Angels’ Tarnished Halo Gets Renewed Respect From Fans

The baseball season ends today for the Anaheim Angels, who--no surprise here--failed to make the playoffs again. But for the first time in recent memory, there are smiles all around Edison Field. From the fans in the stands, from club executives in their offices, even from the players in a once-volatile clubhouse.

There is, indeed, something to be said for low expectations.

The Angels and Dodgers were mathematically eliminated from the playoff race within 24 hours of each other last week, and the Dodgers will finish with a better record overall. Yet it’s the Angels who will start vacation Monday with a warm, fuzzy feeling while their neighbors to the north contemplate an overhaul.

To their fans, the Angels are overachievers, an unsung collection of sluggers and young pitchers who, managed expertly by a popular Dodger castoff, scrambled to stay in contention until late September against all odds--and the opinions of most experts.

To use a little baseball parlance, who woulda thunk it?

Well, at least one long-suffering Angel fan. “I’m not surprised how the Angels played this season,” a caller into the Angels’ radio show said last week. “They never do what you expected. When you expect them to win, they lose. When you expect them to lose, they win.”

So it goes for Angel fans, a tortured group that has endured more than its share of pitfalls and pratfalls the past 40 years. But enough moaning about the past. This season, the pendulum swung their way.

For excitement, the Angels have a lot to offer.

Home runs have been hit at a club-record pace, with young third baseman Troy Glaus leading the way with an American League-best 47. Mo Vaughn, Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson joined Glaus in the slugfest, giving the Angels four players with 30 or more homers, a league first.

There is Darin Erstad, the consummate competitor, making catches by crashing into outfield walls or skidding along the grass and, for better than half the season, ringing up hits on a pace that threatened to break one of baseball’s most revered records.

“This season has been exciting,” said Victorville resident Robert McDonald, an Angel fan since the team began in 1961. “I got into the team again watching Darin Erstad get all those hits.”

Why, the Angels hit so well, the team’s biggest woe nearly became part of the club’s appeal. Often put in an early hole by poor pitching, either the struggles of a broken-down veteran or inexperienced rookie, the team battled its way back to 36 come-from-behind victories.

Indeed, these Angels turned what had become a seventh-inning exodus back into an enthusiastic seventh-inning stretch. Nothing like some exciting late-inning rallies to keep fans in their seats instead of on the freeways.

And don’t think the players didn’t notice.

“You see the fans leaving in the late innings in almost every stadium,” Angel outfielder Salmon said. “You notice it when they get up and go. They’ll leave as soon as they think you can’t win. The fans stick around more this season. It has to be the rally monkey.”

Ah, the rally monkey. Leave it to a team owned by Disney to turn a movie clip of a monkey into a marketing bonanza.

The craze started about midseason, in an attempt to encourage the home crowd when the Angels were trailing. Video footage of a monkey was put on the Edison Field scoreboard, along with a plea for the fans to make some noise.

They did, and the Angel bats usually did too. Hence the moniker “rally monkey.” And now there are stuffed rally monkeys--more than 7,000 of them sold in the past two months.

Such nonsense can be expected when fans start to embrace a team.

Club officials said the fact that overall attendance is down almost 200,000 this season is deceiving. Remnants of last year, they believe. For some, the memory, indeed, lingers.

The Angels were picked to win the AL West last season and attendance was strong throughout the spring. Then came a midsummer collapse, almost sitcom-like bickering in the clubhouse, and, finally a last-place finish.

Naturally, the fans bolted. There were seven crowds under 12,000 in September as discontent hit the team’s highest levels.

“Someone said to me, ‘You can’t trade 25 guys,’ ” club president Tony Tavares said last year during a late-season game. “I said, ‘Why not?’ ”

Instead, the Angels hired an unknown, Bill Stoneman, as general manager, who, in turn, hired Manager Mike Scioscia, a popular former Dodger catcher who’d broken ranks with his former team after one season as a Triple-A coach.

Critics said the Scioscia hire was a low-budget investment made by a team looking to cut costs and launch into a long-term rebuilding process.

Such turmoil and talk didn’t do much to inspire long-suffering Angel fans, who are used to going into hiding. On July 1, the Angels were 233,995 behind last season’s attendance pace. But in the last three months, the count is up 38,993, allowing the club to draw more than 2 million for the third consecutive season.

A bigger bounce is expected for the start of next season. Team officials said they already have received “many” inquiries about season tickets and suites, where they had “almost none” at this point last season.

Spiked interest in the team also is evident on the Angels Internet site, where page views are up 20%.

Winning will do that, and the Angels, from the ashes of last season, have risen to winners. After finishing with a record of 70 wins and 92 losses a year ago, they will end this season with a winning record.

“We’re just happy to be above .500,” Angel fan Kem Muilenburg said. “That was a big improvement. It’s been fun to come to games.”

Said John Priest, another longtime fan of the team: “We had faith, but we weren’t sure. But things have turned around big time. Every game is exciting.”

And where fans are excited, so too are the players.

“The fans feed off how we play, but we feed off them too,” Salmon said.

In the past, the environs of Edison Field have been almost as hospitable to some visiting teams as it was to the home club. That has been changing of late.

During a series in August, the home fans managed a first, shouting down a large contingent of New York Yankee supporters. Traditionally when the Yankees are in town, Edison Field has resembled a suburb of the Bronx. But when a “Let’s Go Yankees!” chant began during one game, Angel fans were able to boo it into submission.

“A huge step,” Tavares said.

Angel fans are expecting their team to take one of its own next season.

That’s the problem with exceeding expectations, more is expected.

Then again, these are Angel fans. They have been through this all before.

“In 1962, we had a great season, better than anyone expected,” said McDonald, the fan from Victorville. “We all thought we could get to the World Series the next season. In 1963, the team went ‘Splat.’ ”

At least for now, that’s ancient history.