It was the greatest season Chad Curtis never had.

He was the reason why the Angels were well over .500 at the all-star break. He was the reason why they only trailed the White Sox by a mere 4 games in August. They were the California Angels then. The 1993 Angels were a hideous team that finished with a terrible record. Over 90 losses. They were a bunch of bums. Nobody would have suspected that they could even approach .500. They brought in a new manager. A young guy, some guy nobody had ever heard of, who’d learned what he’d learned from some other guy nobody had ever heard of named Mike Gimbel who was at the time pioneering what is now so eloquently written about in the book Moneyball.

The young man was all about statistics. He knew them inside out. He saw potential in those 93 Angels, and he was ready for the challenge.

He did it with Tim Salmon out for the season after the third game. He did it with Mark Langston on the disabled list twice before the all-star break.

Those were still the good old days. No inter-league play. 2 divisions. Only the best team in each advanced.

And yeah, there were others.

There was the bullpen. Mike Butcher setting up Joe Grahe. Joe Grahe, given the full-time closer role and told to run with it, finally becoming the arm everyone thought he was, stunning the baseball world with 20 saves at the all-star break.

There was the clutch hitting from Luis Polonia, his atrocious defense and weak throwing arm forcing him into a pinch hitting role. Not taking it as a grudge, he excelled and came through with 9th inning hit after 9th inning hit.

Then there was Torey Lovullo, inserted at 2nd base on a whiff of genius by the young new manager, jumping at the opportunity and hitting in the high .290’s.

There was Ron Tingley, the Crash Davis that couldn’t hit, squeezing everything out of his rickety old body, putting up .250 numbers while playing everyday.

And who can forget Gary Disarcina, batting 9th, hitting over .300, and making plays at shortstop that nobody else could.

So there were others. But it was Chad Curtis’s team. He was the heart and soul. He hit leadoff every game that year. He took walks when they were hard to come by. He stole bases that were impossible to steal. He hit over .330 for more then half a season, had an on-base percentage over 4. Hell, he even hit home runs, and was second on the team to Chili Davis in RBI’s.

He took that team, that bunch of has-beens and never will be’s, and turned them into contender's.

It was an incredible year, and one that I won’t forget.

Sometimes I regret that the season was never finished. It didn’t end cuz of a strike or nothing like that. It was school. Going away for school.

- posted by Sigurd8/16/2004 09:14:00 PM