He Gets Away Clean With Robbery in Broad Daylight

It was likely that Dodgers rookie pitcher Chad Billingsley left Angel Stadium on Sunday with his hand on his wallet. His pocket already had been picked once.

The thief was Orlando Cabrera, who not only stole home against Billingsley in the third inning of the Angels’ 4-0 win over the Dodgers, but did it so effectively that Billingsley didn’t even throw to the plate.

“That was about as clean as it gets -- that was something special,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Poor Billingsley, 21, and in the middle of his 19th inning as a big league pitcher, looked like somebody who had just taken a pie to the face. Cabrera had time to do that too, after he slid across home, but he probably continued into the Dodgers dugout and got Billingsley’s car keys and a couple of his watches and rings.

Talk about grand theft.

“I didn’t hear anything being said,” Billingsley said afterward. “

Billingsley said that he learned from this mistake and that it won’t happen again. Grady Little, the Dodgers’ manager, said about the same thing, only in a slightly different tone.

Stealing home in the major leagues happens about as often as, well, the Dodgers’ winning a playoff game. The Angels have done it 27 times in their 46 seasons, only six times since 1992 and not at all since Tony Phillips in 1997. Usually, you get a slam-bang play, a collision at home, lots of dirt flying and an umpire flailing his arms with the call. This one was like walking into a bank with a laundry bag, going from teller to teller and then having the bank president bring a limo around to the front for the getaway.

“Is there anything else we can do for you, Mr. Cabrera?”

Cabrera, the Angels’ shortstop, did much more than just give Billingsley a day to remember. When he doubled in the third inning, it marked his 59th consecutive game on base, most in the major leagues since 1960. But his felony at home plate, in front of another Angels sellout of 44,223, may sear longer and stronger in people’s memories.

Like most great moments in sports, this one was more strategy than spontaneity.

“I watched him pitching with nobody on base early in the game,” Cabrera said. “I noticed his motion, he would pause, like a lot of the Japanese pitchers do.”

So when Cabrera got on third base, after doubling home Chone Figgins and advancing to third when J.D. Drew couldn’t find the handle along the wall in right field, he decided it was time to give it a shot. But not before he got one piece of crucial business out of the way.

Cleanup hitter Vladimir Guerrero was at the plate, in the way, ready to swing, always ready to swing. Scioscia, for one, immediately saw the dilemma when Cabrera took off.

“O.C. is taking a chance with a guy who has the most bat speed in baseball in the box,” he said.

Cabrera, of course, is a veteran. He knew that, in this situation, a failure to communicate might result in a failure to eat solid food for several months. And so he waited as Guerrero took the first pitch and then looked at his teammate. The specifics of that communication were elusive, but through a series of nods, grunts in English and Spanish or secret decoder winks, the word got through.

“I wasn’t going to go unless he knew,” Cabrera said. “You think I’m crazy?”

Guerrero said, “I knew he was coming.”

And so, as the right-handed Billingsley was adjusting the gum in his mouth or flossing his teeth, Guerrero stepped out of the way just in time and Cabrera hit the dirt and slid across home plate. If these guys weren’t baseball players, they could be doing choreography for Broadway musicals.

It happened so fast that many missed it. Not Rex Hudler, the Angels TV commentator. Not only did Hudler see this one, and yell loudly into his microphone, he had lived one of his own: 1995, Angel Stadium, Hudler on third in a game against the Detroit Tigers, big, ponderous left-hander David Wells on the mound.

“I told Rick Burleson [coaching at third] that I could get this guy,” Hudler said. “He told me no. I told him I wouldn’t try. I lied.”

Hudler stole home, then the next day sent a signed baseball to Wells in the Tiger clubhouse. It read: “Don’t ever underestimate the Wonder Dog.”

It’s not clear whether Cabrera and Billingsley will ever have a chance to sit down and talk about July 2, 2006. The topic might be a bit inappropriate over cocktails and dinner.

Unarmed robbery.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at Bill.Dwyre@latimes.com. For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.