Players have fine major league baseball seasons

Jeff Tully

BURBANK -- With the major league baseball regular season completed and

the playoffs in full swing, one local player is still competing, while

another is finished for the year.

Here is a look at the season and how the players -- Mike Magnante of

the Oakland Athletics and Jeff Cirillo of the Colorado Rockies -- have

fared.

MIKE MAGNANTE

Unlike Cirillo, Magnante is still playing, as his A’s are in the first

round of a best-of-five American league divisional series against the

world champion New York Yankees.

Magnante, a former Burroughs High and UCLA standout, helped Oakland to

a 102-60 regular-season record and a second-place finish in the AL

Western Division, 14 games behind the record-setting Seattle Mariners

(116-46).

The A’s earned a wild-card berth into the postseason.

With a 2-0 win Thursday and a 5-3 victory Wednesday against the

Yankees, the A’s are one game away from advancing to the

league-championship series. Magnante didn’t pitch in either game.

Magnante, a 36-year-old left-handed short-relief pitcher has had a

productive season. The 14-year veteran earned a career-high mark by

appearing in 65 regular-season games. Along with a 3-1 record in 55 1/3

innings -- his best since 1991 -- Magnante had a 2.77 earned-run average,

more than a run below his 3.99 career ERA.

In the regular season, Magnante struck out 23 and allowed 13 walks, 50

hits and 23 runs-- 17 earned.

Magnante -- 6-foot-1, 185 pounds -- who has also played for the Kansas

City Royals, Houston Astros and Anaheim Angels, is a member of the UCLA

Baseball Hall of Fame.

JEFF CIRILLO

For the former Providence High and USC star, his season ended Sunday

when his Rockies failed to make the playoffs.

At 75-89, Colorado finished last in the National League Western

Division, 19 games behind the pennant-winning Arizona Diamondbacks.

Cirillo, 32, a 6-1, 195-pound third baseman, was sidelined earlier in

the season with a strained left rib cage muscle. As a result, the usually

reliable player played in 138 games, his lowest result since 1995.

Although Cirillo didn’t play as well has he had the previous two

seasons when he batted .326 both seasons, the 2000 all-star finished this

year with a .312 average, a point above his career average.

In 528 at-bats, Cirillo had 165 hits, 83 runs batted in, 43 walks, 28

doubles, four triples a career-best 17 home runs and 12 stolen bases.

Cirillo also had a career year at third base, as he had a stellar .982

fielding percentage with just seven errors in 390 total attempts. He also

had 77 putouts.

Cirillo, who has also played for the Milwaukee Brewers, is a former

USC star and CIF Southern Section Small Schools Player of the Year for

the Pioneers.