Angels’ Season in Review : QUOTABLE : COACH’S CORNER

Top five quotes from Manager Terry Collins:

* Postscript of a crushing, 12-10, loss to Toronto, in which the Angels blew a three-run lead in the eighth inning on Sept. 8: “[General Manager] Billy [Bavasi] called me in Toronto and asked how I was doing. I told him, ‘Well, I’m on the 24th floor of my hotel and my window’s open.’ Luckily, they were so little I couldn’t fit through them.”

* After learning, all in the same day, that Jim Edmonds had two knee ligament tears, reliever Mike James had elbow tendinitis and pitcher Mark Gubicza may be lost for the season: “Right now, if I see [Angel athletic trainer] Ned Bergert walking toward me, I get the shakes a little bit.”

* On whether he maintained any superstitions during an Angel seven-game win streak: “I wore the same underwear for five years in the minor leagues and still hit .250 . . . so no, I don’t believe in that stuff.”

* Reaction when an Oriole public relations official called his office 2 1/2 hours before a game to inform him Baltimore had switched its rotation, starting a left-hander instead of a right-hander: “And I’ve got a little change for you, we’re starting Nolan Ryan.”

* After watching reliever Pep Harris do what could best be described as a bellyflop when attempting to slide into a 6-by-12-foot mat: “I’ve actually seen worse than that--I once had a guy miss the mat completely.”

FIN’S FAB FIVE

Top five quotes from pitcher Chuck Finley:

* On how the Angels might break out of their late-August slump: “Maybe we ought to hire a voodoo witch doctor to wave some garlic around here.”

* On the extraordinarily ordinary appearance of pitcher Dennis Springer: “He looks like he ought to be waiting for a bus.”

* On catcher Chad Kreuter after Kreuter had the caps on his front teeth knocked out in a collision with the Tiger Stadium dugout: “We’ve been calling him Jack . . . for Jack-O-Lantern.”

* On giving up 10 runs on 15 hits in 12 innings of two road starts at Minnesota and Kansas City: “About all I’ve done on this trip is take up space.”

* On plate umpire Mike Everitt’s extremely liberal strike zone Sept. 7 in Detroit: “I’ve never seen a strike zone like that . . . Everitt is the kind of guy you’d like to put in your back pocket and haul around with you.”

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARY

Four memorable quotes from shortstop Gary DiSarcina:

* On going 32 games without a walk: “Had it been that short a time? I basically stink. I have no idea what the strike zone is, I bat ninth, and I have terrible posture, but other than that . . . “

* On Dave Hollins, who hardly budged when a fastball hit him in the shoulder with the bases loaded, forcing in a run: “I think he’s stone stupid. . . . I don’t think he’d move if a ball was going right at his head. He’d just take the RBI and wobble to first. That’s a Don Baylor move, a veteran move.”

* On Finley’s season-ending injury: “No doubt it’s a crushing blow to us. To lose your No. 1 guy, your stopper who was on a hot streak . . . he was our answer to [Seattle ace] Randy Johnson. . . . When you’re in a dogfight for 30 games you need your No. 1 guy.

* On whether the new corporate name for Anaheim Stadium, Edison Field, would be shortened to The Big E: “I hope not . . . for my sake.”

BEST OF THE REST

* Dave Hollins on why he sometimes talks to himself: “Because I don’t like a lot of idle chatter unless it’s with myself . . . that way, there aren’t a whole lot of arguments.”

* Reliever Mike James on the rash of spring-training injuries: “I wish someone would take the hex off this team. They’d better check Anaheim Stadium to see if it wasn’t built on some ancient Indian burial ground.”

* Overheard on an April flight to Cleveland, where 40-degree temperatures awaited the Angels: “I love opening day in Cleveland . . . especially when the Zamboni comes out to clear the field.”

* Chuck Finley on his prognosis after breaking a wrist bone: “Doctors aren’t very good liars, I can tell you that. I got back to the stadium after my MRI and the doctors all had their heads down. I said, ‘It’s not good, is it?’ They said, ‘No, it’s not good.’ I need to find a doctor who can be paid off or bribed.”

* Hollins, seeing the somewhat pale-skinned Darin Erstad emerge from the shower with a white towel around his waist: “Ersty, get a towel on! Oh, you’ve got one on.”

* Tony Phillips after Jim Edmonds’ remarkable June 10 catch in Kansas City: “That’s the best catch I’ve ever seen . . . Willie Mays don’t do stuff like that, I’m sorry.”

* Erstad, a left-handed hitter, on the secret to going three for seven with a homer against the Mariners’ Randy Johnson: “Close your eyes, hope to get your bat on the ball and get lucky . . . I just went up there and tried to see it and hit it. I didn’t take it much deeper than that.”

* Pitcher Allen Watson on his $12,000 out-of-court settlement with a man he punched in a Missouri casino in April: “It was my mistake. I hit the guy and I have to pay . . . But I won $8,000 [at the casino] the night it happened, so it’ll only cost me a few thousand dollars.”

* Dennis Springer, 32, after floating two knucklers that registered 46 mph and 47 mph on the Camden Yards speed gun, when asked if the velocity of his pitches would soon equal his age: “In a couple of years.”

* Chad Kreuter after crashing face-first into the Detroit Tiger dugout: “They say, ‘Go knock yourself out.’ Well, I really did. I was out cold--I was laying there for about 30 seconds before someone noticed me. I thought someone hit me with a bat or something. I didn’t know what happened.”

* Edmonds after fouling one pitch off his fingers and another off his foot before drawing a bases-loaded walk to force in the winning run Sept. 12 against Kansas City: “That was the worst best at-bat I’ve had in my life.”

