LAA Road Tripper

Very sad. I, too was at Game 5 in '86. I was standing about 10 feet from the left field foul pole. It really seemed to me that Hendu would fly out to Brian Downing in LF. But then the ball kept going... and going...and then Downing put his head down and so did I. That was a hard loss to forget and, of course, it took 16 years for vindication.

But baseball's baseball and real life is real life. Twenty years ago I was in Boston on a mid-November Sunday ready for a week of training. My buddy, Joel from Chicago was hired on with the same company and we headed down to Fanueil Hall to find a pub to watch his Bears. Joel had heard my Game 5 story so many times he could recite it verbatim. We found a booth and I came across a flyer that said that Dave Henderson would be signing lithographs of his ALCS home run all weekend long on behalf of, oddly enough, Angelman Syndrome. I believe he had a child that was afflicted. The flyer mentioned that Dave would appear at a separate restaurant each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I asked the waiter where the Sunday pub was. "This is it, " he said. Hendu would be signing from 12:30 to 2:30. I looked at my watch. 2:00. I peered over my left shoulder and ten feet away was Dave Henderson. I shook his hand, laughingly explained to him how he broke my heart nine years earlier and chatted with him for a couple of minutes until a young mother with with a daughter who suffered with the disorder grabbed his attention. To me, he was a gracious man. RIP Hendu.

I am sure he can afford his own gifts. The guy treats people well from what I have read, so I could see him doing something similar to what Rivera did when he retired, which was thank the behind the scenes guys at each stadium.

Perhaps, Strad. I guess I'm just not a fan of the look-at-me, false humility associated with these farewell tours. As many issues I've had regarding Kobe's often times lack of class that rides along with his unworldly talent, I was very impressed that he shot down any idea of a similar thing for him.

Thanks for the forewarning, David so that everyone has 2016 to honor you and give you gifts. Not that that entered your mind or anything.

i'd love to add lackey to our stable of young pitchers.

Yeah, but a deal needs to be equineable for both sides.

That whole inning was set off when Harvey threw the 3-2 slider to Cain to lead off the inning. Throw a 98 MPH heater down the middle of the plate and make Cain earn it. At that point with a two run lead in the 9th, a walk, hit, home run are all equal. Bad choice to be too fine.

Pulling for the Mets but Royals in 6.

Another thing I remember about game 5 is that Rob Wilfong drove in Ruppert Jones with one out to score the tying run in the bottom of the 9th. Everyone in the stadium was watching the close play at the plate, including Wilfong! I remember looking at 2nd and thinking why in the hell isn't Wilfong at 2nd? First of all, you're at home so he should have run towards 2nd as soon as he saw the ball was going through. If they cut it off and throw him out that elimated the close play at the plate and you've tied the game. If he goes to 2nd and the throw goes to the plate, he's at 2nd base with only one out with Schofield and Downing coming up.

Bingo. One of the little-regarded brain farts that rarely gets brought up about that game. I always caution people that say things such as "he would have scored since Schofield singled." Not necessarily. The whole situation changes. You never know. That said, really, really dumb move by Wilfong. I was standing near the left field foul pole that day and I'll never forget how much that loss hurt after '82 and to a lesser extent, '84 and '85.

But as I reflected back on that moment years later and after reading "One Pitch Away" about the entire '86 playoffs, one thing began to bother me and it's this. That Angel team was a veteran group. If true, the story I hear is that after Game 5 the team was as crestfallen as we immature, reactive fans generally are. The plane back to Boston was apparently like a funeral. Why? They had Reggie, Boone, Grich, DeCinces, Candelaria, etc. Couldn't someone step up and calm that clubhouse down?

2014 ALDS vs. 2015 ALDS. In 2014, KC outfield and Cain in particular seemed to catch everything. This year, not so much.

Save it. Baseball players have long memories. No need for distractions from the task at hand.

