BOSTON -- Mike Scioscia was wrong about one thing.
History does matter. It always matters.
And it matters more at Fenway Park than it does anywhere else.
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| Take a picture because you normally don't see happy Angels at Fenway Park in October. (AP) |
It mattered because on the same field where too many promising Angels seasons ended, this one went on, with a dramatic 7-6 win over the Red Sox and a emphatic three-game sweep of this first-round series.
It mattered because in a place where the Angels knew only disappointment -- "I don't think we've ever had a pleasant experience in this clubhouse," Scioscia said -- the Angels poured beer and sprayed so much champagne that their eyes stung.
It mattered because this time, when the Angels tell people they have a good club, we'll have every reason to believe them.
That's what bothered Scioscia most about those other playoff losses to the Red Sox, the one in 2004, the one in 2007, the one last year. All year, the Angels would play like winners.
Then, with everyone watching, they wouldn't.
"I felt sick in '04 and '07," he said. "I knew how good our team was, and we just, on a national stage, didn't play well. In '07, I couldn't sleep for a month over that one. In '04, too."
For weeks, the Angels knew another meeting with the Red Sox was ahead of them this October. For weeks, they've had to answer the questions, and not just the questions from us.
When Torii Hunter gave his "show some nuts" address, it's no coincidence that he did it after a tough loss at Fenway Park. He wanted his teammates to know, and he wanted them to know it was Red Sox-related.
Hunter was giving more speeches Sunday, expounding on everything from the ninth-inning rally to the intentional walk that set up Vladimir Guerrero's game-winning hit ("I would have walked me, too, because I was ready [to hit]") to his own pre-series statement that this year would be different ("I'm Negro-damus!") to the possibility of an all-L.A. World Series ("I used to listen to the rap song where they say 'The West Coast is the best coast,' and right now it's showing").
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Series: Angels 3, Red Sox 0 |
And, of course, to nuts.
"I love these nuts," he said. "Those nuts are bigger today. I've never been part of a game that felt better."
Any team would have felt good winning the way the Angels did Sunday. Down 5-1 in the eighth, they got close on Juan Rivera's two-run single off Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon. Down 6-4 in the ninth, and down to their final strike when Papelbon was ahead of Erick Aybar 0-2, they rallied on an Aybar single, a Chone Figgins walk (on a 3-2 pitch), Bobby Abreu's two-run double (on a 1-2 pitch) and finally the Guerrero single.
Until then, Papelbon had appeared in 17 postseason games and had never been charged with a run. Not all of those appearances came against the Angels, but enough of them did.
This time was different. This year is different.
And when Angels closer Brian Fuentes finished up a 1-2-3 ninth, the celebration at Fenway Park was different.
"The fourth time's a charm," Angels owner Arte Moreno said. "It's our turn. You know, we've been knocking on the door so long."
Knocking on the door, and getting knocked out. And not falling lightly, either.
The losses stung, in part because the Angels knew they were better than they played, in part because every darned time, they seemed to be walking off the Fenway Park field at the end of their season.
If it wasn't David Ortiz with a two-run home run off Jarrod Washburn in the 10th inning in 2004, it was Jed Lowrie with a walk-off single off Scot Shields last October. There was also a Manny Ramirez walk-off home run off Francisco Rodriguez in 2007, and while that one wasn't season-ending (it was in Game 2), it's no surprise that Scioscia remembers it that way.
Bad memories, all of them.
"Our history with this club is so negative," Scioscia finally admitted when this series was over. "There were even talking about '86, when there's about five guys on this team who weren't even born in '86."
The Red Sox don't usually talk about '86. Something about Bill Buckner.
But as long as the opponent was the Angels, '86 was something worth celebrating. Sure enough, Dave Henderson was called in to throw out Sunday's first pitch, called on with this series at 2-0 to remind people that the Red Sox once overcame a three games to one deficit to the Angels.
"They probably shouldn't have brought him out," Hunter said later. "That was bad luck for them."
Or maybe none of this is luck. Maybe none of that history, from '86 or '04 or '07 or '08, had anything to do with what happened Sunday.
Soon enough, Scioscia will be back to preaching that the past doesn't affect the future. As he spoke after Sunday's win, the Angels manager still didn't know whether the Angels would be facing the Yankees or the Twins in the American League Championship Series later this week.
Either way, the history will be brought up again. The Angels knocked the Yankees out of the 2002 playoffs, and the '05 playoffs. In 2002, on the way to their only title, the Angels beat the Yankees and the Twins in October.
"History is not going to matter," Scioscia said Sunday.
Sorry, but history always matters.
And at Fenway Park, it matters more than it does anywhere else.
"You look across, and you can't tell if it's 1920, 1950 or 2009," Moreno said.
And then you look at the Angels dancing around on that field, and you know it's not 2004, 2007 or 2008.
It's 2009, and the Angels have a new history at Fenway. And this one is drenched in champagne.
