Home’s Where Your Fans Are

What was young Troy Percival to make of this strange place, where the most popular man in Anaheim can serve up three home runs to the Cleveland Indians in the ninth inning, lose an important home game on national television and leave the field to a cheering, whooping, standing ovation?

Who were these people in the Anaheim Stadium seats who applauded Albert Belle’s long-distance launch of an 0-2 Percival fastball . . . who chanted “Ed-die! Ed-die!” as Eddie Murray dug in against Percival . . . who slam-danced in the aisles after Sandy Alomar moshed another Percival fastball over the wall . . . who performed the we’re-not-worthy bow after Jim Thome brought Percival’s personal nightmare to three home runs allowed in five at-bats?

Members of the Lee Smith Fan Club?

A few planeloads of vacationing Tribe supporters, flying Honolulu to Cleveland, enjoying a long layover between connections at John Wayne?

Previously perfect Percival had just endured an historic first misfire of 1996, his 0.00 earned-run average had just ballooned to 1.72, the Angels had just closed the home stand with a deflating 4-1 defeat--and more that half the people in the ballpark couldn’t have been happier.

“It’s weird,” Percival said, and, yes, that’s one word for it.

“You wonder where all these people come from . . . Normally, people in the stands would have been pumped up with me 0-2 on a hitter. But tonight there were more Cleveland fans pulling for their side than there were people pulling for our side.”

Percival knew he he had been hit hard. But hard enough to be knocked into a different time zone?

No, Percival finally decided, this couldn’t have been Cleveland.

“You go into Cleveland,” Percival said, “and you’ve got 45,000 people behind the Indians.”

In Anaheim, Percival has observed during his 1 1/4 seasons with the Angels, it’s not uncommon to see “10,000 or 15,000 people rooting for Cleveland or Boston or Chicago when those teams play here. I don’t know. Are they the same people recycling in from the East Coast?”

And 10,000 or 15,000 people rooting for Cleveland can make Anaheim Stadium feel like Jacobs Field 92803 when the evening’s total turnstile count is 22,760.

Tribemania, Orange County edition, began as a low-level grass roots movement Friday night, according to Angel relief pitcher Mike James, and gradually built to Sunday’s head-shaking crescendo.

“The first night Cleveland came in, [Kenny] Lofton leads off with a base hit and everybody’s cheering,” James reported. “I’m looking around in the bullpen, thinking, ‘What’s going on?’

“You’re playing on your home field. You’d expect your fans to be here.”

Oh, they are, Percival insisted. Gathered in scattered pockets, perhaps, and sometimes outmanned in lung capacity and volume, but they are out there.

“We have a die-hard fan base of about 15,000 who are very loyal,” Percival claimed. “When our crowds are small, you can really hear them. But when we have about 30,000 here, they can get drowned out by the 15,000 who are here to root for the other team.

“It’s not an excuse for doing poorly, but it is a shame, because we have a good program here.”

Divided support is apparently a phenomenon unique to Anaheim Stadium. Asked if they’d experienced anything similar in another big-league park, both Percival and James answered with a swift, “No.”

Why it happens here is either a telling statement on the franchise (have the Angels disappointed and alienated so many local fans that they’ll latch on to any winner, even a Chief Wahoo-come-lately such as Cleveland?) or the area’s demographics (too many transplants, the melting pot hath runneth over).

Surmised James: “They like the weather here, but they like the team there.”

So, once again, Percival sent many ticket buyers at Anaheim Stadium home contented. This wasn’t the way it happened earlier this season, but most of those in attendance Sunday did return to the parking lot basking in their team’s dramatic victory.

What can an Angel do except laugh at the madness and take the fans for what they are--or where they’re coming from?

As James observed with a wry chuckle, “We’re in California, they’re in Cleveland. That’s a long way to go to see a game.”