There Is a Real Season for

Night falls, and bedtime approaches. For the first time since brushing his teeth that morning, the adorable little kid removes the bright red Angel cap from his head, but only after Mom promises he can wear the cap again tomorrow.

Mom tucks him into bed. Before she turns out the light, the kid smiles at the stuffed monkey wrapped around his bedpost. The monkey smiles back. The kid is sure of it.

This could be your kid, or the kid down the block, or the kids playing T-ball in the park. To this youngest generation of baseball fans, the Angels won the World Series championship because of a cute monkey jumping up and down and thousands of fans -- mostly grown-ups, at that -- banging big red sticks together and making lots of noise.

If a monkey turns a kid into a baseball fan, well, bless the monkey.

Those kids will outgrow their blissful innocence, although there is no hurry. They will learn that World Series championships are won by neither rally monkeys nor noise sticks. The Angels’ rally monkey is great fun, but it does not bat.

Today, one of those kids might be taking a rally monkey to school. That same kid might be wearing a bright red T-shirt, with the last name of one of the players on the back. Erstad, maybe, or Glaus or Eckstein, Salmon or Anderson, Kennedy or Percival. If the kid’s a rebel, maybe Spiezio.

The World Series championship trophy commemorates the Angels and their accomplishments. In their first 41 seasons, the Angels won six postseason games. This October, they won 11. For the first time, the Angels are champions of the World Series.

The moments along the way, like the monkeys, are too numerous to count. Here are a few defining moments along the path to October glory:

April 24

When poor results follow high expectations, a manager never sits easily in his chair. The Angels started the season 6-14, the worst start in franchise history. They had sunk 10 1/2 games out of first place. This was not exactly what Disney had in mind when it boosted the payroll to a club-record $60 million.

On this day, Manager Mike Scioscia presented a lineup in which reserve outfielder Orlando Palmeiro batted in the No. 3 spot, traditionally the province of the best hitter on the team. In 1,459 career at-bats, Palmeiro has three home runs.

If the Angels lost again, Scioscia would risk players wondering whether he had pushed the panic button and would hear more questions about his job security. But Palmeiro slapped three hits, and the Angels scored five runs in the first inning en route to a 10-4 victory over the Seattle Mariners, the first of eight consecutive victories and the start of a 21-3 run. The Angels became the first team in major league history to lose 14 of their first 20 games and qualify for the playoffs; Scioscia is expected to win the American League manager of the year award.

April 28

The Angels like to say shortstop David Eckstein does all the little things, and there is no pun intended. Eckstein stands a couple of eyelashes taller than 5 feet 6, but the Angels believe he is the smartest man in their clubhouse, coaching staff included. He led the league in sacrifice bunts and times hit by pitch. He rarely struck out or grounded into a double play. He chastises himself for hitting a fly ball in batting practice, because his game involves slapping singles over the field and maximizing his speed. Power, he believes, is something best left to the big guys.

Eckstein had hit a grand slam the night before, in the fifth inning of an 11-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. Hey, accidents happen.

On this day, he hit another grand slam, this one a walk-off slam in the 14th inning, good for an 8-5 victory over Toronto. He became the first shortstop in major league history to hit grand slams in consecutive games. The Angels had yet to scramble back to the .500 mark, but the consensus in the clubhouse was that this marked the turning point of the season, the first sign that something magical might be happening this year.

May 10

The Angels crashed in 2001 in large part because their offense did. They crashed in the first three weeks of the season in large part because their offense did. If outfielders Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad sputtered again this year, and if second baseman Adam Kennedy did not progress, the Angels again would sink in the AL West.

On this day, the Angels crushed the Chicago White Sox, 19-0--the largest victory margin ever in an Angel shutout--only 11 days after another 19-run victory, that one 21-2 over the Cleveland Indians. On this day, Kennedy hit two home runs, Salmon had four hits and Erstad scored twice.

Kennedy finished the season with a .312 batting average, leading the team and ranking seventh in the league. Salmon rebounded from .227 to .286 and Erstad from .258 to .283. The Angels led the major leagues in batting average (.282) and fewest times struck out.

June 24

John Lackey made his major league debut, summoned from triple-A Salt Lake for a spot start in a doubleheader. The third batter he faced, Alex Rodriguez, whacked a 433-foot home run.

Lackey, displaying the poise that all the world saw when he won Game 7 of the World Series, shrugged off Rodriguez’s home run and held the Texas Rangers to three runs over seven innings. The Angels lost, 3-2, but they decided Lackey needed no further refinement in the minor leagues. They inserted him into the starting rotation and dumped Scott Schoeneweis into the bullpen.

