The Weekend Buzz while you were gearing up for Ken Burns' latest on PBS, his look at World War II. ...
1. Los Angeles Angels of Clinch City: The team that clinched its third division title in four years on Sunday ranked 28th in the majors in home runs heading into the game.
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| Vladimir Guerrero and Angels owner Arte Moreno will rule the AL West for a long, long time. (AP) |
Yet, not only are the Angels the AL West division champions, they're jockeying with Cleveland and Boston for baseball's best record and, thus, home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. It would be quite a coup for the Angels if they get it, too: They own a major league-high 54 home victories, equaling the club record set in 2002 -- a year in which they just so happened to win their first World Series.
This is an emerging dynasty, and if you don't believe it, just ask the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners won three division titles and earned four playoff berths between 1995 and 2001. They went 116-46 in '01, finishing 41 games ahead of the Angels in the AL West.
Time was, the Mariners were the team to beat in the division. Now, even after exceeding expectations and hanging in the race until earlier this month, there was no escaping the obvious this weekend in Anaheim.
"We have to get used to beating them because they're going to be here year in and year out," John McLaren, the interim Seattle manager and longtime coach to former Mariners skipper Lou Piniella, said. "And they have young players."
Across the board, like superstar-in-waiting second baseman Howie Kendrick, first baseman Casey Kotchman, fleet center fielder/utilityman Reggie Willits, a nice catching tandem of Jeff Mathis and Mike Napoli, utilityman Maicer Izturis and potential slugger Kendry Morales. Most importantly -- and this is no small part of why the Angels could wind up with the game's best record -- they all believe in manager Mike Scioscia's way of doing things.
"I remember walking one day with Lou in Peoria (the Mariners' spring training site), and they had two huge buses parked there," McLaren said, noting the oddity because most clubs travel to spring games in one bus. "They were pinch-hitting, running the bases ... they beat us something like 14-1.
"Afterward, I asked Lou, what was that about? He said, 'They wanted to beat us. They wanted to beat us bad.'"
McLaren thought it might have been in the spring of 2002, after the Mariners laid waste to the division the preceding year.
Scioscia smiled when the story was relayed to him, but denied any specific plan of vengeance.
"When we first came here in 2000, Texas had been the class of the division in the 1990s, with Seattle, and Oakland was making a big push -- that young pitching had come on board," said Scioscia, whose first year in Anaheim was in 2000. "We were really looking up to see who we had to climb over to get to the top. All of the teams were terrific.
