What was that about?
The Angels played badly in Game 1, committing three errors and allowing a pop fly to drop for a hit, and all of that, in concert, led to three runs in a 4-1 defeat … and those of us who have watched this sure and steady franchise over the past decade were […]

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It was hard to follow American sports, in Hong Kong.
In Abu Dhabi, it is nearly impossible. Via television, anyway.
And that apparently isn’t a bad thing, when it comes to the baseball playoffs.

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Why are the most important games in baseball also the most tedious?
Isn’t the idea to attract new fans to the playoffs?
And what do fans like?
My belief is that fans like crisp games, modest running times, contests that end before 11 p.m. … and minimum images of players spitting or fans mugging for the cameras.
If so, […]

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I’ve made clear I grew up a Dodgers fan. I’m old enough to remember a time when the Angels didn’t even exist, and anyone over the age of 40 remembers when the Angels routinely were awful.
Actually, they were worse than awful. They were irrelevant. They didn’t matter. Only the Dodgers did. The Angels were the […]

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I buried these guys yesterday. Dodgers and Angels.
Not only won’t they make it to a Freeway Series, they won’t get out of the first round.
So, yes, I will take credit for the Dodgers being up 2-0 with the aid of a semi-miraculous victory today … and the Angels taking a 1-0 lead on the Red […]

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A Freeway Series! The Holy Grail of Los Angeles-market baseball fans.
The Dodgers and Angels in the World Series. How grand! Just like all those Subway Series in New York! Right here in SoCal stadiums only about 30 miles apart.
We’ve only been talking about this for … oh, 30 years, anyway. Or since the Angels went […]

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I’ve been in Paris for almost five weeks now. And not for a single day was I without an Internet hookup. Actually, I spent several hours most of the past 30-some days looking at this computer. Yes, while in Paris. I know that’s ill but it’s the truth. OK, here’s my excuse: I do two […]

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A friend of ours who is visiting in Southern California recently attended a Dodgers home game and an Angels home game … for the first time. Both of them.
This person is a lifelong baseball fan, a dedicated Cardinals fan who knows the game well and generally knows and prefers the National League — but had […]

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I am so impressed by this franchise.
I am not an Angels fan. Wasn’t as a kid, wasn’t as a young adult. Didn’t really like the franchise when I covered it as a reporter, back in the late 1970s. But for a decade now, coinciding with the managerial career of Mike Scioscia, the Angels have been […]

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Was it Branch Rickey who said this? Or who just got credit for it (as he did for so many other things)?
Neither the Dodgers nor Angels made a big splash, here at the end of the non-waiver trading deadline.
The Dodges got left-handed reliever George Sherrill from the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for a pair of […]

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