With These Teams, Fate May Get in the Way

They should have held this Angels-Red Sox series a few blocks down Katella Avenue, at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Starting Friday the 13th.

Other teams--the Chicago Cubs, and every squad in Cleveland come to mind--suffer bad breaks or stretches of futility. The Angels and Red Sox are defined by them.

These are teams whose failures are so deeply ingrained it only takes the mention of select names to make fans cringe. Ask a Red Sox follower if he’s still haunted by the thoughts of Babe Ruth, Bucky Dent or Bill Buckner, or an Angel fan if he can forget Donnie Moore, Dave Henderson or Gene Mauch.

It’s fitting that their two darkest moments are linked: the Angels were one strike away from the World Series in 1986 when Henderson homered off Moore; that was the year the ball and the world championship dribbled between Buckner’s legs.

The Red Sox haven’t won a World Series since 1918, the year before they traded Babe Ruth. The Angels are still waiting for their first playoff series victory.

Put them together and it’s like Charlie Brown pitching to Shleprock.

Take the first run of the game for each team Monday. You had to feel for the pitchers. Tim Salmon reached first on an error by Boston third baseman Shea Hillenbrand, scoring on Garret Anderson’s double. And Boston’s first base runner, Manny Ramirez, was safe after he hit a weak grounder that somehow stayed fair inside third base before coming to a halt. He came around to score two batters later.

It turned out to be an entertaining game, won by the Angels with two runs in the bottom of the eighth for a comeback, 5-4, victory.

The franchises might have unfortunate histories, but these two teams are good.

In 2002 the Angels and Red Sox are battling for division crowns, fighting for the wild-card spot should they fail and grappling with the specter of past failures.

Oh, they won’t admit that last part. They prefer to sail along in blissful ignorance. They even dare to tempt the ghosts.

Did Benji Gil really light a cigar after the Angels beat the Mariners on Sunday and tell reporters that he was “trying to get into smoking shape for when we win the pennant”?

Didn’t Boston ace Pedro Martinez challenge the Curse of the Bambino last year when he said “Wake up the Bambino--I’ll drill him in the...”?

Foolish mortals. All you can do is light a candle for their poor, ignorant souls.

Martinez won’t acknowledge the supernatural.

“Are there curses around here?” he said before Monday night’s game. “Where, in Anaheim? I thought we were supposed to have angels around here.

“Nobody’s carrying a curse around here. I’m not. Don’t ask me.”

“It’s in your mind. In your coconut head ... cabeza de coco.”

He also said that--what a minute, did he just insult me in two languages? That’s a first. Anyway, not long after he said he didn’t believe in curses, he knocked on wood while discussing his pitching success. Talk about mixed messages.

When a reporter told him about the legend that Edison Field (nee Anaheim Stadium) was built on an Indian burial ground, Martinez said: “Maybe wake them up. They could give me a hand.”

“I’m not afraid of that ... dead is dead.”

Just know this: Martinez hurt his shoulder shortly after he balked at the Babe’s legacy, and now he has to take the mound on the spirits he challenged.

As for Molina, he said Monday that he was joking about that pennant-practice thing. He said he often smokes stogies (he prefers a Padron anniversary series cigar) after games, even losses, and that “There’s still way too much baseball to be played for anybody to celebrate.”

Too late. You shouldn’t tempt fate--don’t even try to coax a smile from her. If fate has a sense of humor, how come the Angels never get to laugh last?

Their newest solution is to avoid discussing the curse in the hopes it goes away.

“I’ve heard it more in the past,” Gil said. “This year, we don’t talk about it. You can say there’s luck. You can make your luck, some people say. I think it’s just a matter of us, keep on playing the way we’ve been playing.”

Manager Mike Scioscia knows the Angels haven’t won a thing yet. He doesn’t mind if his players talk playoffs, as long as they realize that they will reach them by their actions and not their words.

In the meantime, there’s no gag order. “Guys are free to say whatever they want,” Scioscia said.

It’s good to see he’s such a believer in First Amendment principles.

“We know there are going to be baseball playoffs,” Scioscia said. “Well we hope. Certainly it’s our goal to be in them. Our message is clear. We know the challenge ahead of us. There’s a huge challenge ahead before we even get to the playoffs.”

Scioscia makes a good point. With labor talks unsettled there might not be any postseason this year. Wouldn’t it be something if the Angels and the Red Sox were both leading their divisions, with the injury to Yankee closer Mariano Riviera potentially unlocking the door to the World Series, and a strike wiped out the playoffs?

With these two teams in the mix, it’s almost inevitable.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected]