Guy Gets 10 RBI, Saves Team, Personifies Team, Rescues City From Hurricane, Doesn't Suck at Baseball Anymore

Michael Ventre has a few thoughts on Garret Anderson's 10 RBI evening last night. Since he's such a good writer and never shows up on blogs like this one, I'm sure we can expect things that are well-thought out with no wild claims and exaggerations, right?

Yeah....this is gonna be a disaster. I really hope I beat Fire Joe Morgan to this one.

Garret's eruption puts Angels back on radar
10 RBI night by Anderson reminds us all how good this team really is

Yes, Garret Anderson totally restored my belief that the Angels are a very good team. The fact that they have a very good starting rotation and bullpen, coupled with the fact that they have one of the best hitters in the game in Vlad didn't quite do it for me. I needed a 10 RBI night in an 18-9 blowout by a poor corner outfielder to REMIND me that this team is any good.

Garret Anderson probably will never have a model of shoe named after him. He’ll never spill his guts on “Oprah,” or be photographed coming out of a club with Paris Hilton, or do a talk-show tour demanding a trade.

I get it, he's not one of the most famous players in the world, but this is dumb. I'm guessing the point of this paragraph is to say that Anderson isn't very well-known, but here's the thing, lots of people know about Garret Anderson. They remember him for the 2002 World Series, as well as for being the 2003 Home Run Derby Champ / All-Star game MVP. There was a time that he was a good baseball player, and was relatively famous.

In fact, the only time the Angels’ outfielder is ever featured on “SportsCenter” is if he does something extraordinary.

In fact, this is true for pretty much all players who aren't any good!

There is no doubt today that the acutely low-key Anderson is a “Who’s Now” candidate after belting out 10 RBI Tuesday night.

I acknowledge that "Who's Now" was a very dumb ESPN publicity stunt, but seriously.....

WTF?? Tiger Woods (arguably the best golfer ever), LaDanian Tomlinson (sets NFL record for TD's in a season), Ronaldinho (best soccer player in the world), Garret Anderson (drove in 10 runs in that one regular-season blowout against the Yankees).

"There is no doubt today" that Garret Anderson belongs in the same breath as those people.

It is appropriate that Anderson seized the spotlight in an 18-9 Angels’ decision over the Yanks. It is almost as if the other Angels drew straws to determine which of them would remind the baseball world that they still exist and they’re still viable as championship timber.

So, when deciding who should "remind the baseball world" that the FIRST PLACE ANAHEIM ANGELS WHO ARE IN FIRST PLACE IN A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL DIVISION FOR BEING ONE OF THE BEST BASEBALL TEAMS IN THE ENTIRE BASEBALL LEAGUE exist, the Angels "drew straws" (a supposedly random method) and Anderson won "appropriately". I don't follow.

This is a Yankees-Red Sox world, after all. Oh, occasionally Cleveland and Detroit will cause a dust-up in their lust for the AL Central crown, or Johan Santana will hurl a gem and in the process underline the Twins’ inadequacies, or the Mariners will scream for attention.

This is only a "Yankees-Red Sox world" for idiots who choose to immerse themselves in those two teams so far that they are oblivious to whatever else is going on in baseball.

Yet the Angels have often seemed so far under the radar that they can’t even be detected with sonar. They just happen to be 6-2 against the diva Yanks so far this season, and are 11-4 in their last 15 against them in Anaheim, including the 2005 playoffs.

ESPN must have been using some sort of ULTRA-sonar to constantly talk about the Angels at the trade deadline about adding another slugger to their lineup or about where A-Rod is going next year.

On Tuesday night, Anderson took a curtain call as a crowd of 45,257 lavished their appreciation. When asked if he expected more such reactions, Anderson said, “It took me 13 years to get that one. I don’t see myself playing for 26 years.”

If he did, he probably wouldn’t be any more of a household name –even in Orange County households – than he is today. And the Angels will likely still be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, pining for bragging rights over the Dodgers in Southern California, a modest franchise with big dreams.

Please, STOP acting like no one knows who Garret Anderson is! 2002 World Series. 2003 Home Run Derby Champ, 2003 All-Star Game MVP. Granted, he's not one of the most famous baseball players, but he isn't fucking Yuniesky Betancourt either! Ventre, you suck.

This isn’t anything new. Movie cowboy Gene Autry, who owned the team over four decades, shelled out lots of dough to buy guys like Reggie Jackson, Fred Lynn and others in the early 1980s. That team generated a lot of attention, but it didn’t bring Autry a World Series championship.

