BATTER UP: L.A. ANGELS

Counting down the seconds till Opening Day when life begins anew involves providing a "starting nine" for all 29 major-league teams, and if there's time, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays too! Presenting: The Los Angeles Angels.

1. Anaheim could be Shea A-Rod: Yankees GM Brian Cashman is playing hardball with Alex Rodriguez over a contract extension, so the Angels could be a new home for the so-hard-done-by slugger. A-Rod is in a vulnerable place -- can't you just picture him on road trips, all alone in his hotel suite, comfort food and box of tissues at arm's length, listening to It Nevers Rain in Southern California sixty-three times in a row on his iPod?
   
   A move to Hell-A has to happen today. It gets A-Rod out of the American League East and weakens the Evil Empire. He also honestly seems to have some inner conflicts which need sorting out and what better place to get than with the Angels, (this year's) home of the Shea Hillenbrand Baseball Academy?
   
   Shea Hillenbrand (pictured) can straighten out A-Rod. Shea Hillenbrand is a winner. Shea Hillenbrand gets results, just like Jim 'The Hammer' Shapiro. Shea Hillenbrand is a TWO-time American League All-Star whose OPS sometimes flirts with the mythical .800 barrier. He can give A-Rod, whose OPS hasn't dipped below .880 since he was a 22-year-old shortstop, the help he needs. The first lesson would involve some tough love -- hiding the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood DVD and forcing A-Rod to watch John Cena as The Marine.
2. Howie Kendrick is the DFM: Can the 23-year-old second baseman make Angels fans forget Adam Kennedy? He might make them forget Bobby Grich. Kendrick has hit everywhere he's gone -- check his OPSes from the minors -- and could have a 200-hit season with above-average power for his position.
3. They're winning the AL West: Explain why they won't. The Angels were an 89-win team last year despite only 10 starts' worth of Bartolo Colón and a lineup which had more dead spots than entire season of Lost episodes, and about as many characters.
4. Arte Moreno is baseball's best owner: He's cut the prices of tickets and beers. He's doubled the value of his franchise across the past four years without holding local governments hostage for a new stadium. He's also keeping 50-million-dollar man Gary Matthews Jr.'s feet to the fire over allegations he was a juicer because he wants a clean game.
   
   Of course, some Angels fans might feel a little differently about that last thing after the team hit a paltry 159 home runs last season.
5. It's pronounced Shawn: Angels leadoff man Chone Figgins is one of our favourite players just for the spelling of his first name. "That's not Shawn!" has been a frequent exclamation of Shawn Sager, Official Brother of Out of Left Field.
6. Retro Angel: Oh, to be young and innocent about on-base percentage and Win Shares, since it freed one up to appreciate how Gary Pettis (centre-field, 1982-87) played the outfield and ran the bases. Pettis was about as valuable as a .236 career hitter with no power could due to his defence -- which actually kept Devon White in right field for a time. By the way, that's not Gary Pettis in the picture. He had his brother pose for his 1985 baseball card, and the Topps idiots fell for it.
   
   Gary Pettis' motivations for blowing off the photo shoot have been lost in the sands of time. One would like to think he had a chance to hook up with Diane Franklin, Teal Roberts or some other mid-'80s Hollywood starlet.
7. Curse of the Cowboy redux: Look, no one likes to believe in a team being cursed more than a Leafs fan, but sometimes it's just sheer Jelloheadness at work. Take the Angels: Do you think they might have won a pennant in the 1980s if then-GM Buzzie Bavasi had got something in return when he gave away Tom Brunansky, Carney Lansford and Dickie Thon, who all went on to help other teams win in that decade? Bavasi, who's now in his 90s, was a big part of the Brooklyn Dodgers intergration effort of the '40s and '50s, so he gets a free pass for that.
8. Need-to-know: John Lackey, Ervin Santana, Jered Weaver and ex-Jay Kelvim Escobar are a fairly formidable foursome of starting pitchers. There are plenty of swing guys -- Scot Shields, Hector Carrasco and Darren Oliver -- who can fill in if Colón is idled.
   
   The Angels should score more runs and play better D by simple virtue of more stability and the likes of Kendrick, first baseman Casey Kotchman and catcher Mike Napoli growing up, and that will give them the extra push to get into the playoffs.
9. Last but not least: No self-respecting person has referred to the team by its new name, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, since about 10 minutes after it was adopted. You could say whoever coined that deserves the nickname the Anaheim ballpark used to have -- the Big A -- but that belongs to Shea Hillenbrand.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.