Angels Win This Battle by Choosing Not to Fight

They scored a dozen runs, slapped around 16 hits, slid into half a dozen doubles, sprinted to a couple of stolen bases, ran around Angel Stadium like kids trying to outrace the last shadows of summer.

Yet, the Angels beat the New York Yankees on Saturday because of those precious moments when they were not afraid to stand still.

The Yankees threw a fastball at Vladimir Guerrero’s neck, and he shrugged.

The Yankees threw a fastball behind Juan Rivera, and he screamed, but he did not charge.

The Yankees drilled a fastball into the right arm of Adam Kennedy, and he ran to first base with his head down.

“I’ve had my fill of all that,” Kennedy said with a grin.

On the flame-tattooed right arm of a journeyman named Brian Bruney, the Yankees did their best to pick a fight with one of the few teams that do not fear them.

The Angels, finally, were man enough not to fight back.

A couple of weeks after all that silliness in Texas, the Angels swung only with their bats, and punched only with their fastballs, and retaliated only on that giant board above right field.

It read, Angels 12, Yankees 7.

Thus hitting the Yankees’ psyche right on the kisser.

The Angels have two straight wins over the Yankees here, they are three games ahead of the Yankees since July, they have the best record in baseball since then, their playoff rush beginning with restraint.

“It’s time for us to start putting the game ahead of everything else, including our personal feelings,” Kennedy said. “It’s time to focus on the only thing that matters.”

That would be wins, and after this one, the Angels draped their weary bodies across clubhouse couches and gazed up at the televisions and watched, well, what do you think they watched?

Some teams celebrate big wins by howling at reruns of “Die Hard.”

The Angels were watching the Little League World Series.

“This is really just fun, all of it,” said Howie Kendrick, the kid who has begun his major league career with a .650 average against the Yankees after going four for four with a homer.

On the other side, well, they were dying hard, particularly one Alex Rodriguez.

After striking out three times to give him seven strikeouts in two days here -- a numbing 15 strikeouts in his last 36 at-bats -- A-Rod spent an hour afterward hitting balls in the underground batting cage.

He was asked, is it hard getting through this?.

“Getting through what? Two games? Two days?” he said, shaking his head. “Tomorrow is a new day. Three line drives and I can be a hero real quick.”

And to think, the game’s highest-paid player even had a pregame pep talk from the greatest coach in history.

Yep, John Wooden came into the Yankees locker room Saturday morning and patiently explained his pyramid philosophy to Rodriguez while the slugger listened in apparent wide-eyed wonder.

Didn’t that do any good?

“He didn’t tell me anything about hitting a curveball,” Rodriguez said with a smile.

Wooden also visited the Angels clubhouse, where his mantras seemed to work on a team that has been locked in a quiet battle with their manager over this retaliation business.

A couple of weeks ago after the suspension-producing brawl in Texas, the veterans remained defiant in the face of Scioscia’s constant scolding.

“It’s all part of baseball,” the players said, again and again.

So eyebrows were raised Saturday when Santana, protecting a 5-2 lead in the fifth inning, hit Jeter in the hand.

Of course, in that situation he didn’t mean it. But, of course, the Yankees would try to retaliate.

And, sure enough, in the bottom of the fifth, even though his team was trailing only 5-4, Bruney threw at Guerrero, then threw at Rivera.

“It got away from him, didn’t it?” said Jeter, wink, wink,

Bruney was a little more honest.

“Everybody needs to be protected,” he said. “These guys go to war for us every day, you’ve got to protect every one of your guys.”

Excusing him the knucklehead “war” reference, that sort of thinking leads to macho losses and noble embarrassments.

It is, however, the sort of thinking shared by virtually every team in baseball, so it was a mild surprise when the mild Guerrero did nothing after being knocked down, and a downright shock when Rivera found his composure.

“[Sal] Fasano told me it was in retaliation for Jeter,” Rivera said through an interpreter about the Yankees catcher. “I told him, it’s not like Santana was trying to hit Jeter.”

And then?

“I never even thought about going to the mound,” he said. “I’m not the kind of player to start a fight.”

He even apologized for screaming and gesturing to Jorge Posada as the Yankees regular catcher, who began the game on the bench, walked to the top of the dugout steps in a threatening manner.

“I take responsibility for that, it was all me, that was my fault,” Rivera said.

Who would have thought those would be fighting words? Rivera struck out to end the fifth inning, but in the ensuing three innings, the Angels scored seven runs and had seven hits to win a game and validate a manager.

“Our guys were upset, but I give them credit for maintaining their composure,” Scioscia said.

Even when the scoreboard was suddenly filled with photos of Hooters’ girls after the 10 runs ensured that every fan would get a coupon for free wings.

“I heard about it, but I never saw that, we’re not watching that stuff, we are playing hard, our heads are down,” Kendrick said.

Thankfully, so are their dukes.

Extra Points

* Let me see if I’ve got this straight.

When Milton Bradley repeatedly threw public temper tantrums, embarrassing the Dodgers organization and distracting his teammates, he was called a thug.

When Brad Penny does the same thing, he’s called a competitor?

* I am certain that USC will have one of the nation’s top running backs this season.

I just have no idea who it will be.

I am also certain that USC will eventually have one of the nation’s most efficient quarterbacks.

But, again, I have no idea who that will be.

Is Saturday’s opener at Arkansas going to be fun or what?

* Has there been a more overlooked 10-2, bowl-winning team this summer than UCLA?

It says here that the Bruins will be unbeaten when they travel to Notre Dame on Oct. 21. It also says they will continue to be overlooked unless they play well there.

In some other city on that date, it will be Game 1 of the World Series. In South Bend, it will be the Super Bowl for Karl Dorrell.