle of the sixth inning, which, on the 11th of April, could only mean one thing.

Angel baseball had returned to Anaheim Stadium.

Long ago, Angel fans grew accustomed to home openers such as this. A rookie right fielder from Cleveland named Manny Ramirez hits home runs in back-to-back at-bats. A generic brand of starting pitcher, Mark Clark, one-hits the Angels through six innings. The Angel shortstop drops a pop fly. The Angel leadoff spot produces no runs, no hits, no walks and five strikeouts. Meet Your Angel Long Relief Staff becomes the unofficial theme of the day.

Bored with this sort of behavior, Angel fans apparently have decided to change theirs.

Booing is out.

Bo-ing is in.

It began with a low-level rumble through the field seats in the middle of the seventh inning.

WE WANT BO!

WE WANT BO!

To do what was not immediately clear.

Wrap a headlock on the scoreboard operator and persuade him to--how shall we say--make this problem go away?

Break out some old Nike commercials to while away the time?

Step up to the plate and hit his patented 10-run home run?

The Angels needed nine Bo Jacksons, and maybe another on the mound, to make any difference in this one. And yet, the fans persisted.

BO! . . . BO! . . . BO!

Buck Rodgers, the Angels manager, gave them Spike Owen. He gave them Jim Edmonds. But through 8 1/2 innings, still no Bo.

“The game plan,” Rodgers said, “was to get the tying run on before sending Bo up there.”

At the time, the Angels trailed, 9-1, which meant Bo might not be going up there until Friday.

Even Bo scoffed when he heard the chants.

“When you’re eight runs back,” Bo said, “you need two runners on every base.”

The first two Angels up in the ninth went as quietly as can be. Strikeout by Edmonds. Strikeout by Dwight Smith.

Then, a funny thing happened. Tim Salmon walked. And another. Chili Davis singled. And another. Owen singled.

It was 9-2.

Then Eduardo Perez walked and Chris Turner struck out, but strike three bounded past Indian catcher Tony Pena all the way to the screen. Turner was safe at first, Davis was safe at home, the score was 9-3.

In the Angels’ dugout, Mark Langston nudged Bo, most likely with his good elbow. “We get two more men on,” Langston said, “and you’re getting an at-bat.”

Bo refused to believe it.

“Man, you’re (teasing) me,” he replied, using a more colorful phrase.

Sure enough, two more men got on. A bad-hop single down the first base line by Harold Reynolds brought in one run. A line-drive single by Gary DiSarcina brought home two more.

The score was 9-6, with Angel runners on first and third.

Bo Time.

The fans rose to their feet and roared when their man swaggered out of the dugout. A standing Bo-vation.

Bo knocked the weighted do-nut off his bat and dug in, fully prepared to give his people what they wanted.

“I went up there for one reason--to the tie the game,” Bo said.

“I wasn’t looking for a basehit.

“I was looking to hit the . . . out of the ball.”

Everyone in the ballpark knew it, too, which is why Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove promptly changed pitchers and summoned Steve Farr, a breaking ball specialist.

Bo would be waiting on a fastball.

Farr would be throwing sliders. Nothing but. Six of them, all told, five fading outside and away from the plate.

Bo swung at two, did not swing at three and watched the count go full.

That meant one more slider.

That meant one more swing.

“I was going to swing at anything close,” Bo declared.

The pitch was close.

The swing was not.

The first Bo Moment of the 1994 baseball season had come and gone, the Angels losing their first million-dollar coin flip of the year.

Heads, Bo homers. Tails, Bo whiffs.

Heads, you tie. Tails, you lose.

“We had a chance to win or tie in the bottom of the ninth with Bo up at the plate,” Rodgers said. “Everybody should have walked out of the stadium today saying, ‘We had Bo Jackson up there, we had a shot.’

“That’s all we want. A shot.”

Bo might have an added request, in case anybody was asking. One fastball in the strike zone would have been nice.

“I thought I knew Steve Farr,” Bo said, disgust in his voice.

“I thought he’d challenge me. But he threw me all sliders.

“This time, it worked out good for him.”

Someone asked Rodgers if he considered calling Bo back after Hargrove brought in Farr, realizing full well that Farr was not about to throw Bo anything straight or fast.

Rodgers did a double-take.

“I worked my . . . off to get him out there,” Rodgers chortled. “Why would I take him out?”

And risk the unyielding wrath of the Anaheim Stadium Bo-birds?

Rodgers, who knows why he’s here and why Bo’s here and why the fans are here, knows better than that.