Angels Now Must Prove Themselves

Sunday, the Angels played their 72nd and 73rd games of the season, won them both, completed a sweep of the playoff-contending Detroit Tigers and improved their record to 43-30, second best in the American League.

Today, we finally begin to find out how good the Angels are.

For the first time in 1995, Cleveland is on the schedule today, which qualifies as the Angels’ first real marquee attraction of the summer, never mind Dollar Seat Night and Disney’s Salute to Disney on the Fourth.

Cleveland, the new mecca of major league baseball, which is a mouthful for anybody who’s followed the sport since 1954, or any time in the interim.

Cleveland, home of the only .700 team in baseball, home of six American League All-Stars, home of always sold-out Jacobs Field, where the nation’s post-strike malaise has been blithely ignored.

Post-strike, the Angels have avoided the Indians to date due to the fortuitous elimination of seven head-to-head meetings originally set for early April. In Anaheim, April 7-9, and in Cleveland, April 14-17--all of them wiped out by the extended spring training that pushed opening day back to April 26.

Consider those lost dates the Angels’ lucky seven, their magnificent seven, because without them, the Angels were able to start quickly and then maintain the pace as they beat up on Oakland, Seattle, Minnesota and Chicago without losing a single night’s sleep over an opposing lineup that begins with Lofton-Vizquel-Baerga and pours it on with Belle-Murray-Thome-Ramirez-Sorrento.

“The Invincible Indians” one national sports publication calls them. “The best team in baseball” more and more mouths outside Atlanta are chanting. They have made a shambles of realignment--the rest of the AL Central resides at least 14 1/2 games south of the Indians now--and, for all intents, clinched a playoff berth before the All-Star break.

Little known fact, however: For all the headlines and home runs and odes to Albert Belle, the Angels lead the American League in runs scored. The Angels, who do not have Kenny Lofton batting leadoff, who do not have Carlos Baerga hitting .329 at second base, who did not have any starters on the AL All-Star team, do lead the Indians in numbers on the scoreboard.

Find another stat that better illustrates the shock of this Angel half-season.

OK, besides Shawn Boskie’s 6-2.

The Angels could be the ’91 Twins reheated, the ’88 Dodgers repeated, but most of the country has been slow to pick up on the story line. This much they know: pretty lousy team since ‘86; tight with a dollar; adds Chili Davis; adds Tony Phillips; steals Lee Smith; has that Salmon kid; don’t know what happened to Tony Perez’s kid; still has Finley and Langston; still plays in the AL West; better than Seattle; probably no worse than Texas and Oakland; could steal a playoff spot; could fall back like it did in ’91 and ‘93; plays pretty close to where Hideo Nomo pitches his home games.

Beyond that, the details are fuzzy. Gary DiSarcina is third in the league in doubles, is out-hitting Cal Ripken in every category that matters, and yet he arrives in Arlington as an All-Star reserve and the locals need a phonetics chart to pronounce his name.

Jim Edmonds makes the All-Star team too, coming in with a 23-game hitting streak on his account, and reporters blow past him in order to get a closer view of Mujibur and Sirajul, Dave Letterman’s traveling circus.

Nationally, the Angels remain an underground attraction, an on-the-fringes curiosity. They even place second in the Cinderella division, behind the Colorado Rockies, who have captured more imaginations by leading the NL West midway through their third season in existence.

Even Orange County remains underwhelmed. The people have seen this act too many times before, so they are nowhere to be seen at Anaheim Stadium. The fifth-winningest team in the majors still draws fewer than 20,000 to most home games. Part of the reason is the strike of ‘94-95, part of the reason is the Angels’ legacy, ‘61-94. Orange County will believe it when it sees it. After 35 years of this, fan devotion is no longer doled out on spec.

Cleveland, then, is where the Angels’ story could break out. Or break up. One game at Jacobs Field today and another on Tuesday, followed by a three-game rematch in Anaheim at the end of the month. Five games that will tell the Angels what they don’t know--do they belong on the same field with the Indians, and if they prove that they do, can they stay with the Indians in a seven-game series come October, if and when?

If the records are to be believed, these are the two premier ballclubs in the American League in 1995. The Angels vs. the Indians--a potential league championship series preview. This is time-capsule material. Future generations might require tangible evidence. The current generation, if it knows its history, needs to sit down every time it is confronted with the concept.

The doubters are everywhere, young and old, and they aren’t likely to go away easily. Probably, it will take more than five games in July to do it. But, you always have to start somewhere.