Went to the Ranger game Tuesday night while in town for business and saw them pumping this up. Does Texas's marketing department know that the Angels' primary color is red even more than the home team? Pretty funny. A blue out makes better sense.

In Dallas for meetings tomorrow so I took in the Tiger-Ranger game. Detroit has got to be the poorest defensive team I've seen all year. Four errors and could have easily been 6. Was hoping beyond hope that Kinsler's drive would find a gap and it almost did. And I agree with an earlier poster that Davis's bunt attempt in the 9th was brainless.

But that doesn't make sense because if the A's could have easily thrown cron out, they would have done so to prevent a run from scoring

It forces the cutoff man to make a decision. Percentage play by him. Let the ball through and maybe get the out or take the sure thing and let the run score.

I don't know how his next week is going to shake out but there is no denying that Johnny G has added a huge shot of adrenaline to this club.

Why did Freese try to advance there?

Not really a bad move. I was surprised Cron went home and he could have easily been thrown out. By taking third, Freese was protecting Cron forcing the A's to make decision. Hence the go ahead run scores. I can live with it.

I think Mike will have his fourth consecutive Top 2 finish in the MVP race but I have to agree with laagamer. Donaldson has it locked up. Trout's August did him in because he was leading by a nice gap at the end of July.

In my mind, Edmond's is the best ever recorded, bar none. It's the only time I've seen someone dive 100% directly away from home plate and make the catch. That's an insane angle.

As for Trout, I'd put last night's slightly ahead of 2012 Baltimore.

From all accounts, Yogi seemed like a genuinely good guy. The true test of a man is not necessarily how he handles failure - although that's important - but how he handles success. Most don't do well. Yogi excelled.

In a different way, however, one thing that always puzzled me was how this stocky, 5'7, not really athletic looking dude not only played professional baseball and cracked the major leagues but became an upper echelon Hall of Famer. If it were today, who would look at him and even give him the chance? That's probably another of his endearing qualities. He gave the average guy hope.

70 to 75 wins.

See, Mike? That's what you do with a straight down-the-middle first pitch fastball. Well done.

Trout has been a total gift to this franchise and is certainly going to have his down times during his career but the last month has been a little much to take as a fan. The biggest frustration is that although production will fluctuate for every player even with Trout's talent, it's what many would consider his unnecessary poor approach making it all worse. I don't know maybe it's just a perception and I haven't run the numbers but here's another concern: As good as he has been, historically good, a disturbing trend has been that he fades just about every year towards the end. It's almost like he runs out of gas in the last 30-40 games. This year he just started a little early.

As an Angel fan, and the game itself was great but I remember one of the greatest turning-point moments. 2002 Game 4 ALDS, Yankees leading early 1-0, runner at first with one out and Robin Ventura hit a booming shot destined for the right center field seats. But it never got there. Instead the ball hit off the top of the fence right before the wall drops down a few feet. A foot or two higher or a foot or two to the left and it's 3-0 NY.

Erstad quickly threw the ball back in, holding the runners at 2nd and 3rd and the Angels got out of the inning unscathed. Right then I thought all the old demons might be suffocating.

A few games come to mind for me. For impact, Game 7 of the Twins - Braves World Series of 1991. 0-0 into extras, Jack Morris going the distance and getting the win when Minnesota punched across a run in the bottom of the 10th. Lots of back and forth for a scoreless game. Truly epic.

Another Game 7 in 1960 between the Pirates and Yankees. Pittsburgh had won three tight games, New York won three blowouts and trailed 9-7 in the ninth, then 9-8 with one out and runners on 1st and 3rd. Then an amazing play happened. A quick grounder to the first baseman who steps on the base for the force and tries to complete the double play but Mantle somehow avoids the out, curls around and dives back into first safely. Meanwhile, the tying run scores. I'm sure the sighs from the Forbes Field crowd came from the belief that the big bad Yankees get all the breaks and were going to win again. Until Light hitting Bill Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth and jacked a 430 foot home run over the left field wall.

As for regular season offense, I remember the 23-22 Phillies win in 10 innings over the Cubs in '79.

