ANGELS : Even by Current Standards, Loss to Brewers Is a Farce

If the players union really wants to settle the baseball strike, it should make tapes of Friday’s Angels-Milwaukee Brewers game and distribute them to league owners to show what a farce replacement baseball can be.

The Angels committed four errors, ran into four outs on the basepaths, missed several cut-off men, and made more bad pitches than a long-distance phone company in a 10-8 loss at Compadre Stadium. Even by replacement baseball standards, it was atrocious.

“Oh yeah, the critics (of replacement ball) are going to love this one,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “I can’t blame them. It was a very, very poor baseball game, fundamentally.”

Some lowlights: Greg Shockey got caught off second base on a grounder to short and was tagged out in a rundown, and Lenny Randle was thrown out easily trying to stretch a single to a double in the first inning. Pete Weber was thrown out in the fourth trying to go from first to third on a single to left.

The Angels gave up six runs in the seventh, but only one was earned--and that came when John Thibert hit Todd Trafton with an 0-2 curveball with the bases loaded and two out.

Shortstop Lance Robbins then booted a grounder, enabling two runs to score, second baseman J.D. Ramirez lost a popup in the sun, dropping it as another run scored, and Glenn Sutko capped the inning with a two-run single.

The Angels rallied with four runs in the eighth, but John Fishel, who represented the tying run, rounded the bag too far after a two-run single and was thrown out.

“We should have won the game, 12-3, and we got beat, 10-8,” Lachemann said. “That was really bad. There’s no excuse for it.”

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A former big league third baseman who is still considered a national hero was in the Angel dugout during Friday’s game.

No, the Angels haven’t signed Brooks Robinson.

It was Masayuki Kakefu, who hit .292 with 350 home runs for the Hanshin (Osaka) Tigers during a 16-year Japanese Central League career that ended in 1988.

Kakefu, 39, is an aspiring manager who is spending five days with the Angels to observe practices and games and to work with coaches.

“He was Mr. Tiger, like George Brett was with the Royals or Don Mattingly is with the Yankees,” said Ta Honda, the Angels’ director of international operations. “He was a fan favorite. If he was ever traded, the people would have gone crazy.”

How big is Kakefu in Japan? A photographer from the Ho Chi national sports daily traveled to Arizona to cover his visit, and Honda said a Japanese television network is sending a crew to Tempe this weekend to “watch him hit fungos and sit in the dugout.”

What was Kakefu’s impression of Friday’s game?

“A lot of mental mistakes, boneheads,” he said through an interpreter.

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In addition to his base-running mistake, Fishel made an error in right field. But two hits and two RBIs and the mere fact he was playing baseball on an 88-degree day more than made up for the miscues.

Fishel spent Tuesday and much of Wednesday in a Phoenix jail for failure to pay child support to an area woman who claims he is the father of her 6-year-old daughter. Fishel was released after posting a $12,000 bond and hopes to reach an out-of-court settlement soon.

“You don’t realize how good you have it when you can get up, turn on the TV, get a soda, drive to the store and buy something . . . “ said Fishel, who was jailed for a night last week on the same charge. “When you’re sitting in jail you can’t do anything. It was terrible.”