Scioscia Not Seeking to Cash In on Season

For most players, this winter was a poor time to be a free agent. For managers, however, the free-agent market was a prosperous one.

In four-year contracts, Dusty Baker got more than $14 million from the Chicago Cubs, Lou Piniella got $13 million from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Art Howe $9.4 million from the New York Mets.

Under Mike Scioscia, the American League manager of the year, the Angels beat out Howe’s Oakland Athletics and Piniella’s Seattle Mariners en route to the World Series and beat Baker’s San Francisco Giants for the title.

Scioscia agreed to his contract two years ago, in a season in which the Angels finished 41 games out of first place. The deal pays about $3 million over four years, with a club option for 2006.

Although he appears drastically underpaid, given how dramatically managers’ salaries have gone up and the Angels’ championship, the team did not offer a raise and the manager did not ask for one. Unlike numerous managers, including Baker, Scioscia does not retain an agent.

“It never crossed my mind to go in there and renegotiate,” he said. “I got a contract that was fairly reflective of what a manager should get who had not achieved, and I had not achieved prior to last year. If we keep things going in the right direction, the contract issues will take care of themselves.”

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Winning is the best promotion, as Disney learned the hard way. Even after the Angels slapped their fans with a stiff increase in ticket prices, the team is on the verge of setting a sales record for season tickets and on course to challenge the season attendance record.

The Angels already have sold 18,000 season tickets, said Kevin Uhlich, senior vice president of business operations. The franchise record is 18,747, set in 1990, and Uhlich noted the sales pace traditionally picks up in March, as spring training focuses attention on the coming season. The current figures represent a 40% increase over last season, fairly remarkable given the slumping economy.

“The community is really getting excited about this team,” Uhlich said.

The 74 suites are sold out; 19 went unsold last year. The group sales department has sold more than 60,000 tickets, double the number from this time last year.

If the team contends all summer, Uhlich said, the Angels could top the single-season attendance record of 2.8 million, set in 1982. The Angels drew 2.3 million last season.

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Shortstop David Eckstein is focus personified, so much so that he insists he never saw any of the rally monkey antics last season.

“I don’t look up at the scoreboard,” he said.

He finally did last November, when scoreboards in Japanese stadiums flashed rally monkey clips as Eckstein and other major leaguers toured Japan.

Eckstein said he laughed but the Japanese fans did not understand this strange American custom.

“They had no clue,” he said.

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The Angels are finalizing the design of their championship ring, expected to feature the team logo in an A of rubies and a halo of diamonds, surrounded by even more diamonds. The ring will probably include depictions of Edison Field, the 2002 World Series logo and championship trophy. Angel players will get the rings before the April 1 game against the Texas Rangers. All fans that night will receive a replica ring -- minus the rubies and diamonds, of course.