Good Old Days Looking Better Than the New Year

Do we have to ring in the new year? Because I don’t see a lot of rings for Los Angeles in the new year.

Too bad we can’t just unplug the clocks, keep the old calendars up and stay right here in the year 2002 AD (Angeleno Domination).

The Lakers’ third consecutive championship and that improbable Angel World Series triumph made this special. Do you realize how rare it is for a city to snag two of the four major league championships in the same calendar year? It’s happened only five times in the last 34 years.

Add in the Sparks’ WNBA championship, the Galaxy’s MLS championship, USC’s return to prominence -- and a new addition to its Heisman Trophy collection -- and there were almost enough trophies to allocate one to each of the region’s area codes.

Unfortunately they might have to last awhile. There’s not a lot of Cristal in the crystal ball.

The Lakers and Clippers aren’t in the playoff picture at the moment. The Ducks and Kings hang right on the margin. The Dodgers’ winter moves showed that their primary concern for 2003 is the budget sheet, not the World Series. USC and UCLA haven’t exactly done anything to make you book hotel rooms in New Orleans for the Final Four.

The Sparks and Galaxy could very well repeat. The Sparks are running things the way the Lakers used to. The Galaxy has played for the MLS Cup four times in the league’s seven years, so it’s always within reach.

But those victories don’t lift the spirits of the entire city, or have Ice Cube saying, “Today was a good day.” When the Sparks staged their first victory rally outside City Hall, a couple hundred people showed up. And the next Galaxy championship T-shirt I see will be the first.

The problem is, the closer you get to the core of the teams this city cares about, the colder this championship trail becomes. The virulent spread of Angel fever -- and the Angels’ World Series games drawing bigger TV numbers than the Lakers’ NBA Finals -- shows that there’s still a deep love of baseball here. And another year of 3 million fans coming through the turnstiles at Dodger Stadium reminds you that there’s still a bond to the city’s first big league team.

Too bad there won’t be much love going back out. For this season, the Dodgers’ allegiance is to the books, to doing anything they can to stay below baseball’s luxury-tax threshold. They traded longtime Dodger Eric Karros in a cost-cutting move, stayed out of the bidding for Jim Thome and folded early on Jeff Kent and Cliff Floyd.

Presumably, full seasons from Kevin Brown and Darren Dreifort would give them a better pitching staff than last year’s -- but as they get older they’re even less likely to remain injury-free.

Meanwhile, there’s the unthinkable possibility that Staples Center could be dark come playoff time. The Kings have to be worried about Jason Allison’s knee, and Adam Deadmarsh is one hard shot to the cranium away from another concussion.

The Clippers got Lamar Odom back Saturday night. That should help. Not only must they shake off their disappointing start, they’ll have to fight through surprising teams such as Phoenix and Seattle just to make the playoffs.

Maybe they’ll finish with a big enough surge to land one of the eight Western Conference berths. That’s about as much as we can expect out of them. NBA teams don’t go from playoff outsiders to champions in one season. (Then again, NBA playoff teams don’t go from champions to playoff outsiders in one season. Right, Lakers? Right?).

What would May and June be like without the Lakers and their postseason drama? A lot like March without the annual resurrection of Steve Lavin and the UCLA Bruins. They’re not exactly racking up the victories that will get them to the NCAA tournament at this point. If they do get in, it’s hard to imagine them with a favorable seeding.

When the new year begins, it will do so without a local team in the Associated Press men’s college basketball top 25. In last week’s Sagarin ratings of every Division I team, the highest local school is UC Irvine at No. 100.

If one of the other local schools can squeeze into the tournament, it probably won’t be around for long. Since Loyola Marymount’s run to the elite eight in 1990, only the Pac-10 schools have made it to the second weekend of the NCAAs.

Is it up to Anaheim again? The Ducks have been a pleasant surprise. But how much of their success is a mirage, propped up by the NHL’s thanks-for-coming system of awarding points for ties and overtime losses? The Ducks’ 15 wins are the fewest among the NHL’s Western Conference playoff contenders.

It could be up to their Disney partners.

The Angels -- the longest shot in 2002 -- would appear to be the safest bet for 2003. They’ll bring back the bulk of their championship club, a balanced team that can afford down seasons by one or two players.

The rally monkey proved to be one of the greatest assets in sports, but can it compete with that other force of nature -- George Steinbrenner’s checkbook? The Yankees went international once again to load up with Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui and Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras.

You knew there’d be some sort of cosmic repercussions for the Angels winning the World Series, and now we have it. Sporting apocalypse around the rest of L.A.

It reminds me of “Superman II,” when Superman lured the Krypton villains to the Fortress of Solitude and zapped away all of their powers while he preserved his own. Whew, that one’s from back in the day -- 1980 to be precise. Good year. That’s when the Lakers won the first of their five championships of the 1980s.

I’m just a little nostalgic, that’s all. Maybe it’s from all that reminiscing on the good old days of 2002.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

T.J. Simers is on vacation.