Heaven Can Wait for These Angels

Last night, the Angels won the pennant.

Several times, as a matter of fact.

They will do it again this afternoon, and again tonight, and the next day, and the day after that, and a few more times after that.

At a theater or drive-in near you.

Cinema can be a wonderful thing, even when it is something less than wonderful cinema.

Sellout crowds at Angel home games?

High suspense and drama at an Angel game in late September?

Two young boys who jump and squeal with delight when given Angel season passes? Instead of the customary response--”What, and if I don’t do my homework, you’ll give me two season passes?”

It happens in the new movie, “Angels In The Outfield,” and I don’t believe I’m divulging any great industry secrets here. This isn’t “The Crying Game.” (Although, come to think, that wouldn’t be a bad working title for the Angel highlight film most seasons.)

For one, “Angels In The Outfield” has been done before. The 1952 original cast the Pittsburgh Pirates as the hapless team lifted from the depths through divine intervention. MGM decided to use the Pirates because the Angels weren’t available until 1961, but the ’52 Pirates certainly fit the bill. Those Pirates were a motley 42-112, finishing last in the eight-team National League, 54 1/2 games behind Brooklyn. If any team required a miracle to win the pennant, it was the ’52 Pirates, who batted a collective .231 and had only two players with more than eight home runs.

In serious baseball circles, the ’52 Pirates and the ’94 Angels are often compared.

Also, Walt Disney Pictures is responsible for the updated version, and when’s the last time a Disney sports movie ended with the good guys losing the pennant, the championship or the junior junior Stanley Cup?

Our story begins with the Angels in the midst of a 14-game losing streak, buried at the bottom of the American League West. Anaheim Stadium is a ghost park, occupied by only a scant cynical diehards who turn out mainly to drink and curse the players.

Cinema verite, in other words.

Yet, there remain some true believers. They are first seen pedaling their bikes along the railway tracks outside Anaheim Stadium. Young Roger and younger J.P., a couple of big-eyed foster kids who spend most of their days wishing for real parents and telling themselves, “Sure, the Angels could win a game. It could happen.”

When Roger’s dead-beat chopper-riding dad pays a visit, Roger asks him, innocently, “When are we gonna be a family again?” Dad stubs out a cigarette, flicks the butt in the air and grunts, “From where I’m sitting, I’d say when the Angels win the pennant.”

Roger, not yet schooled in the nuances of literal and figurative speech, takes pop at his word and prays to the heavens for an Angel championship. From there you can take it the rest of the way: golden-winged angels descend from the clouds, assist the wooden-gloved Angels in making gravity-defying catches and elevate the team into startling pennant contention.

Most of the movie is fanciful fluff, although I was impressed with the makers’ attention to detail. For instance, the Angels’ owner, played by Ben Johnson, is a Gene Autry clone, complete with pearly white cowboy hat and snakeskin boots, who tries to console his manager during the losing streak by telling him, “This isn’t Cincinnati, George. No one expects you to win with these boys.”

The Angels’ front-office staff must have given the script writers incredible access.

Danny Glover, killing time between “Lethal Weapon” shoots, plays bedraggled Angel skipper George Knox, who feuds with his players and the media, grousing at one point, “The press are all scum.” Again, this is keeping in line with longtime Angel public-relations policy.

When the Angels climb back into the race and a scum sportswriter reports that Knox believes “real angels” are the reason why, The Cowboy orders Knox into his office, tells Knox he has lost his mind and fires him.

It is late September, the Angels are a game out of first place and they fire the manager because of something that appeared in the newspaper.

Typical Angel move, I’d say.

Then, the plot turns outrageous. At the press conference where Knox’s firing is to be announced, one Angel player stands and refuses to play for anybody else. Another Angel player does the same. And another, until the room is filled with Angels united behind their manager.

This never happened with Buck Rodgers.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised the Angels agreed to green-light the project, considering the team’s real-life ineptitude is the premise on which the entire movie is based.

“To be honest, there’s some buffoonery that might bother some people if they were thin-skinned,” Angel President Richard Brown says. “But it’s done in jest. It’s good, clean fun. Sometimes, you have to take a look in the mirror and not take yourself so seriously.”

Besides, Brown points out, the movie has “given us some exposure. The Angels’ name is out there. Our logo is a little more omnipresent.”

I did find it curious, though, that almost all the game action was filmed inside the Oakland Coliseum, not Anaheim Stadium.

What, the studio knows about the Big A hex and didn’t want to risk losing any cameramen there?

No, Brown says, the movie was filmed last August and there would have been too many scheduling conflicts with the Rams. That, however, won’t be a problem should they decide to shoot “Angels In The Outfield II” in August ’95.

So the Angels win the pennant, at home, in Oakland, behind the clutch pitching of Tony Danza. Could it ever happen here, with Phil Leftwich and Russ Springer?

“We’re still looking for some angels,” Brown says with a good-natured laugh. “I’d like to put three of them in the outfield and three more in the infield.”