Before They Were 86’d, It Was the Hex of 1982

Before the Angels’ famous collapse in the 1986 American League championship series against the Boston Red Sox, there was 1982, when they squandered a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Before Dave Henderson, there was Cecil Cooper.

The Angels had three chances to finish the Brewers after winning twice in Anaheim Stadium but failed and became the first team to fail to reach the World Series after taking a 2-0 lead in the league championship series.

The Brewers never trailed in Games 3 and 4 at Milwaukee, then rallied for a 4-3 victory behind Cooper’s two-run single off Angel reliever Luis Sanchez in the seventh inning in Game 5.

Milwaukee had demons to face after the 1982 World Series, in which it squandered a 3-2 series lead en route to losing in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Brewers haven’t been to the playoffs since 1982, the second-longest streak in the major leagues behind Montreal’s 21-year drought.

Trivia time: Who is the Angels’ leading hitter in postseason play?

Righty vs. lefty: No one second-guessed Manager Gene Mauch’s decision to have closer Donnie Moore pitch to Henderson in the ninth inning of Game 5 in 1986.

But with the left-handed Cooper at the plate and the bases loaded in Game 5 in 1982, Mauch stuck with the right-handed Sanchez. Mauch had left-hander Andy Hassler warmed up and ready to go.

Wrote Times staffer Mike Penner: “Mauch, perhaps overanalyzing the situation, tried to explain how Hassler got most of his outs on pitches outside the strike zone, which is why the manager didn’t want to bring him in, needing his pitcher to throw strikes. Hassler, though, wasn’t buying any of that.”

Said an angry Hassler: “I’m not going to let that ... put the monkey on my back. If he’s not man enough to say he made a mistake, then I’ll say it.”

For what it’s worth: The Angels’ 2002 media guide devoted only four of its 428 pages to the club’s three postseason appearances. Three pages feature box scores of the 1979, 1982 and 1986 ALCS games. A fourth page includes team playoff records.

Thank you: “The most useless, overpaid job in sports journalism today is sideline football reporter for television,” wrote USA Today’s Jon Saraceno. “Rarely is valuable information passed along. I don’t know when, or where, it will happen, but one day a frustrated coach walking off at halftime is going to be asked one too many inane questions and he’s going to erupt like a volcano.”

Looking back: On this day in 1984, Mike Prindle of Western Michigan set an NCAA record with seven field goals in a 42-7 rout of Marshall.

Trivia answer: Fred Lynn, who batted .611 (11 for 18) in the 1982 ALCS.

And finally: New Clipper guard Marko Jaric said he received an unexpected greeting when he presented his passport upon arrival in the United States last week.

“The guy at passport control said, ‘Oh, you’re going to play for the Clippers, oh, you play for Yugoslavia,’ ” said Jaric, a member of the Yugoslavian national team that won the world championship. “That was nice. It’s good that people know something good about Yugoslavia, something positive. Not just war.”