Finley’s Not Ready for Excuses

Chuck Finley had a memorable quote in August 1996, when he said of an Angel team that was nine or 10 games out for most of the summer: “One of these days the cops are gonna come and arrest this team for loitering.”

It’s too early to notify the proper authorities about these 1999 Angels, but Finley admits, he’s beginning to wonder.

“We’re not making any progress,” Finley said before Friday night’s 12-2 loss to the Diamondbacks. “If we can win five or six games in a row and the guys at the top slip a bit we might have a chance. But we can’t just play .500 ball and creep along, because we’ll run out of days.”

The Angels won four games in a row from May 11-14, and they won three in a row on two occasions, but that’s it as far as winning streaks. The last time the Angels were at .500 was on April 17, when they were 6-6.

And don’t bother reminding Finley about injuries to Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds and Gary DiSarcina.

“We still don’t have any excuses,” Finley said. “If the guys up here don’t think they can play they should tell someone. I believe we can win, and they should too.

“If you look at our team, anyone with common sense would say we’re a little light. But I think we can make something out of it. Are we any different than Oakland? They’re doing OK. There are a lot of teams in this league who, at full strength, look like us now. We’re still running some good players out there every day.”

Including Finley, who is 36 and in the last year of a four-year contract and has no intention of retiring after this season.

“Physically, I feel I can carry my share of the load,” said Finley, who will start tonight against the Diamondbacks. “When it gets to the point where I’m thinking, ‘Geez, how many more starts have I got left?’ I’ll reconsider.

“But I’ve always had the fire to compete. And it’s not like when I stop playing I’ve got an internship at Hoag Hospital or something.”

*

New York Met Manager Bobby Valentine’s fake-mustache-and-glasses disguise the other night had nothing on former Tacoma Manager Ed Nottle, who went to extreme lengths to remain on the field after getting kicked out of a triple-A Pacific Coast League game in 1983.

According to Dick Wiencek, a Milwaukee scout who was at Friday night’s Angel-Diamondback game, Nottle convinced Tacoma’s mascot to give up his uniform, and Nottle returned to the field in a Beaver suit--only he forgot to change his spikes.

“I could tell because of his shoes, but the umpires didn’t catch him,” said Wiencek, who was in Tacoma that night. “A fake mustache is easy. At least Ed had a little ingenuity.”

Umpires were so convinced former Baltimore Manager Earl Weaver had pulled a similar stunt in the early 1980s that they forced the Oriole mascot to pull off his bird head. Much to their surprise, it wasn’t Weaver.

*

Matt Luke had three hits, including a home run, and three RBIs for triple-A Edmonton on Thursday, giving the outfielder five homers and 15 RBIs in 18 at-bats in his first five games since returning from a back injury. But Manager Terry Collins said the Angels “have to find out how healthy he is” before recalling him to Anaheim. . . . The Angels have signed 11 players from the recent draft, including their top pick, second-round selection John Lackey, a pitcher from Grayson County Junior College in Denison, Texas. . . . The Angels are promoting “Showdown at Motown,” a boxing/baseball event in which six professional boxing bouts will be featured before the Angels-Twins game at Edison Field on Sunday, July 18.

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ CHUCK FINLEY (4-6, 4.35 ERA)

vs.

DIAMONDBACKS’ ANDY BENES (4-5, 5.40 ERA)

Edison Field, 7 p.m.

TV--Fox Sports West Radio--KLAC (570), XPRS (1090)

* Update--Jeff Huson started at shortstop in place of the struggling Andy Sheets on Friday night, but Collins said the position is not evolving into a platoon. “Jeff is just swinging the bat well, and I wanted to get him another game,” Collins said. Benes does not have a winning record, but the Arizona right-hander is coming off his best two starts of the season, an eight-inning, seven-hit, two-run effort against Texas and a seven-inning, seven-hit, two-run effort against Montreal.

* Tickets--(714) 663-9000.