BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Williams Remembers It Too

The moment is immortalized on the side of a five-story building near the Toronto SkyDome, a Godzilla-sized picture of the Blue Jays’ Joe Carter completing a swing next to a simple caption: “Oct. 23, 1993; 11:39 p.m.”

That, of course, was the precise minute Carter hit his three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Blue Jays to an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in the deciding Game 6 of the ’93 World Series.

Friday afternoon, the man who delivered that gopher ball, current Angel reliever Mitch Williams, returned to the scene of what many Phillie fans considered a crime.

Did Williams wince as he got to the visiting dugout? Did his stomach do flips as he peered out at the SkyDome mound for the first time since that fateful night?

“Nah,” Williams said. “I’ve walked into a lot of stadiums I’ve given up home runs in.”

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Williams didn’t get a chance to face Carter again Friday night, nor did he see the giant mural of him up the street.

“But that’s wonderful, I’m happy for Joe,” Williams said. “I don’t think they gave me a mural in Philadelphia.”

He did get death threats, though. Williams eventually was traded in 1994 to the Houston Astros, who released him last May. Williams sat out the rest of the season before signing with the Angels in the winter, and he made a point of chatting with Carter before Friday’s game.

“He was wondering why I didn’t send a limousine to pick him up at the airport,” Carter said. “I told him I was sorry about the death threats, and we talked a little bit about the pitch. He said it was supposed to be a fastball up and away, and it was down and in.”

Carter sent it up and away, over the left-field fence.

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Former Angel infielder Gus Polidor was shot and killed Friday during an attempted car-jacking in Caracas, Venezuela.

Polidor, an Angel utility infielder from 1985-88, had just returned to his native Venezuela after being released by the Montreal Expos earlier this month. He reportedly offered to give up his car but resisted when the attackers insisted on taking his 1-year-old son, who was unharmed in the incident.

Polidor was remembered by Manager Marcel Lachemann and Chuck Finley as a mild-mannered, easygoing player who smiled a lot and never complained about his limited role.

“He was one of those guys who was always laughing,” Finley said. “He was a nice guy, very unselfish, and he knew his job. Damn, that is really sad.”