Giants or Cards? There’s No Fear Factor

Ooh, it would be so much better if the Angels could win the American League West and avoid the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs.

That’s what they heard, the Angels did.

No inexperienced playoff team was going to beat the Yankees. These Angels would have no chance against the Yanks. Good to see you guys, and wait till next year.

And then the Angels whacked the stuffing out of Yankee pitching, won three straight against New York and sent the Yankees home.

So, gosh, it might be better if the Angels could play the A’s in the American League championship series instead of Minnesota. The Angels heard that too.

They know the A’s, they play well against the A’s. They weren’t so good in the Metrodome and Brad Radke owned the Angels. The Twins also had fate and destiny and some divine right to stick it to Bud Selig and contraction in their back pocket.

And then the Angels won four straight against the Twins, twisted Twin bats around their little fingers, taunted them by letting them take a two-run lead in the top of the seventh Sunday, put up a 10-spot in the bottom of the seventh and stuck it to the Contraction Boys.

And now it’s beginning again.

Giants or Cardinals?

Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols?

California fever or old friends Jim Edmonds and Chuck Finley?

Angel pitching coach Bud Black said it would be pretty cool to play the Giants.

“It’s my old team,” Black said, “the team I rooted for when I was growing up -- Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Tito Fuentes, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal. Want me to go on? And it’s the team I played for. It was an honor to play for them for four years.”

Jarrod Washburn said it would be pretty cool to play the Cardinals.

“That’s Chuck Finley’s team,” Washburn said. “I want Chuck to make it. When I broke into the big leagues, Chuck helped me a lot. I respect the man so much. He’s a great pitcher and a great guy and it would be great to see him.”

If the Angels play the Giants in the World Series, Los Angeles will finally sit up and take notice.

Dodger fans, if only out of spite, will root for the Angels to beat the despised Giants.

“I’d love to make a bet with the mayor of San Francisco,” said Tom Daly, mayor of Anaheim. So far Daly has collected a case of bagels and a case of hot dogs from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the satisfaction of knowing that Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak will be wearing Mickey Mouse ears and an Angel T-shirt around city hall for a day.

Playing the Giants will focus the fans of Southern California on the gem that is Edison Field. If the Angels play the Cardinals, there will be so many emotions on both sides.

The Cardinals hold close to them the memories of pitcher Darryl Kile, the Southern Californian who died in his hotel room earlier this season, and of Jack Buck, their beloved radio announcer. Kannon Kile, 5, scampered around the Cardinal dugout Sunday, a happy little boy representing the father that is gone.

And Edmonds and Finley are still embraced and admired by many Angel players.

Tim Salmon and Troy Percival both said they would love to see their buddies in the World Series and dread playing against them.

“It would be both weird and nice,” Salmon said. “I just don’t know what to say about that.”

Finley, who was a rookie on the 1986 Angel team that was one strike away from the World Series, told Associated Press in San Francisco Sunday that “it would be kind of weird going back there that late in October. Usually when I go back there that late, I’m visiting friends in the PR department and the tractor pulls and stuff are starting up.”

Edmonds said the Angels are “the closest friends I have except for this team.” But he also had a dig at the laid-back Anaheim fans of the bad old days. “It’s good for the city, I guess, for them to pretend like they care about baseball for a couple of weeks,” he said in San Francisco. Wouldn’t it be nice for Angel fans to welcome Edmonds back to town, to maybe remind him of the sellouts in July, to show him the power of the Rally Monkey, to serenade him with the clamor of the Thunder Stix.

Either way, Giants or Cards, it’s not going to matter. All that matters is how the Angels play.

It was all about the Angels, their constant singles and doubles, their unwillingness to be intimidated by Yankee experience or mystique, monuments or history in the first round.

And it was all about the Angels, their exquisite pitching, the home run swings of Troy Glaus and Adam Kennedy, about their calm in coming from behind, in the series, in Game 5.

So it will be all about the Angels in the World Series.

If they didn’t fear the Yankees, will Bonds set their stomachs clenching?

Will Salmon and Percival and Garret Anderson think Edmonds and Finley deserve a title more than themselves?

This season has been about the Angels playing each game against each opponent as if it was the most important game of the season, then forgetting that game and playing the next.

Will Bonds hit home runs off their pitchers? Probably. Will Edmonds make a great play in the outfield? Most likely. Will the Angels lose a game? Hard to imagine a sweep.

Will the Angels be overwhelmed by anybody or any team? When will we stop thinking that way? The Angels have.

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com