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Sunday, September 15, 2002

By Steve Ziants, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

We realize there were distractions aplenty this week. The opening of the NFL season. Kids back in school. Hootie Johnson's covert effort to woo next year's Chic-fil-A Classic to Augusta. That wonderful shot-making in Flushing Meadows: Steffi to Bridgette, Bridgette to Steffi. Thanks, CBS. (Andre vs. Pete wasn't too shabby, either.) And could we have possibly waited one more week for the season debut of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

We couldn't have crammed much more into these past 168 hours. No doubt Steelers fans didn't even realize it was Wednesday until lunchtime Friday.

Who can blame you if you didn't have time for playoff races. Particularly when just about every game that mattered started, for Guy In The Stands readers anyway, well past last call for medication on the ward.

So for those who missed the two best series of the two best races -- that's Angels vs. A's (AL West) and Dodgers vs. Giants (NL wild card) for the uninformed -- allow The Guy to provide a Cliff's Notes version of what you missed.

Dear Diary ...

Monday: A day for setting the emotional table for the season's final three weeks.

A story surfaces in Disneyville that the A's placed a clandestine order for 2,000 of Anaheim's sacred "Rally Monkeys" with the idea of possibly distributing them to fans for voodoo-like destruction during the four-game reprise back in Oakland this week. "It is 100 percent factually untrue," says David Alioto, A's VP for sales and marketing. Nevertheless, the A's weren't exactly feeling bad about the untruth. Whispered another club official: "[The Angels] might be a little paranoid. We think it's funny."

The gay mood carries over to the Giants, who are similarly one-upped by the rival Dodgers. The Giants, facing an all-night flight to Milwaukee after a game at Dodger Stadium Sept. 19, ask Dodgers brass to move up the 10:10 p.m. start time. The response (after the laughter subsides): Yeah, right. "I don't know if it's gamesmanship or the rivalry," says Giants VP Larry Baer. "Maybe it was strategic." Ya think?

Tuesday: The ex-Pirate factor rears its big head (and The Guy does mean big). Jason Schmidt allows two runs on six hits in 7 2/3 innings and the Giants beat the Dodgers, 5-2, to take a one-game lead in the wild card. The game is actually won when batterymate Benito Santiago sees Schmidt studying the L.A. lineup card a bit too intently before the game and tears it out of his hand. "Some pitchers are good, but they think too much," Santiago says. Must be all that extra room for brains Schmidt has.

Wednesday: The A's lose two in a row for the first time since Aug. 11-12, lose for only the third time in 26 games (that's 23-3!) and almost unbelievably find themselves only one game up on the Angels in the West. They lose, 6-5, on Shawn Wooten's two-run double in the seventh inning. And from the Oakland inner sanctum the cry is heard: Make that order for 4,000 Rally Monkeys!

But you want real numbers that don't compute? Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo hits the 70-pitch mark in the third inning and the 100 plateau in the fifth. The Guy is not Spin Williams, but this can't be a good thing. He goes on to throw 132 pitches in 6 2/3 innings -- more than any pitcher has ever thrown in Jim Tracy's two seasons as manager. . Yet Nomo beats the Giants, 7-3, to pull the teams even again. "He's probably mad at me that I didn't let him throw 175 today because he tells me all the time about the 180-pitch complete game he threw in Japan." It was actually 191, but you know how exchange rates are these days.

Thursday: Angels first baseman Scott Spiezio, the sensitive, artistic soul of the club, admits that he wishes he had a name like Wooten's. A name that lends itself to stadia poetry and the ever-popular one-liner: They're not booing, they're chanting Wooo-o-o-o-t! Wooo-o-o-o-t! "I even do that. 'Woot.' It's fun to say," Spiezio says.

Hold that thought. The series finale rollercoasters as if it were already October ... 3-1, Angels ... 5-3, A's ... 6-5, Angels ... then 6-6, bottom of the ninth. Can't you just feel that hot monkey love build? And up steps The Sensitive, Artistic One. Two outs and runners on first and third. He rockets a pitch from Billy Koch off the wall on a line right out of Vin Scully's mouth -- straight, true and in perfect iambic lilt. The Angels win, 7-6, and pull into a dead heat with the A's atop the AL West. All together now ... Spooo-o-o-o-t! Spooo-o-o-o-t!

Which brings us, in a cracked nutshell, to how the A's and Angels -- like the Dodgers and Giants in their parallel NL world -- went off tied into this weekend. And how, in the tradition of "Survivor," "American Idol" and other knockoff reality series, they set us up for sequels in Los Angeles and Oakland beginning tomorrow.

Postscript: First thing Friday morning, A's GM Billy Beane ups the Rally Monkey bid to 8,000, and asks that Disney throw in Cinderella's stepmother, Uncle Scar, Cruella DeVil and Ursula: The Devious Sea Witch. Disney, after another gloomy meeting with its accountants, can't afford to turn away any more business and gives in. Sellouts? Well, not quite. They sub-contract shipping and travel arrangements ... to the Dodgers.

