From Gibson to Glaus, They Never Say Die

Five to nothing. Five to nothing. Five to nothing.

The Angels, after a long and earnest fight, expired early Saturday evening while resting comfortably among friends.

Trailing the San Francisco Giants by an exact handful of runs in the seventh inning in their World Series knockout game, they lay lifeless on the Edison Field grass while all around them mourned and remembered.

“They were such battlers.”

“They worked so hard.”

“We’re so proud of ... “‘

Wait a minute.

Through the pathos emerged a scruffy, stringy-haired character named Scott Spiezio.

He parted the crowd, leaned over the body, put his hands on the chest, and pushed.

Three-run home run!

Following him was a stubble-bearded guy with red socks up to his waist named Darin Erstad.

He leaned over, put his hands on the same body, and pushed again.

Home run!

The mourning ceased, hope filled the house with cheering and pleading, then a third man stepped up, tobacco juice running down his chin, name of Troy Glaus.

He leaned over and, amid a roar that surely shook those hands, nonetheless delivered a push whose impact will be felt here forever.

Two-run double!

And with a jerk and a shout it was alive, they were alive, all of Orange County was alive, running and leaping and finally bounding into each other’s arms, revived and restored and blessed, these Angels.

Six to five. Six to five. Six to five.

Seven outs from a series-ending loss, the Angels stunned the Giants Saturday with a 6-5 comeback victory that knotted the Otherworldly Series at three wins apiece.

The Angels gained Game 7. The Giants lost everything.

The Angels now have their Kirk Gibson.

The Giants now have their Donnie Moore.

Said the Giants’ Tim Worrell, standing in a morgue of a clubhouse: “We felt like we had it locked up.”

Said the Angels’ David Eckstein, bouncing in the loud one down the hall: “I can’t really put this into words. It was amazing.”

It was better than that.

It was better than Sandy Koufax beating the Minnesota Twins in Game 7 on two days’ rest.

Koufax had nine innings, the Angels had seven outs.

It was better than the 1981 Dodgers sweeping the Yankees in four consecutive games after losing the first two.

The Dodgers had six days, the Angels had about 20 minutes.

And, yes, gasp, it was even better than Gibby.

.”When Gibson hit his home run, we still had a bunch of games left,” said Mickey Hatcher, who was in the dugout watching Gibson’s Game One homer in 1988. “Tonight, we didn’t have none.”

Saturday, as on that Saturday 14 years ago, Hatcher was one of the first ones out of the dugout as the game ended, running to embrace Troy Percival in the feeling that this was something never experienced around here before.

“It was like magic back in 1988,” said Hatcher, the Angel hitting coach. “Tonight, you could feel that same magic.”

The largely Dodger-populated coaching staff has adamantly resisted making such comparisons throughout this jaw-dropping postseason, but Saturday they had no choice.

This was, indeed, the greatest World Series game in Southland history.

And, if you believe the statistics, one of the greatest World Series games ever, seeing as it was the biggest comeback during an elimination game during the 98 years that the World Series has been held.

“Down to our last outs, if we lose we go home?” asked Erstad with that wry grin. “Yeah, I’d say this was our best.”

Considering seven of their 10 postseason wins have featured comebacks, that is saying something.

And to think that the blast of a lifetime started with a foul ball.

Before Spiezio’s seventh-inning homer, he fouled off four of seven pitches.

“I kept telling myself that I was right on it, just keep looking for a pitch to hit,” he said.

The Giants will long remember not Felix Rodriguez’s home-run pitch, but right fielder Reggie Sanders’ confusion. The rainbow fly ball was catchable, if Sanders had not gotten lost and run into the wall before beginning his leap.

The sound of the crowd was as long and loopy and memorable as the home run itself, a low murmur breaking into a rising wail before ending in a thundering roar.

“We thought it was an out,” said Hatcher. “Then it wasn’t.”

The Angels’ eighth-inning rally will be remembered for that same Spiezio resiliency, this time with Erstad homering on Tim Worrell’s hanging slider after collecting just one hit in his previous 12 at-bats.

Then came the soft liner by Salmon, and a bloop by Garret Anderson, and the wall-banging bomb by Glaus, and history.

“It wasn’t like all of them hit the ball real hard,” said Worrell.

The Giants can keep telling themselves that, but the hardest hits in those final two innings were surely on their psyche.

How can they recover from this?

Their star, Barry Bonds, in chasing down two balls in that eighth inning, looked like a klutz.

Their manager, Dusty Baker, in bringing in three relievers in the seventh, looked like a fool.

Their bullpen is decimated. Their belief is in question.

Nobody recovers from this, just ask the 1986 Angels.

As the current version left the field Saturday night, one of the giant scoreboards flashed a sign, again and again.

“You Gotta Believe!”

How can you not?

*

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