Setting It Right

In the Fish Bowl, they do not boo Tim Salmon. Never have, never will. It’s not proper etiquette to boo your host.

Salmon and his wife Marci buy 100 tickets for each game at Edison Field, then distribute them among youth groups, churches, shelters and other charitable organizations. The “Fish Bowl” block of tickets--a cute if obvious pun on Salmon’s last name--is located in the right-field stands, so the right fielder can turn around and hear cheers, greetings and thanks from the fans he has treated to a game.

“I can count on at least a small section of people not ragging me,” he says, chuckling.

In the world according to Mo Vaughn, everyone else in the ballpark would have been booing Salmon during his terrible 2001 season. It’s that East Coast intensity, Vaughn would say. Life in, well, a fish bowl.

Fans would remind you--loudly, rudely and daily--just how much you stink. So would columnists in the sports pages, and callers on the radio. Team executives would be quoted--anonymously, of course--ruing the day they guaranteed you $40 million.

Not in Anaheim, not with Salmon. The national face of the team changes from Jim Edmonds to Vaughn to Darin Erstad, but Salmon remains a local treasure, a quiet pillar of strength, a model of consistency and excellence. His reservoir of goodwill, filled by a decade of one 30-homer season after another and by twice skipping free agency to stay with the pennant-challenged Angels, served him well during the worst season of his career.

“Last year, all around, I was very fortunate,” he says. “Everybody around me was supporting me--fans, teammates, media, management.”

Said General Manager Bill Stoneman, “There were a lot of us who were feeling for Tim.”

So, when Salmon joked that the Fish Bowl assured him of a few dozen fans cheering for him, he quickly acknowledged that thousands of other fans had done so too. No more than scattered boos were heard last year.

“That’s one thing about Angel fans that I’ve always known,” he said. “We have our loyal Angel fans. They may be outnumbered many times, but they are supportive.”

That loyalty could be severely tested this year. If Salmon, 33, puts up another season like the last one, the waters could be rough outside the Fish Bowl.

One wretched season? Happens to the best of them, particularly when injuries are involved. Another one? That would be troubling for any team and particularly problematic for this one.

The Angels are wedded to Salmon, for better or for worse, for the next four years, at a cost of $40 million, their longest and largest financial commitment among players. The New York Yankees, awash in cash, can afford to cut a fading millionaire or two and write off the contracts. The Angels would be horrified at the thought.

To say the Angels will win if Salmon packs his typical punch is an overstatement. The Angels haven’t won a division championship since 1986, when Salmon was in high school.

But if Salmon doesn’t hit, the Angels won’t win. In 1999, with Salmon hampered by a wrist injury and Edmonds by a shoulder injury, the Angels lost 92 games and finished last. Last season, with Salmon, Vaughn and Erstad all bitten by the injury bug, the Angels finished 41 games out of first place.

“You can’t underestimate how important he is,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Not to put too much pressure on one guy, but he’s absolutely a key to our lineup.”

Salmon does not shy away from that burden, or hide behind cliches about how nine men make a lineup, not one. He bats third, the spot traditionally reserved for the best hitter, a slot that demands he drive in the hitters ahead of him and get on base for the power hitters behind him. The hitter who replaces him in the lineup might be more comfortable doing one or the other, but not both.

“It’s a team game, but the team is made up of components, and if they can’t do what’s expected, the whole thing bogs down,” Salmon said. “If it’s the right guy in the right situation, it can really cause problems.”

Scioscia used 130 starting lineups last season, more than all but one American League rival, grasping for offense from the few players providing it. Scott Spiezio batted everywhere from second to ninth. Scioscia dropped Salmon to sixth and, for the first time in his career, seventh.

“You’d like to say, ‘We’re a team and we can rebound,’” Salmon said. “Bottom line is, certain guys carry a different impact on the game. I realize that.

“The difference between us being good when I hit 30 home runs, drive in 100 runs and score 100 runs vs. last year, when I did about half that, affects everybody in the lineup.”

Salmon, a lifetime .291 hitter, batted a career-low .227 last season. He drove in 49 runs, another career low. The franchise leader in home runs went four weeks without hitting one. He hit 17 in all, tying a career low.

He hit .233 in April, stirring little concern because he typically starts slowly. Then he hit .188 in May, .198 in June and .194 in July, when the Angels had seen enough and put him on the disabled list.

Stoneman guaranteed that $40-million contract extension to Salmon in March. The general manager insists he did not fall ill with buyer’s remorse.

“You can’t,” he said. “You make a commitment and you go forward.”

So what sent Salmon spiraling? He was never at full strength last year, not after rehabilitation from foot and shoulder surgeries prevented him from completing his usual off-season workouts and from lifting weights during the season, and not after a groin injury interrupted his spring training.

“And how much of it was in his head?” Stoneman said. “The real answer is, probably all of the above.”

For so many years, Salmon was tagged as the best player never to appear in the All-Star game. In one startling year, Salmon was tagged as a veteran whose contract might outlast his skills.

You can rehabilitate an injury, but you cannot regain lost bat speed or reaction time. With every hitless game last season, Salmon could not help but wonder whether this was the beginning of the end.

“There were times where you’re getting your head beat in. Guys were beating you who shouldn’t be beating you,” he said.

“Yeah, there’s doubt. Yeah, there’s questions. You’re denying the fact you’re not healthy. You’re assuming these guys are beating you because they’re better. Then you step back and say, ‘Let me see what I can do when I’m healthy.’ You lose touch with reality and perspective.”

Salmon appeared physically and mentally sound this spring. To the world, the monstrous home runs offered proof. To him, the first slider he hit offered proof.

“Last year? Hitting the slider? I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I was always looking for a fastball. When I can be strong, I can let the ball come to me, and I can react. I don’t have to be concerned with swinging at the first fastball I see. I can let it go and have confidence I can hit the slider.”

In Anaheim, right field belongs to Salmon, just as first base belongs to Jeff Bagwell in Houston and center field belongs to Bernie Williams in New York. Tonight, for the 10th consecutive opener, Salmon starts in right field for the Angels.

In the previous 10 openers, the Angels started 10 right fielders: Von Hayes, Dave Winfield, Claudell Washington, Tony Armas, Chili Davis, George Hendrick, Ruppert Jones, Reggie Jackson, Fred Lynn and Bob Clark.

The long-suffering Angel fans have seen the revolving door that preceded Salmon. They’re in no hurry to look ahead to the next right fielder, or parade of right fielders. One poor year is easily forgiven.

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Down Season

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