Don’t Like the Monkey? You Must Be Bananas!

It wasn’t the Salmon.

It was the monkey.

“We would have won if they had used the dang monkey,” said Dick Vogel, an Anaheim real estate guy.

“When it came to crunch time, where was the monkey?” asked Ed Cano, a Tustin Internet guy.

Both men left Edison Field on Saturday with children holding rally monkey dolls.

Both children wore faces longer than a 20-game deficit.

The Angels had just lost to the first-place Seattle Mariners, 5-3, in a game that was anything but Bonzo.

What follows may sound inane, but so is the idea that we’re writing stories in June about a team that dropped out of the division race in April, so bear with us.

One day after a player griped that the Angels were giving their beloved Rally Monkey too much hype Saturday, somebody in the scoreboard center muzzled him.

The primate, not the player.

Eighth inning, runner on first, two out . . . but no video of the monkey. Jorge Fabregas promptly grounded out.

Start of ninth inning, last chance to start a rally . . . but no monkey. Larry Barnes lined out on a, gasp, bunt.

With two out in ninth and a runner on second base, a digital drawing of the monkey appeared briefly on the message board, but only after Darin Erstad fell behind 1-and-2.

Erstad grounded out, the game ended, and frustrated kids flapped their stuffed monkeys in the manner of a vertigo-stricken Davey Jones.

Astute observers--or at least those who actually came to watch baseball--will note that the Angels lost after struggling Tim Salmon botched two plays and Adam Kennedy botched another.

The smart ones know it was about something far more powerful.

“We still believe in our rally monkey,” said Micah Cano, 7.

Said Beth Vogel, 12: “The monkeys make the baseball here better.”

So everyone agreed apparently--until Friday, when the club celebrated the monkey’s first birthday with video tributes every half inning.

The Angels lost, 9-5, and, sure enough, one of their young players went ape.

“What they did tonight was a joke,” pitcher Jarrod Washburn told reporters. “They made a mockery of the game. Last year it was fun. I don’t think there was any reason for it tonight. Maybe if they worked this hard promoting the team as they did the monkey, we wouldn’t play in front of 15,000 fans.”

Um, no.

Falling behind, 8-2, after two innings, as the Angels did in Friday’s loss, is a joke.

Dropping fly balls and booting grounders, as they did in Saturday’s loss, is a joke.

The monkey? Around here these days, that’s entertainment.

Twelve times this season, the team has come back to win games after Rally has appeared.

Last year, buoyed by his midseason debut, the Angels had a King Kong-like 37 comeback victories.

Not that the monkey has had a good year, but baseball officials report that he has received more than 15,000 write-in votes for the All-Star game.

That national TV talk-show appearance certainly couldn’t have hurt.

So when the Angels caved in to the demands of one whining employee, they were dissing perhaps their most popular.

“You come here and, even if they lose, you have the fun of seeing the monkey,” Vogel said. “It’s silly, but it’s one thing that makes us different. It’s one thing nobody else has.”

The Angels said they realized this even before Saturday’s game, and of course they do, considering how much money they make from selling those stuffed simians. Word was, after reading his comments, they even told Washburn to chill.

The problem, apparently, was that other employees who read the comments decided to adhere to baseball’s long tradition of kissing the player’s cleats, even at the expense of the fans.

Fearful of making Washburn angrier, those employees, using all the brains of Magilla Gorilla, unilaterally cut Rally from the team.

The Angel brass said afterward that the order did not come from them. They promised it would not happen again.

“Nothing has changed, or will change,” said Tim Mead, club spokesman. “Maybe somebody [in the scoreboard room] had a certain sentiment, felt some concern. But those concerns will be alleviated by tomorrow.”

So Rally will return, just before I’ve run completely out of monkey metaphors, hopefully knocking this chimp off my shoulder.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.