Don't set your watch

With as tight as the wild-card race is in the National League, a Giants rainout in Atlanta Aug. 15 looms large. Not to mention painful. If that game means something, the Giants would have to fly from San Francisco to Atlanta for the makeup with the Braves Sept. 30. If they are tied with the Dodgers after that, they would fly back to the West Coast for a one-game playoff the following day. The winner of that game would then turn around and travel to Atlanta for the first round of the playoffs.

Strike out the candles

Arizona's Randy Johnson turned 39 Tuesday, but The Guy suspects he didn't have any trouble blowing out his candles. Not when you can still call on a 99 mph fastball that can change weather patterns. And in case we had forgotten that little fact, he broke the 300-strikeout barrier for a record fifth consecutive season in San Diego the night before. It was his sixth overall, tying the record of Nolan Ryan, who had his final 300K season (301) in 1989 at 42.

"I don't feel like I'm 39," said Johnson, who encored with a three-hit, 17-strikeout effort in a 5-0 shutout of the Brewers yesterday. "I feel like I still have a lot to give this team. I'm having my best years right now ... and I take a great deal of pride in that, just like [Ryan] did."

But unlike Ryan ...

How Randy Johnson's numbers (22-5, 2.43 ERA, 317 Ks) compare to other Hall of Fame pitchers of the past 50 years in the year they turned 39 (if they even made it to 39 i.e. Sandy Koufax):

Addendum: Even though he's still the uber-dominator, Johnson dispels the notion that, like Ryan, he'll pitch into his mid-40s. "When he was 45 or 46, he was still winning ballgames and striking people out. When I'm 46, I'll be on the golf course."

Good, wild & ugly

Good: Alex Rodriguez, Rangers, Monday: 5 AB, 2 R, 2 H, 2 HRs, 6 RBIs in a 12-7 win vs. the Mariners. Home runs 52 and 53, breaking his own remarkable record for shortstops and with his 10th multihomer game of the year putting him within one of tying the big-league record of 11 in a season. "I don't know if we truly realize what we're seeing," Manager Jerry Narron marvels.

Wild: Barry Bonds, Giants, Thursday: 0 AB, 0 R, 0 H, 5 BBs in a 3-2 loss vs. the Padres. One of two things happened here: Either the Pads, after watching Bonds go 12 for 30 with 6 HRs and 14 RBIs in his previous 12 games against them, wised up; or contrary to earlier reports, the San Diego Chicken has not retired.

Ugly: Eric Milton, Twins, Friday: 1 2/3 IP, 8 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 1 BB, 1 K in a 12-5 loss vs. the Indians. Perhaps the Twins should have left those 10 cases of champagne out of sight a while longer.

Series of the week

Giants (84-63) at Dodgers (84-64), tomorrow-Thursday. ... Unlike the AL West race, where it now appears both the A's and Angels will play in October, the loser of this race goes home. ... Giants are 42-26 within the NL West, including 9-6 vs. L.A. Will their 8-10 interleague record haunt them?

This 'n' that

How dominating has Randy Johnson been in his run of 300-strikeout seasons? Johnson has 1,729 since the beginning of 1998. Pedro Martinez is No. 2 with 1,240. ... With eight strikeouts today, Curt Schilling will reach 300, and with Johnson, become the only teammates with 300 in the same season. ... Rafael Palmeiro hit his 40th homer Monday, marking the first time teammates have hit 50 (A-Rod) and 40, respectively, in consecutive seasons. ... Miguel Tejada figures to obliterate the old Oakland franchise record of 187 hits in a season (Jose Canseco, 1988). Tejada broke the record with a single Friday and has 189 with 14 games still to play. ... You have to wonder if the Astros would be 7 1/2 games behind the Cardinals if Wade Miller had not spent April 13-May 29 on the DL. Miller is 12-1 since returning and 10-0 with a 2.11 ERA in 13 starts since June 26 going into today's start. ... Angels Manager Mike Scioscia has done big things in Anaheim, but he'd give his manager-of-the-year vote to Oakland's Art Howe because of the Jason Giambi Factor. "There's so many things that they've had to work on and explore over there, that to keep that group together, I know that Art has had a huge part in that." ... Canseco will self-publish his tell-all book. Publishers apparently fear profits would be lost in resulting lawsuits.

Shot and a jeer

Shot: The Guy is sure David Wells was merely up early and heading off for a quick workout after a good night's sleep at home when he had his teeth punched out in a New York deli at 5:50 a.m. last Saturday. Aren't you?

Jeer: Former Met-turned-broadcaster Keith Hernandez writes that the Mets have "no heart" and "quit a long time ago," then feebly recants when called out, saying that "if it was something I said that I believed in, I would stand by it." Then why did he write it?