Finish Is so Suspenseful He Can’t Stay in His Seat

There’s nothing like the final week of the baseball season and that final exciting lunge for the finish line, the thrill of scoreboard watching while hanging on every pitch to see whether the Angels are going to be 35 or 37 games out of first place at the end of the night.

There was a lot at stake here Tuesday night at Edison Field, the Angels’ record for futility at season’s end being 381/2 games--set 40 years ago--and now within reach. From the look in the guys’ eyes and the fact they’ve lost 14 of their last 16, I think they can do it.

It helps the Mariners have playoff fever, and maybe tuberculosis, for that matter, but the Angels have been here before with nothing to play for, and so there’s no way they’re going to become suddenly competitive. Since they’re not even close to the Mariners, there’s also no worry about them becoming infected with tuberculosis.

Funny, though, you could still feel the tension in the park when Tim Salmon came to the plate, Disney executives almost hyperventilating with the realization Salmon is batting .230, and whether he’s successful or not, he gets a $3.25 million raise next year. That sounds like the deal Michael Ovitz had when he was at Disney.

Disney stockholders are also going to have to make a considerable investment in oxygen to revive old Mickey Mouse two years from now when the Angels are obligated to hand Mo Vaughn a check for $23 million--on top of the $35 million they already will have paid him. It’s good to be a baseball player--win or lose.

You can understand why the Angels conduct business as they do. A break here or there, and the team could very well be only 17 or 18 games behind Oakland in the wild-card race--instead of 22.

And that’s what makes baseball at Edison Field so great--trying to figure out just how awful the Angels truly can be. For example, if I told you that management gave inspirational leader Mike Scioscia a contract extension through 2006 on Aug. 20,, how do you think the players responded?

Worse than you thought--the Angels are 9-24 since announcing there’s no getting rid of Scioscia anytime soon. It’s good to be a baseball manager--win or lose.

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JUST WAIT until next year to be disappointed again.

“We’re approaching this as a championship-caliber team,” said Scioscia, and that would explain the team’s 9-24 recent record under Scioscia, the guys unable to perform while doubled over in laughter.

In approaching this as a championship-caliber team, I would note the Angels came into Tuesday night’s game with a 33-36 record since the All-Star break. I know what USC Coach Pete Carroll would say if he was running this team, but Scioscia insists he has good players, banking his hopes on the “probability” that Angel hitters won’t tank it next year as they did this season.

Salmon was just called out on strikes with runners on first and second and the Mariners ahead 3-0. It’s good to know the “probability” of that happening next year is not very high. Adam Kennedy just finished the inning grounding into a double play. Do you think that will ever happen again?

In the sixth, Seattle’s Edgar Martinez charged the mound after being hit by a pitch thrown by Lou Pote, and the entire Angel bullpen ran onto the field, obviously fearful Pote might get hurt and one of them forced to pitch against the Mariners.

Now I know this is going to be hard to believe, but the Angels probably won’t attract 2 million fans for the second straight year. The Dodgers drew more than 3 million, which tells you the drawing power of Matt Herges.

There’s always a chance Disney could just bag it--especially if baseball puts off labor discussions for another year, making it almost impossible to sell the team--and agree to disband along with Montreal.

You know Disney, though, a final decision probably hinges on how sales of the Rally Monkey are going.

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NOW DOWN the road in San Diego Tuesday night--certainly too far to drive to watch the Dodgers play--the Bums in Blue were tied in the seventh inning, their whole season hanging in the balance.

Should both the Dodgers and the Angels lose on this fine night--and you couldn’t possibly think I would be interested enough to stay here for the whole game--they will have a combined record of 157-157, making the L.A. area officially the Ho-Hum Capital of Baseball.

How about one tiebreaking game for freeway bragging rights: Our mediocre players versus your mediocre players, with Pat Rapp pitching against Terry Mulholland and a promise Jeff Shaw will make an appearance?

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IT’S PROBABLY tough for the Angels to pinpoint when they knew they had no chance of making the playoffs this season. Maybe sometime in 1996.

But for the Dodgers, it’s a lot easier, Marquis Grissom telling a Daily News reporter earlier this week it was Aug. 9.

“You can’t never go without your horses,” Grissom said, and while not mentioning jockey Jim Tracy by name, he blamed Tracy for not going to the whip. “I thought we should have kept the pressure on. ... You can never slack up in this game.”

Grissom said the Dodgers slacked up by starting Dave Hansen at first base in place of Eric Karros, Chad Krueter at catcher and McKay Christensen in center field in place of--you guessed it--Marquis Grissom.

The Dodgers lost, 8-5, to Pittsburgh, and while they were only one game out of the division lead a month later and in first place in the wild-card race, that’s the turning point as Grissom sees it, and I couldn’t agree more.

Instead of sticking with Christensen in center, Tracy went back to Grissom, and the Dodgers were finished.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Tyler:

“I’m at a loss at the simplicity and immaturity of your USC article.”

Look on the bright side--you’re only 0-1, and USC is 1-3.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.