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Club Gagged Over Disney’s New Rule

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The Walt Disney Co.’s alteration of the Angels extends well beyond cheerleaders and brass bands on top of Anaheim Stadium dugouts.

The company, which assumed operational control of the team last month, has taken a Kremlin-like approach to public relations, placing a virtual gag order on the entire front office with the exception of new Angel President Tony Tavares and General Manager Bill Bavasi.

Team scouts have been told not to talk to reporters--or other scouts--about the Angels, and front-office officials have been told to defer comment on baseball-related matters to Tavares, Bavasi or Manager Marcel Lachemann.

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Bill Robertson, Disney Sports Enterprises spokesman, said the informational clampdown is an extension of DSE’s Mighty Ducks policy.

“We feel too many rumors have gotten into the papers, that the Angels are doing this or that, and that stuff should come from Bill [Bavasi],” Robertson said. “We want to tighten up the flow of information.”

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Pitcher Jim Abbott was out of sight but not out of mind Monday. The left-hander, who fell to 1-9 after getting bombed by the Baltimore Orioles Sunday, did not accompany the Angels on Sunday night’s flight to Minneapolis, and some teammates were concerned when he had not arrived for Monday night’s game.

But Bavasi said Abbott, whose next start will likely be pushed back, had been cleared last week to tend to a personal matter Monday and would rejoin the team today, at which point the Angels will try to figure out a way to get him back on track.

“I was thinking last night what we could do to straighten him out, and I didn’t come up with anything,” catcher Jorge Fabregas said. “He might be aiming some pitches, trying to guide them in there. He just has to throw the ball, let his pitches go, and keep them down.”

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Designated hitter Chili Davis missed his second consecutive game because of a knot in his left hamstring that Lachemann compared to “a sausage,” which is less severe than “a knockwurst,” but worse than “a sausage link.” That’s how hamstring strains are measured, by the degree of meat. “He’s day to day, depending on the size of the sausage,” Lachemann said. Added Davis: “It feels more like a bratwurst.” . . . Center fielder Jim Edmonds, out for a week because of an abdomen strain, was in the Angels’ original lineup Monday night but was scratched a half-hour before the game. . . . Third baseman Jack Howell suffered a strained left hamstring Sunday and was unavailable Monday night. . . . The Angels, who chose Darin Erstad with the first pick of the 1995 draft, won’t make a selection until the 53rd pick of today’s draft. They had to send their first-round pick (No. 18 overall) to the New York Yankees as compensation for the free-agent signing of second baseman Randy Velarde.

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