What does this have to do with anything?

That achievement occurred in 2002, an unlikely crusade that culminated in a series victory over Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants. Back then, they were still known as the Anaheim Angels. The following year, they were sold to a Latino businessman named Arte Moreno, who made his millions in billboards.

But no matter how much advertising they have done, the Angels can’t seem to bust out of that small-market pigeonhole, even after replacing “Anaheim” with “Los Angeles” and putting together perhaps the best starting rotation in the majors.

First off, after reading this, I seriously don't think that Ventre knows that the full name of the team is the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim".

Second, the Angels are 11th in team ERA, and they have a non-awful bullpen, so I'm going to go ahead and say they don't have the best starting rotation in the majors (if anyone can find a site where starting pitching is ranked, I'd actually really like to know, because I can't find one. Leave a comment). The Angels starters, except for that #5 Santana/Colon slot have been very good, however.

Third, and probably most absurdly of all, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN "small-market pigeonhole"!?!?!??!?! Los Angeles is one of the biggest cities in the United States. The Angels have the 4th highest payroll in Major League Baseball. There is absolutely nothing small-market about the Angels. You, Ventre, are the definition of ignorant.

Garret Anderson is the personification of the Angels, at least for today.

The FUCK does that even mean? The "personification" of the Angels? He's a corner outfielder with a .242 EqA. The Angels have kept him around despite consistently low walk totals and shrinking power numbers. He has a .298 OBP. Garret Anderson is the personification of everything the Angels have done wrong in recent history. His 4-year $48M contract is the definition of "mistake". And you're saying that a bad player who had one hot game "personifies" a very good team? You clearly are one of those people who has his head stuck so far up the metaphorical ass of the Yankees and Red Sox to even GLANCE at what other teams are doing. I bet you wouldn't have even written this article if the 10 RBI didn't come against the Yankees.

That only occurred because he happened to become one of only 12 players in major league history to post double-digit RBI in a single game. Ordinarily, he can’t even hope to compete in the “player with the most talent who is most often overlooked” category with Vladimir Guerrero, the Angels’ lone superstar, currently batting .322 with 19 homers and 100 RBI.

Because he doesn't have very much talent. He's bad. He has a .298 OBP.

Anderson, Guerrero, Mike Scioscia, the team’s gently intense manager, and the rest are all a reflection of the stone man named Bill Stoneman.

And the award for greatest play on words in history goes to......

He’s the team’s general manager who is probably more notable for doing nothing at trade deadlines than any of his peers. In fact, his ability to do nothing has to be ranked up there with the greats.

Yet he must be doing something, because the Angels have held on to the AL West lead now deep into August, albeit by a shrinking margin. Stoneman and Moreno have embarked on a Gandhi-like path of passive resistance. They’ll compete, they just won’t go out and spend money on free agents to do so. That’s partly why some idle chatter about A-Rod eventually landing in Anaheim is the funniest stuff to come out of the region since Bob Hope was in his heyday as a standup.

WHLEF;asdf'asdfl;asdkflkals'dfasdklf'ja;sdfkj'asdflsda. The Angels pay their players a lot of money. All the talk about A-Rod going there, whether or not it will happen, is to be taken very seriously. Contrary to what you just said, the Angels splurge big on free agents quite a bit(e.g. Vlad Guerrero, Gary Matthews Jr.), it's just that they just are quiet at the trade deadline usually. Honestly, how can you be this stupid and uninformed and still publish your trash at a place like msnbc.com (then again, it IS msnbc.com, and they hired HatGuy).

Yet the larger implications have to do with another push toward another World Series title. Before Tuesday, the Angels had been the small independent film that everybody respected that would surely be forgotten when Oscar voters cast their ballots. Now they’re more like a studio picture with a little more national backing.

They don’t have what they want yet, but they’re getting there.

The Angels have been transformed...nay....TRANSCENDED by the performance of Garret Anderson into a team that must be considered by all as "legitimate" (they were not at all legitimate before last night). Thanks to him, they won a game by 9 runs when he drove in 10, and if you plug someone else in his place in the batting order, there's no way that they Angels would have won this game. They're nothing to be fucked with, because they have a bad player who got hot for a game. Be warned AL contenders, you may one day meet the wrath of Garret Anderson's powerful bat, as it put the Angels on the map. Thanks to him, they now mean BUSINESS.