No ‘I’ in MVP, Either

Troy Glaus is the most valuable player of the 2002 World Series, and that may be about the most definitive and descriptive label anybody will be able to pin on him.

He is about as colorful as your beige bedroom wall and would not be hurt when described that way. He is the Angel third baseman who nearly outslugged perhaps the greatest slugger in the history of the game, and did so when it counted the most. In the World Series.

For the seven games that it took for the Angels to create one of the better storybook endings to a true Disney season, Glaus’ batting line read:

* Ten hits, 22 total bases, three doubles, three home runs and eight runs batted in. His hit .385, and his slugging percentage was .846.

For the seven games it took for the Giants to truly frustrate themselves, as well as a nice little city by the bay with great restaurants, Hall of Fame shoo-in Barry Bonds’ batting line read:

* Eight hits, 22 total bases, two doubles, four home runs and six runs batted in. He hit .471, and his slugging percentage was a robust 1.294. Bonds, of course, was walked 13 times.

Had the Giants won the World Series, Bonds probably would have been standing up on that giant platform in the middle of the field after the game, hobnobbing with Commissioner Bud Selig and Fox’s Jeanne Zelasko and taking it all in for himself, as a World Series MVP is entitled to. But the Angels won, and that made Glaus the man, in the bright lights with Bud and Jeanne and Michael Eisner and Jackie Autry.

The key phrase there is: “But the Angels won.”

That’s what Glaus cared about. That’s what he talked about. That’s the only way he could think, cared to think. With microphone after microphone jammed in his face, with notepads held by inquiring minds wanting to know, Glaus talked team.

Sure, it was a stream of cliches about all 25 players contributing and doing this thing one game and one at-bat at a time and everybody knowing his role and playing it.

And sure, it didn’t make for compelling copy or spellbinding storytelling. But it was honest, what he is, who he is.

Probed for reaction and description of emotion, or depth of feeling, he finally said that, when he heard he was the MVP, he didn’t think all that much about it.

“And then they told me to go up on the stand, and so I did,” he said.

Glaus does have a $100,000 World Series MVP bonus clause in his contract, but he’ll collect more than three times that amount as his share for the team winning the Series.

He had delivered the game-winning blow in Saturday night’s incredible Game 6 turnabout, but he said he never allowed himself to think about the next thing, the possible Game 7 win, and what that might mean.

“We just played hard again, played our hearts out, just like we do every night, all season,” he said. “That’s what we are.”

Clearly, all questions directed to the singular Troy Glaus brought responses in the plural Angels.

Teammate Adam Kennedy was asked about Glaus. Did he have any stories, any anecdotes?

“I love the guy, but I don’t have any stories,” Kennedy said implying that there really might not be any, outside of fastballs and curves and sliders and a shower before going home.

After his big hit Saturday night, how was Glaus in the clubhouse, Kennedy was asked.

“Same as he always is,” Kennedy said.

And so it was, in the 2002 World Series, that bland won out over bombastic, that the word “team” still didn’t find the letter “i” in it, and that a tall, muscular third baseman from the Angels who only thinks collectively won one of the most coveted prizes in sports.

In a time when NFL players take pens out of their socks to sign footballs on the field after touchdowns, the image of Glaus wanting to chop up his MVP trophy into 25 pieces has a nice feel to it.

Much like the entire Angel season.