Texas Has Real Deal

Everybody must love Raymond because they sure don’t love the Angels. At least not in Southern California, where, unfortunately, the Angels are playing the Texas Rangers in what is supposed to be something exciting--an American League West division race that might very well come down to the final day of the season. Or even a day after if there’s a playoff.

Geez, yes, it’s Premiere Week on TV. It was a fresh episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” on Monday night, among other things, but have you people heard of the VCR? Or summer reruns? Because you never know when you’ll have the chance to watch a very special week of baseball.

“Raise the roof,” the PA announcer said at Edison Field but apparently many Angels fans couldn’t raise the garage door to take the car out to the ballgame.

The Texas Rangers came to Edison Field on Monday tied with the Angels for first place in the AL West. Each team had seven games to play, three against each other, three home games for the Angels, which is supposed to be an advantage. Isn’t it? If this game had been played in a baseball town such as New York or Philadelphia, Baltimore or Cleveland, Chicago or St. Louis, the local ticket scalper would not have the loneliest job in town.

But there it was, 7:05 p.m., time for the first pitch and Edison Field featured acres of empty seats and all the atmosphere of an April game against the Minnesota Twins. Officially there were 33,487 in attendance, which means nearly 12,000 more could have come on in. There are almost 9,400 tickets still available for tonight’s Game 2 of this most critical head-to-head series in any baseball town this season. When the Angels played twice in Texas last week there was an actual sellout one night.

An Angels official said, kiddingly, wistfully and maybe half seriously, “Maybe our fans are saving their money so they can go to a playoff game,” but isn’t this supposed to be one of the nation’s most affluent areas? And it’s not as if this isn’t a quirky, curious, confoundedly entertaining team to follow, even after Monday’s 9-1 loss.

For example, in the Angel starting lineup for this critical baseball game was a catcher, Chad Kreuter, who had only arrived in town from the Chicago White Sox over the weekend. And there was a third baseman, Paco Martin, who had never batted against the Ranger starting pitcher, Todd Stottlemyre. And there was a first baseman, Darin Erstad, who should probably be on crutches and not making a stretching, diving, off-the-ground catch of a line drive, but there was Erstad, catching that ball and not even rubbing his nearly-shredded hamstring once.

Admit it. You thought the Angels were done when they lost twice to the Rangers and then came home to lose again to the Seattle Mariners and were two games behind the Rangers on Saturday morning. But, aha, they weren’t, they won twice in a row, the Rangers lost twice in a row and here suddenly is this opportunity to be the center of the sports world in the United States for three nights.

“We’ve been talking about this race going unnoticed,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said before the game, “but this is our chance to be in the spotlight.” Collins was speaking of his team but he could have been speaking of the fans too. It doesn’t make for pretty TV highlights, all those dark green seats. You could hear a shrimp being dipped in the cocktail sauce in the fancy restaurant portion of the stadium. “The media was more excited than the fans,” another Angel official said. This is not a good thing.

Angel catcher Phil Nevin wondered what was going on. “Ask somebody what’s wrong with these fans,” he said. “Don’t they know what a big deal this is? It’s pretty [darn] special and they don’t seem to get it.”

Jim Edmonds, the all-star center fielder, shrugged his shoulders at those unsold tickets. “I’m beyond thinking about that now,” he said. “I grew up here. I’m used to it by now.”

These things, these pennant races, they don’t come around every year. This is not like the Disney fireworks that go off behind the Edison Field rocks every Friday night. It especially doesn’t happen every year if your team is not being run by George Steinbrenner or Ted Turner. A pennant race is something to be celebrated. A buddy is supposed to call another buddy and say, “Hey, call Joe and let’s meet under the big hat at 6.” Dad is supposed to call Mom and say “Janie and Johnny can stay up past their bedtime tonight. Let’s go to the game.”

There’s one other race still going on, for the National League wild-card spot. The Mets and the Cubs are separated by a game too. They’ve been that way for nearly a month but for those unlucky fans in New York and Chicago, the Mets and Cubs were done playing each other eons ago, at least as far as the baseball season is concerned. For the bleacher people at Shea Stadium and Wrigley Field it has been all about scoreboard watching.

So here was this game Monday night, such a critical episode in this 162-game drama. The team that won Game 1 of this three-game set would know that by Thursday it could be no worse than one game out of first place with four more to play. That team is Texas and the Rangers should be able to relax now, swing more freely, take more running starts, feel in their hearts that no matter what they’ll be playing for something on Sunday.

The Angels will be playing in Oakland on Sunday and they shouldn’t feel any lonelier up north than they did in Anaheim on Monday night.

“I’m happy to see the people who are here,” pitcher Jeff Juden said. “I’d like to thank the people who come, hope they come back tomorrow and let’s leave it at that.” And so it was left with two more home games and plenty of tickets available.