A World Gone Wrong

Chili Davis is plodding toward home plate, bat in hand, bases full. And suddenly everyone in the Anaheim Stadium stands is standing, making noise without being instructed to by the scoreboard, giving a glimpse of what the Angels could expect in a World Series, if only this teetering team could pull itself together.

It is the eighth inning of a daytime game with Kansas City, and for three hours now, a downcast Sunday turnout of 24,112 has been waiting for the Angels to do something, anything, to emerge from a deep sleep. But Greg Myers begins the frame with a homer, and pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro has instigated a two-out rally that puts the dangerous Davis in the batter’s box, trailing, 10-7, with a chance to bring down the house.

Feet are stomping. Every pitch incites a reaction. This is what the place could be like in a few weeks, with Davis digging in against Roger Clemens, or Orel Hershiser, or Randy Johnson, where with one great smash he could send Gene Autry’s Angels winging to a World Series for the very first time.

A changeup from Jeff Montgomery of the Royals floats tantalizingly across the plate. Chili whales at it, but misses. Strike one.

Now comes one with some mustard on it, across the outside corner this time. Chili lets it go. Strike two.

With a look at the umpire, Chili comes to a boil, then backs away from the box. He is in a hole. One good swing and he could do some serious damage, because Seattle has already lost. One good swing could be worth two whole games to the Angels, send notice to the Mariners (and Yankees, and Rangers, and Royals) to slug it out among themselves, because the Angels wouldn’t be inviting them to the race for first place.

Montgomery stretches and throws.

Davis goes down, swinging.

And there they went, three pitches that might have changed the course of the Angel season. Not to imply that any fault lies with Chili, because his three hits helped the Angels hang in there Sunday, after the manager and pitching coach had worn a path to the mound, trying to find someone who could sneak a strike past a Kansas City batter.

Corner to corner in the California clubhouse, players labor to keep the faith, while simultaneously trying to ascertain what’s gone wrong. Cigarette fumes between his fingers, Davis edges forward in his chair and says, “Look, nobody’s going out there and trying to make mistakes. All I’ve read lately is, we’re ‘letting it slip away, letting it slip away.’

“I’ve never been in a pennant race that was easy. When I was with Minnesota, our magic number was one, and we were on our way to Chicago. When we landed, we found out Randy Johnson had just nailed it [the division] down for us. I don’t know what would have happened if we’d had to do it ourselves. Sometimes you just gotta grind it out. You know?”

They know.

Yet that doesn’t keep some of the Angels from worrying, or from wondering whether during the next fortnight, six months of success could go poof. It doesn’t keep low-flame Manager Marcel Lachemann from wondering aloud if he is handling the situation properly, if perhaps some of his own players would prefer him to scream and rant to light their fire.

Tony Phillips wants no part of that. The feisty third baseman says, “We’re not kids who have to be watched over. It ain’t Marcel. Hollering at us, I don’t think that would work. Everyone in here’s got to answer for themselves. No one’s going out there trying to stink, trying to boot a ball or strike out.”

Phillips pauses.

“We just are. That’s what we’re doing.”

Yes, center fielder Jim Edmonds agrees. That is exactly what they’re doing.

“No pitching, no hitting, no defense,” Edmonds says. “Three basic problems we’ve got right now. Three big, bad problems.”

The players are stumped. So is their manager. Understandably looking grim, Lachemann finds himself cracking self-deprecating jokes about people looking at his Angels now and, rather than wondering why they are playing so poorly, instead recollecting June and July and wondering, “How did we ever play so well ?”

Glancing around at veterans and kids alike, Lachemann has to choose whether to kick them or kiss them, has to guess what they must be thinking. Phillips also is curious about this, knocking the thin air with his knuckles in the direction of certain teammates, asking aloud, “Anybody home? Anybody home?”

Here is what J.T. Snow, the young first baseman, is thinking: “We’ve got two weeks left. This is no time for excuses. The dog days are over. We’ve gotta go for the pennant. Because there is one thing I know. Nobody on this team wants to look back at what might have been. That would be the worst.”

Yes, that it would.