You make it seem like the government is powerless and they wouldnt be able to plant bombs under a building, or that they wouldnt be able to keep a lid on it.  You also seem pretty clueless as to whats out there, like I said before.  Nobody is claiming everything on the internet is real, but theres enough credible sources out there to justify what im saying is accurate.  If you dont want to listen to it thats on you, but just dont give me the "in this day and age" stuff about how nobody has said anything.  Heres documented proof of firefighters in New York City detailing what they heard.  

 

 

These are some of the eyewitness accounts I was telling you about, which you dismissed as "people simply just talking and not backed by anything."  There were many others in New York City who can prove they were at the scene, and they all said the same thing about the bombs going off to collapse the buildings.  Your ignorance is hilarious.  Do yourself a favor and maybe really look into that google thing you were talking about.

Dude, you're really stretching but this has been good for me to see first hand the irrationality of the Truther movement. I'll make my final comments on this and then we can move on to our favorite baseball team.

Again, let me explain what I'm not saying. I don't believe that the government is all good and everyone is always doing the right thing. There are lots of bad people in the world with plans, organized or not, to do plenty of bad things. But is it possible to do every bad thing those bad people want to do? I would submit to you that it's not. And 9/11 is a good example of that. There are just too many moving parts requiring too many human beings that would need to be involved with access to too many areas. I assume you've seen a controlled demolition but do you really understand the effort, planning and preparation it takes to accomplish that? But I'm supposed to believe that countless unnamed people were able to infiltrate both buildings over who knows how long without any record of any of it and nobody, even if they were thinking they were doing something else in the process, came to their senses afterward when 3000 people died to talk to someone about it. Nobody. Again, maybe some group, the government or whatever had some big elaborate scheme but motive alone isn't enough. That, in a nutshell, is what you're selling. Motive is fact in the Truther world.

I don't dispute that folks hear and assume certain things in a chaotic situation. They do and may be convinced of it. That doesn't verify anything. So since you brought up the subject of ignorance let's discuss that. Seems to me you keep ignoring logic and are building on air. You and your ilk still can't answer that basic foundational point because if you did with any bit of intellectual honesty, your entire premise falls apart. But I'm sure you'll find that argument hilarious.

BTW, so as not to veer off topic, I believe that all of my previous arguments reinforce Scotty's original point #7 that states that the Angels play the M's and A's 9 more times which are not good Major League Baseball teams. You just have to sift through my words.

So are you telling me that there hasnt been one credible source that the Twin Towers were taken down via a controlled demolition? There are eye witness accounts who were there on that day. Not to mention, the people who made the building said it wouldnt have been possible for them to collapse like that. Or the owner of the buildings getting a hefty insurance policy about a month before the bombings.

But of course, you wouldnt know that because all you do is watch CNN and take their word as true. And of course, they arent going to tell you that. Im laughing at you because you claim if such a conspiracy could be true somebody would talk about it. But in my opinion your pretty clueless, because people are talking about it. Maybe you just dont know about it or are too lazy to do a google search.

Credible source? I don't know. Credible evidence? Haven't seen anything of any real substance. Maybe I should clarify. People simply talking doesn't really mean anything if it's just chatter and not backed by anything. Eyewitnesses? OK. If your conspiracy blogs say so. There were a few eyewitnesses that saw a couple of passenger planes hit those towers, too. I might even be so bold as to suggest there are few more of them than your so-called eyewitnesses. Just a hunch.

But if these were planned demolitions, how again was that accomplished? Seems like there would have to be quite a few folks involved with some access to quite a few floors for that to happen. Good to know all of those folks kept quiet after 3000 people died. Guess I missed where you addressed that.

Finally, big leap by you there on how I believe everything coming out of CNN. Tell you what. I'll keep believing a network I rarely watch, you keep laughing at my cluelessness and I'll look into this Google thing. Because if I've learned anything it's that the internet doesn't lie. Deal?