Snow Slipped in Angels’ Eyes, but Delivers

It was the fifth inning of Game 1 of the World Series, and the first baseman of the San Francisco Giants was flat on his back.

How embarrassing. How inelegant.

It happened while pursing a foul popup hit by Tim Salmon that J.T. Snow lost his footing on the synthetic warning track and virtually skidded into the laps of ringside fans in the dugout boxes.

Of course, you don’t win six consecutive Gold Gloves for no reason.

While many first basemen might have remained prone, administering to their wounded pride long enough for the blush to fade from their cheeks, Snow would use the netting in front of the boxes to pull himself up and make a remarkable catch, registering the second out of an inning in which Garret Anderson’s ensuing strikeout left two runners stranded.

In the aftermath of a 4-3 San Francisco victory over the Angels, Snow would blast the synthetic track as being “dangerously below major league standards,” but his more important blast, in the context of the series opener, had come in the sixth inning when he ripped a two-run homer off Jarrod Washburn.

Snow’s second postseason homer, coming against the team that had basically dumped him in a lamentable 1996 trade for pitcher Allen Watson because of upper management’s view that he was too soft, and coming in the ballpark that was only a short drive from his boyhood home in Seal Beach, extended the Giants’ lead to 4-1, proved to be decisive and prompted Snow to pump his right arm as he rounded first and watched the ball clear the fence in left-center.

He would later attribute that show of emotion to adrenaline, insisting he wasn’t sending a message to former Angel president Tony Tavares, who didn’t think of Snow so much as a boy of summer but one of several players on the ’96 team “who looked like they came from Newport Beach, where their mommies and daddies gave them everything they wanted.”

Sweet payback?

Not really, Snow said.

“You always want to beat the team you once played for,” he said, “but this is pretty much a new place, a new stadium, new [Angel] uniforms. I think there’s maybe only four or five players and one coach still there.

“We didn’t have a rally monkey or any rally animal when I was here. I mean, it felt good, but we’re just trying to take one game at a time in the postseason, and it seems like every night or every game it’s a different guy coming through big, and that’s the sign of a good team.”

For Snow, coming off his poorest offensive season (.246 average, six home runs and 53 runs batted in), a season in which he lost his job for a prolonged period to Damon Minor, the postseason truly personifies the cliche of a new season and a shot at redemption.

He was ahead of Washburn, 3 and 1, and got the fastball he anticipated.

“I was just trying to stay inside the ball and drive it to left-center because I kept fouling balls off my second at-bat,” he said. “I like the way Washburn pitches. He throws his fastball and challenges you the way Jason Schmidt [who went 5 2/3 innings and gained the victory for the Giants] does for our team. I mean, it makes for two guys who are proud of their fastball and challenge you with it the way the game used to be played, not backing down from anybody. You like to play games like that.”

Snow may love getting fastballs on a 3-and-1 count, but he didn’t appreciate ending up on his back in the fifth inning, forced to make a catch of a type that he had never previously made in his gold-laden career and hopes never to have to make again.

“I was pretty upset,” he said. “I’m surprised Major League Baseball hasn’t done something about that track. I’d hate to see somebody get hurt and miss the rest of the World Series. One of their players told me it’s happened a lot to other guys, so it’s not as if it’s something new.”

Snow said he was fortunate to fall on his back so that he could keep his eye on the ball.

“I called [catcher Benito Santiago] off right when it went up,” he said. “I just tried to stay with it because you can’t call a guy off then expect him to pick you up.

“I called it the whole way, even when I was laying down. Luckily the net was there and I was able to grab onto it and pull myself up.”

Manager Dusty Baker said it reminded him of a catch Roberto Clemente had made in Dodger Stadium when he slipped pursuing a fly ball in right field, flipped his sunglasses down, and made the catch on his back. It also reminded him of a catch he had made in Clemente fashion when he slipped chasing a Clemente fly with the bases loaded in Pittsburgh.

“I couldn’t believe it and he couldn’t believe it,” Baker said. “If I hadn’t seen him do it first, I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to just stay on my back and do the same thing.”

Edison Field is far different from the Anaheim Stadium in which Snow played with the Angels, the Anaheim Stadium he came to as an Angel fan while attending Los Alamitos High, buying the cheapest seats, he recalled, and sneaking down to the box seats while trying to avoid security.

Snow now lives in San Mateo and said he didn’t really have too many old friends or family members among the crowd of 44,603.

“The last thing you want to do is play ticket broker in the World Series,” he said.

His sixth-inning homer on Washburn’s 106th pitch chased the starter and put the rally monkey in the lineup. Asked if he feared the monkey, Snow said that it might be great for the fans and the Angels, “but I’ve yet to see him get a hit or throw a strike or get somebody out. As long as you keep your attention on what’s going on in the field, that’s all that matters.”

In the Series opener, Snow kept his eyes on the ball in more ways than one.