Disney Needs New Script: ‘Saving Captain Collins’

A fan eating dinner in the Diamond Club behind home plate at Edison Field on Wednesday night was wearing a Mark McGwire jersey, a red one sold by the St. Louis Cardinals.

You have to wonder how many of those the Angels would have sold if they hadn’t been too nearsighted to trade for McGwire and sign him last summer.

But they passed on McGwire, passed this summer on Mike Piazza and passed on everyone but the still-injured Charlie O’Brien before last month’s trading deadline.

You’ve seen the scene a hundred times in war movies, where the commander of an undermanned and overwhelmed unit is told he’ll have to make do with what he has because reinforcements aren’t coming.

Terry Collins is that commander for the Angels.

This season has been a marvelous one for baseball, highlighted by the chase by McGwire and Sammy Sosa for Roger Maris’ home-run record, the Yankees’ amazing record and Eric Davis’ comeback from cancer.

But even if no one east of the Mississippi or north of Anaheim is paying much attention, the fact that the Angels are in first place in the American League West, holding off the reinforced Texas Rangers, ranks with the season’s best accomplishments.

Starting a two-game series Wednesday night against Detroit, the Angels’ lineup included four position players who have been out a combined 260 games this season because of injuries, two who spent most of the year in the minor leagues and a catcher who had caught only five games before spring training.

Yet, Collins was excited before the game because of the return from the disabled list of starting pitcher Jack McDowell and first baseman Darin Erstad, particularly Erstad because he was either first or second on the team in batting average (.303), home runs (18) and RBIs (65) when he injured his hamstring on Aug. 3.

“To still be in the spot we’re in when you don’t have your best player, that’s tough,” Collins said.

Both players justified his optimism in the Angels’ 2-0 victory. McDowell pitched seven shutout innings. Erstad singled twice, drove in a run and made a diving catch in the ninth to steal a hit from Brian Hunter.

But five players remain on the disabled list. That includes pitcher Ken Hill, who had to leave a rehab assignment Tuesday night for Lake Elsinore in the fifth inning because of elbow pain and won’t start, as expected, for the Angels on Sunday.

As a result, Collins keeps dusting off the speech he first gave to his team in May.

“We can sit here and feel sorry for ourselves and pout,” he said. “Or we can go out and get the job done.”

*

Two jokers from a radio station in Saginaw, Mich., called Collins in his hotel room at 7 o’clock one morning last week when the Angels were in Detroit.

“Disney owns your team, right?” one said.

“Right,” Collins said, groggily.

“So can you name the seven dwarfs?”

Collins slammed down the phone.

He confessed later that he doesn’t know them. But there’s one he could have named that morning.

Grumpy. . . .

Collins was in a better mood Wednesday, making fun of Disney for the promotion that allowed fans to have their hair sprayed in Angel colors before the game. . . .

Take it easy, Terry. That’s the kind of humor that got Ron Wilson fired. . . .

McDowell said he would color his hair periwinkle if one of the more conservative guys on the team would join him. . . .

I guess he wasn’t referring to Jeff Juden. . . .

The pitcher from another planet had his hair bleached blond before arriving at Edison Field on Wednesday. . . .

McDowell was talking about someone like Erstad. . . .

Erstad, a former Nebraska punter, will bleach his hair the day Tom Osborne does his. . . .

Collins said he wasn’t concerned that rookie Troy Glaus started Wednesday night’s game with a .206 batting average in 17 games since arriving from triple-A Vancouver. . . .

“Look at the pitchers he’s faced,” Collins said. “Martinez, Saberhagen and Wakefield in Boston, Colon and Jaret Wright in Cleveland, Clemens and Pat Hentgen in Toronto. This isn’t the Pacific Coast League.” . . .

Of Bobby Bonilla’s excellent adventure in left field for the Dodgers, Sports Illustrated’s Steve Rushin writes that he “looks less comfortable donning a glove than anyone since O.J.” . . .

If the glove doesn’t fit, you must sit? . . .

Not exactly. The Dodgers quickly moved Bonilla out of left field but are now starting him at third base.

*

While wondering if Juden is sure he’s not a left-hander, I was thinking: I figured Dave Hollins would have to be in a coma to sit out the rest of the season, I can’t go anywhere in town without running into someone who has a Jim Murray story, I’m not complaining.