It Rained on His Parade
Diary of an Angel fan:
Sunday, Oct. 26:
7:30 a.m.--I woke up this morning with a knot in my stomach the size of New Hampshire.
Don’t ask me why, but for some crazy reason I strapped one of those silly cone-like party hats on my head and walked out to my car. I tooted the horn, loud and long.
Bob, my next-door neighbor, was working in his garden. He ran inside to call the police.
This could have been the day of the ticker-tape parade, you know. I had it all worked out in my mind. The Angels would ride down Katella Avenue in big red convertables, right past Disneyland. GM Mike Port would be smashed in some back seat between Goofy and Sneezy, trying to look like he was having fun.
Port would give this great speech at the hotel later, all about the parameters of winning on a shoestring budget. Someone would dump a jug of water on his head.
There would be a lot of hugging, too. Gene Mauch hugging Gene Autry. Doug DeCinces hugging Brian Downing. Reggie Jackson hugging Bobby Grich. Reggie hugging Reggie.
The Angels should have been world champs today.
Like I said, I had it all worked out in my head.
8:30 a.m.--Bob, my neighbor, is not such a bad guy after all. The police finally left and Bob isn’t pressing charges for disturbing the peace.
I got back in my car. I still felt sick. It’s been two weeks to the day since that game. I won’t even let my wife mention it in the house.
Anyway, there’s a bag of confetti in the passenger seat. I’m on my way to the parade route.
9 a.m.--I stop by the local church to attend services. I’m still an Angel fan, you know. Afterward, I cornered Father O’Malley by the statue of the Virgin Mary. I said only one word to him: “Why?”
“Why?” he said. “Because we are all God’s creatures and through him there is eternal life.”
“No,” I said. “Not that why! I mean why did Mauch yank Mike Witt out of the game with two out in the ninth? Why?”
“That, my son,” he said, “is a question only He can answer.”
“You mean Mauch?” I said.
10 a.m.--I stopped by a convenience store to buy some party blowers, you know, those things that unroll like a lizard’s tongue when you breath air into them. The man working the counter seemed like a nice enough guy.
“How does Gary Lucas hit Gedman with the first pitch?” I asked him.
“That’ll be $2.34 for the blowers, sir,” he responded.
“I mean, Gedman doesn’t have a chance against Lucas. Lucas eats him alive every time. Why then? Why us?”
“You want a bag for the blowers, sir?” he asked.
10:15--I’m working my way up Harbor Boulevard toward the intersection at Katella. The victory parade would have begun any minute now. I get held up by a red light. Next to me is this guy on a motorcycle. If you ever saw “Easy Rider,” you’d know what this guy looked like.
I rolled down my window.
“Hey!” I yelled at him. “Had you ever even heard of Dave Henderson? Did you know he had been hitting .189 since August? Did you know that Donnie Moore had a 2-2 count on him? Did you realize that we were one strike away from the Series?”
“What I realize is that the light is green, creep,” he said.
10:30--I’m standing on the corner of Harbor and Katella. I’ve got my cone-hat on and my blower in my mouth. I’m throwing confetti at every family that walks out of a nearby Bob’s Big Boy.
“Do you realize that even after Henderson’s homer that we tied the game in the ninth and had the bases loaded with one out?” I was telling a little girl who was missing a few front teeth. “Do you realize that DeCinces swung at the first pitch thrown by a guy named Steve Crawford? Don’t you stay up nights wondering what might have been had DeCinces not cued a little pop fly to Dwight Evans in right, who only has the best arm in baseball?
“You’re weird, mister,” she said, followed soon by a scream for her mommy.
She threw her sucker at me.
I let her have it with the confetti.
11--I was standing at a bus stop when a bus pulled in. I had nowhere to go, but when the doors opened, I went in to talk to the driver.
“Even after DeCinces flies out, we still got Grich up with the winning run at third,” I said to the guy.
He told me to fork over 50 cents or else get off the bus.
“I mean, Grich is a clutch hitter,” I said. “There’s no way, in the last breaths of his career, that he hits a soft liner back to the mound.”
The driver threatened to call the police.
It was too late. Some little girl’s mother had beaten him to a pay phone.
The officer standing outside wasn’t happy.
“You again?” he said.
Noon--Booking down at the station didn’t take as long as I thought. One guy told me I’d probably get off with a fine.
12:30--I slumped into my favorite chair at home. I hadn’t touched a thing in the living room since that day. The half-eaten corn chips are stale. On the table is a bottle of champagne. The screw is still in place. I had the cork pulled half way out when, well, you know.
I turned on MTV just in time to see the “Red Sox Rock” video. Did I say that knot was the size of New Hampshire? Make that Alaska.