* Finley’s advice to pitchers in Coors Field: “Don’t take batting practice or stand there watching batting practice. You can get your feelings hurt.”

* Jim Abbott on Angel fans, who gave him standing ovations after several of his rocky 1996 games: “They supported me when they had no business supporting me . . . and I appreciate that.”

NOTABLE

HONOR ROLL

* Most Valuable Player: Tim Salmon. Despite a slow start, the right fielder hit .296 with 33 homers and 129 RBIs. One of these years this guy is going to make the All-Star team.

* Cy Young: Chuck Finley. The veteran left-hander went 13-6 with a 4.23 ERA, tying the franchise record with 10 consecutive wins, and if there’s any doubt as to Finley’s value, look at what the Angels did without him.

* Rolaids Relief Award: Mike Holtz. He was one of few relievers who remained healthy all season, and the left-hander gave up earned runs in only nine of 66 appearances, finishing with a 3-4 record and 3.32 ERA.

* Silver Slugger: Jack Howell. The reserve infielder and pinch-hitter supreme hit 14 home runs in only 174 at-bats, a Ruthian ratio of one homer for every 12 at-bats.

* Purple Heart: Dave Hollins. He has diabetes and takes four injections of insulin a day, and he has played the last few months of the season despite an injured knee that will require surgery after the season. But no Angel played with more grit, more determination and more hustle.

* Unsung Hero: Garret Anderson. He doesn’t have the power of Salmon or the defensive skills of Edmonds, and he won’t break you up with a hilarious post-game quote, but the left fielder finished with a .303 average and 92 RBIs and was batting third by the end of the season. Anderson’s average never dipped below .290.

* Rookie of the Year: Jason Dickson. The right-hander went into spring training competing for the No. 5 spot in the rotation and wound up being the Angels’ No. 2 starter, going 13-9 with a 4.29 ERA.

* Best Import: Shigetoshi Hasegawa. The Japanese right-hander never achieved his goal of being a prominent member of the Angel rotation, but he was invaluable in relief, finishing with a better ERA (3.93) than countrymen Hideo Nomo (4.25) and Hideki Irabu (7.09).d

* Best Deal: Catcher Jim Leyritz to Texas for pitcher Ken Hill: It took a few weeks to begin paying dividends, but once Hill ironed out his mechanical difficulties, he became the Angels’ best pitcher, giving up only 10 earned runs in 52 innings over his last seven starts. Even better, the Angels did not have to give up one of their top position players to acquire a right-hander who could become a mainstay in their rotation for several years.

* Worst Deal: Designated hitter Chili Davis to Kansas City for pitcher Mark Gubicza: Yes, this deal freed up enough salary to sign Dave Hollins, but the actual trade was a big-league bust for the Angels, because shoulder problems limited Gubicza to only two starts, both of them losses to Cleveland.

* Gold Glove: Jim Edmonds. The center fielder made at least a dozen highlight-reel catches, but none was better than his June 10 effort in Kansas City, when he sprinted straight back to the warning track to make a full-extension, over-the-shoulder diving grab of David Howard’s drive with two on, two out and the score tied, 1-1.

FIVE DEFINING MOMENTS

* Angels 16, Chicago White Sox 8 (May 12): The Angels staggered home from a 3-8 trip, which included five straight losses and a heated clubhouse argument between batting instructor Rod Carew and catcher Jorge Fabregas, and their 14-19 record left them six games behind Seattle when they opened a homestand against the White Sox.

Things looked more grim when the Angels fell behind, 5-0, to Chicago, but they stormed back with a 13-run seventh inning en route to a 16-8 victory. That started a seven-game winning streak that pulled the Angels to within two games of first place.

* Angels 4, Colorado Rockies 1 (July 1): Chuck Finley was struggling with a 3-6 record and 5.71 ERA and had pitched so terribly in an 8-1 loss to Seattle June 27 that he said, “I’m absolutely killing this team.”

His next start would come in the launching pad that is Coors Field, hardly a source of confidence for pitchers, but Finley responded with a 7 1/3-inning, one-run, five-hit gem that led the Angels to a 4-1 victory and vaulted Finley toward his franchise-record 10-game winning streak.

* Angels 5, Seattle Mariners 4 (July 5): The Angels trailed, 4-1, in the bottom of the eighth and were about to fall 7 1/2 games behind first-place Seattle when Tim Salmon belted a three-run home run off Scott Sanders to tie the score. Gary DiSarcina’s RBI single in the bottom of the ninth lifted the Angels to a crucial victory, which catapulted them into a 10-game winning streak and moved them to within a half-game of first place.

* Tony Phillips arrested on charges of felony possession of cocaine (Aug. 10): The Angels were 66-50 and in first place by a half-game when their leadoff hitter was arrested in Room 52 of the Ivanhoe Motel with “a loaded pipe in one hand and a lighter in the other,” according to Anaheim police.

Phillips sat out 10 days as the Angels and baseball officials tried to sort out his situation, and the Angels lost nine of their next 12 games. Phillips was reinstated from a team-enforced suspension on Aug. 20, but remained a distraction for several weeks, no matter how much players and coaches and front-office officials tried to avoid talking about him.

* Chuck Finley and Todd Greene injured (Aug. 19-20): The Angels lost their best pitcher and their power-hitting catcher on consecutive nights, both because of broken bones in their wrists. Finley’s 10-game winning streak was abruptly halted, Collins had no choice but to replace Greene’s potent bat in the lineup with weak-hitting Chad Kreuter, and the Angels never really recovered.

Compiled and written by MIKE DiGIOVANNA, Times Staff Writer