For Danny, AKA Secondbestdad - My one fan.
Earlier today, I logged in and found this comment to my "Winter Meetings" post:
Flash back to 1990. I was a sophomore in High School, going into my Junior year as that summer was dominated by the California Angels. My friends and I made the trip to Anaheim Stadium enough that you'd think we had season tickets that year. We'd head up to the ticket counter, buy the $3 tickets in any section they had available, then sneak down and sit on the field. We went to maybe thirty or forty games that year, cheering a team that had no chance to make the playoffs but had nonetheless earned our fandom and our hearts. On September 14, we watched an event that has been replayed every year since before the Home Run Derby as Ken Griffey Sr. hit a home run in the first inning, followed by his son, Ken Griffey Jr., in the very next at bat. At the time we thought it was cool, neat, a curiosity, without realizing how monumental the back-to-back home runs by father and son really was. We watched Jim Abbott pitch, knowing even then at such a young age that we were seeing something miraculous. We watched Mark Langston struggle in his first season after signing a huge contract. We saw Lance Parrish and Bert Blyleven in their last hurrah in the Major Leagues, as well as the waning years of Wally World.
But above all, we were there to see Dante Bichette.
We weren't the only ones. Dante was a HUGE fan favorite. Sure, he was a part-time outfielder who struck out more than a blindfolded Reggie Jackson and he hit only 15 home runs that year, but to us it felt like 50. It almost seemed like every game we went to where Dante actually played, he'd knock one into dead center field. Our only complaint was how much Bichette sat.
We wanted more of him. So, of course, the Angels traded him.
And it wasn't that they traded him. It was that they traded him for Dave Parker, a 40-year-old has-been who had no chance to contribute but part time at DH.
Were we surprised? Not a bit.
This was par for the course with the Jackie Autry era Angels. Whereas William Wrigley, when he built Wrigley Field for the Cubs, knew that he could not guarantee a winner, but could guarantee a good experience at the ballpark, Jackie Autry's philosophy might have been "I don't care about a winner, I care about asses in the seats" and fulfilled that by getting big names in Angel uniforms. Now, that wouldn't be too far off the modern day Yankees, but the Angels got these superstars when they were cheap: In other words, when they were well past their primes.
Dave Parker, Lance Parrish, Bert Blyleven, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson. That's just a short list off the top of my head of past-their-prime superstars that ended up (and, in many cases, ended their careers) in Angels uniforms. And while most were free agent signings, not all were.
It seemed for a long time that every time a young Angel was approaching stardom, he'd be traded away shortly before his contract came due. Time and time again we'd grow to love a player, only to see him shipped out and kicking our ass in Anaheim the next year. And those who went to the National League, back before interleague play? Unless we played them in spring training, we were never to see them again, as the only way to do so would have been in the World Series.
Back in the old PCL, The Los Angeles Angels were the main farm team for the Chicago Cubs. It seems that in the 80's and 90's, we were the main farm team for most of Major League Baseball.
Disney coming in as owners in the mid-90's didn't help this a bit. Their theme park philosophy ascribed to their sports ventures put stupid "beer-league softball uniforms" (a la Chris Berman) on the players' backs and dancing teddy bear mascots on the dugout roof, but didn't add much to the lineup or rotation. Disney tried to make it a pleasurable experience, but was never concerned with winning as they should have been.
Of course, this argument is blown out of the water by the 2002 World Championship. No, not really. If you look at that team, it was filled with nothing but farm-grown Angels, most of them young, and other castoffs from other teams. It was not talent that brought them to the World Series so much as it was teamwork and immaculate team management.
It's because of this history that I can understand the shyness of GM Bill Stoneman when it comes to trades, even when it means missing opportunities. As a fan, though, I have that natural 20/20 hindsight and have criticized him for failure to move in the past.
Dallas McPherson, Casey Kotchman, and Rob Quinlan have all seemingly passed their expiration dates and will continue to deteriorate in value for trade. It's easy to criticize Stoneman for not trading one or more of these guys when their value was high, but any Angels fan who knows team history gets very nervous when trades for young players are mentioned, and I am not an exception. Having electrifying young talent on a team that usually tosses it aside at the nearest opportunity is new to us, and we want to hoarde it like a kid with Halloween candy.
So when talks of trading young stars like Chone Figgins and Ervin Santana come up, we geta little hesitant.
There is not a trade out there right now that would not make me nervous. Chone Figgins has proven that, though he's an exciting utility player, as a full-time player he's a jack of all trades, master of none. And while Ervin Santana led the team in wins last year, we are absolutely stacked with good, young pitching, and the loss of one pitcher in a trade would not hurt us as it would most other teams. In fact, if it brings in the power at the plate that we so desperately need, it would probably be a great move.
But there's still that image of Jackie Autry dancing around in my head.
So every time I hear a trade mentioned, my armpits sweat a little bit. I feel a bit like a virgin on prom night: I know I'm going to have to eventually, so why not cross my fingers, roll the dice, and hope it turns out for the best?
It's the virtue in being a baseball fan, in loving something absolutely that we have no control over whatsoever. You hope for the best, and earn the right to complain when it turns out for the worst.
After all, with Arte Moreno in the owner's box, there's always next year.
Okay, here's a question, maybe you can write about this in an entry... I love the fact that the Angels hoard their good pitching prospects and haven't traded Santana, but every time I hear about a deal involving the Angels - for Tejada, Ramirez, etc. - talks always include Santana and, to a lesser extent - Scot Shields, too. So my question is, do you think they should keep all their young talent? Sometimes it doesn't pan out and they might be able to get more when prospects are high than when they don't pan out (is it too soon to give up on Dallas MacPherson?), but overall I love that we're dedicated to building from within and not turning into the dreaded Evil Empire - West Coast. That's what's killed us so many times in the past: bringing in players whose best years were behind them and paying top dollar for them...