The move paid off. Lackey went 9-4 with a 3.66 earned-run average, the lowest of any starter beside ace Jarrod Washburn. Schoeneweis, maddeningly inconsistent in his three years as a starter, prospered in the bullpen. On July 15, Dennis Cook was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, leaving Schoeneweis as the Angels’ lone left-handed reliever. From that day forward, he posted a 1.71 ERA.

July 19

No pennants would be won if the Angels could not defeat the Mariners. At the All-Star break, the Angels stared at a schedule that included 12 games remaining against Seattle. The Angels had lost 21 of their last 26 games against the Mariners, including 12 in a row at Edison Field.

On this day, the Angels exorcised the first of so many demons to be exorcised this season. The Angels peppered Seattle for 20 hits, including five by Salmon, in a 15-3 rout at Edison Field. The losing pitcher was Freddy Garcia, who was 5-0 against the Angels in 2001.

Two days later, Washburn and the Angels beat Seattle, 7-5. Washburn extended his winning streak to 12 games, setting a franchise record for consecutive victories in a season. The Angels swept the three-game series, their first sweep of the Mariners in four years.

August 25

In Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox tried to slow down the Angels in the wild-card race. Pedro Martinez won the first game in a four-game series, but Kevin Appier, Brendan Donnelly, Schoeneweis and Troy Percival combined on a shutout in the second game.

On this day, the third game of the series, the Red Sox desperately needed to win. Their starting pitcher was Cy Young Award candidate Derek Lowe. The Angels’ starting pitcher was Mickey Callaway, making his first major league start in three years, summoned from the minor leagues to replace the injured Aaron Sele.

Callaway gave up two earned runs in six innings. Lowe and the Red Sox lost, 8-3. And, in his major league debut, Chone Figgins entered the game as a pinch-runner, raced from first base to third on a single to left field and scored the go-ahead run on a squeeze by Eckstein. Figgins later won another game with his speed, in the 10th inning of a 4-2 victory at Baltimore, and made the playoff roster as a pinch-runner.

August 29

On this day, the final one before the strike deadline set by major league players, the fans did not take kindly to the possibility that the Angels’ magical season might be cut short. The Angels beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 6-1, but not before an atypically rowdy crowd let loose some anger, chanting “NO STRIKE” and throwing baseballs and beach balls, water bottles and soda bottles, beer cups and toilet paper onto the field.

Schoeneweis, the Angels’ player representative, ripped the fans as “classless” and said, “When 4-year-olds get frustrated, they throw stuff. Grown adults shouldn’t do that.”

The strike is averted, after all-night negotiations in New York. The Angels return to Edison Field the next day, beating the Orioles, 6-2. Schoeneweis earned his first major league save. He was heartily booed.

Sept. 15

The power of third baseman Troy Glaus makes him the one player who can carry the Angels for days at a time. But power hitters are notoriously streaky, and Glaus’ power was intermittent for most of the summer. After hitting a league-leading 47 home runs two years ago, and 41 last year, he had only 22 through the first five months of this season.

As it turned out, Glaus conserved his power for the most critical time of the year. He hit eight home runs in September and seven more in October, including three in the World Series, and he earned the Series MVP award.

On this day, he hit three home runs, the first Angel to do so since Hall of Famer Dave Winfield in 1991. He joined outfielder Garret Anderson as the first players in club history to drive in 100 runs in three consecutive seasons. In a 13-4 victory over Texas, the Angels set a franchise record with their 94th victory--they finished with 99--and ascended a season-high 39 games over .500, another franchise record.

Sept. 18

On this day, with little notice, a September call-up named Francisco Rodriguez made his major league debut in a 7-4 loss to the Oakland Athletics. He gave up a single to Eric Chavez, then got Jermaine Dye to fly out. He then struck out John Mabry and Mark Ellis, the first of eight consecutive strikeouts (over four appearances), tying Nolan Ryan’s franchise record.

In 5 2/3 innings, he gave up no runs and struck out 13, and the Angels scrambled to add him to the playoff roster. He pitched 18 2/3 innings in postseason play, striking out 28, and recording five of the Angels’ 11 playoff victories. At 20, he became the youngest player to earn a World Series victory. In Game 7, he pitched one inning and struck out three of the four batters he faced.

Sept. 26

On this day, after an agonizingly long wait through four consecutive losses, the Angels clinched their first playoff berth in 16 years. Anderson, Salmon and Scott Spiezio all hit home runs, and Lackey was the winning pitcher in a 10-5 victory at Texas. The Angels are back in the saddle again, galloping into the playoffs and toward their first World Series championship.