Postseason Berth Could Be Best Thing Since the Lightbulb

If everything falls into place for the Angels, Wednesday night’s season opener against the New York Yankees was a preview of things to come, cold weather and all.

Everyone expects the Yankees to be around in October. Will the Angels be there to meet them?

For this team, that would be enough to ask. Actually winning would be a bonus for a team that hasn’t made a postseason appearance since 1986.

In some ways, the Angels should be happy right where they are. The Angels could win their division. The Yankees should win theirs--and is there a worse fate in sports than failing to live up to expectations in New York?

Yes, being good can also be a burden, especially when the only thing anyone has to go on is potential. When discussing their chances, the Yankees have been making a lot of comments lately, such as this one by Paul O’Neill on Wednesday: “I’m really tired of talking about it. What we have, what we don’t have. You’ve got to go out and play the game. That’s the only way we’re going to find out.”

In some ways, this game represented a clash over the very direction of the sport. Will the current highest-bidder auction mentality prevail, or will baseball head toward fiscal responsibility?

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner is flush with cash from the richest cable contract in baseball and seems determined to spend it all. His $72 million payroll is the second-highest in the sport.

Disney owns its own cable networks (with ESPN West on the way, a sign on the Edison Field outfield wall reminds us). Michael Eisner picked up more than $500 million personally in one day just by cashing in some stock options.

Yet the Angels are shelling out about $41 million.

Eisner admits that the Mousesketeers “are one of the deep-pocket owners.”

“That doesn’t mean we want to be one of the deep-pocket spenders,” he said.

The only area in which the Angels will spare no expense is when it comes to Edison Field. For example, the Disney folks decided that the geyser in center field would look better shooting 90 feet in the air instead of 60. So they spent a little extra.

If you wanted to know the difference between the Yankees and the Angels, all you had to do was look at second base.

The Yankees made one of the more significant off-season moves by trading for second baseman Chuck Knoblauch.

Wednesday at second base, the Angels brought out . . . a giant lightbulb.

The lightbulb did cool things, such as lighting up and sending out smoke, but it showed no range.

It was all part of the pregame festivities on opening night. Rain pushed the start time back to 8 p.m., which pushed the first pitch back to 8:31.

By the time the Angels finished scoring four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, it was 10 p.m. For once, those fans who left early could be excused. After all, it was a work/school night, and if they hurried home they could catch the end of “South Park.”

All told, this was one of the more impressive performances by a Southern California sports crowd in a long time. The fans were lively. They were into it. And, most surprising, they were there.

They weren’t scared off by the rain. They stayed in the ballpark (shopping at the team stores, the Disney folks hoped) and when the rain eased up they let out a cheer and returned to their seats, filling almost all of them. Only 210 no-shows on a cold, rainy night after every ticket was sold. The crowd cheered when the grounds crew ran onto the field with squeegees. They even cheered when the grounds crew pulled back the tarp.

They cheered when two military jets did a fly-by, even though you could barely see them in the dark night sky. (You sure could hear them, though. I think the El Toro airport supporters just lost a few votes).

They cheered when ESPN broadcaster/loyal Disney employee/shameless huckster Chris Berman came onto the field to host the opening night festivities. (A man who once wore a helmet camera for a beer commercial wasn’t about to be too embarrassed to make a presentation in front of a giant lightbulb.)

They booed when Reggie Jackson was introduced among Jim Fregosi, Rod Carew, Bobby Grich and Gene Autry to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Hopefully they were criticizing the Angels’ poor decision-making in inviting someone who who wore the uniform of the night’s opposing team when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

More surprisingly, the fans booed when Berman introduced Eisner. Some gratitude. How would you like it if you spent $117 million to remodel your house, invited 45,000 people over to share it and they booed you?

I can just imagine him returning to his skybox and plotting a parking price increase for all of the ingrates.