The stories of the hour in New York on Friday were terror alerts on the subways and heavy rain warnings in the skies: Would it storm? Would Game 3 be washed out? Would the 2005 playoffs be thrown into scheduling chaos?
As soon as the Los Angeles Angels' team bus pulled up to Yankee Stadium on Friday, an intermittent drizzle suddenly escalated to a heavy rain.
Garret Anderson loved it.
Anderson, the Angels' 33-year-old left fielder, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, savored the chaos and the change of pace.
"Orange County is laid-back, mellow," he said. "The fans come to watch the game, it's more of a laid-back atmosphere. I enjoy playing baseball back East because the fans really get intense on the game, and it's refreshing."
The rainstorm never came, but the Yankees were washed out by California, 11-7. Friday night's game was just the kind of crazy, windswept contest that Anderson and the Angels wanted. Anderson gave the Angels a lead in the first inning on a three-run homer off Randy Johnson.
Next time up, Anderson tripled, and in the seventh he drove in his fourth run with a single off Tom Gordon. He completed a productive night in the eighth with a run-scoring single against Scott Proctor.
Going into Friday's game, Anderson was 3 for 18 in his career against Johnson. "I looked for mistakes over the plate," Anderson said, "and tonight I didn't miss them."
Anderson attended Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, Calif. Outside of minor-league experiences in Idaho and Iowa, Anderson has been on the West Coast all his life.
I wondered how many times as a pro he had seen a game canceled because of rain.
Anderson thought.
He could recall only two times in 11 years -- a game against the Yankees in 1998 was delayed, and in 1995 a game was canceled. "We don't have to deal with nothing like that," he said. "You know that song with Tony Toni Tone -- `It Doesn't Rain [In Southern California]'? That's pretty much it."
Anderson is a rarity in professional sports: a player who plays his entire career in one town with one franchise. Like Atlanta's John Smoltz (17 seasons) and the Astros' Craig Biggio (18 seasons), Anderson is a franchise lifer. He has been through four uniform changes, has seen the Angels' name changed from California to Anaheim to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He has played under three owners.
He has never seriously considered leaving and the Angels have never given him the opportunity to test the waters. Every time, before his contract expired, the Angels talked about an extension. "I never got to the point when I had to say, `This is for real, I'm going to have to look for some place to play,'" he said.
"In today's age, that's unusual," he said. "Sometimes I sit back and say, `Why me?' I look at Ripken and Tony Gywnn, you know why those guys are there. I can't see myself following that path, but it seems like I am."
While generally respected, Anderson has flown under the radar for most of his 11-year career, surfacing on the national stage when it mattered.
His game-tying home run against the Yankees in the 2002 division series set the table for the Angels' victory in that series.
In Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, Anderson's three-run double was instrumental in defeating the Barry Bonds-led San Francisco Giants and earning the Angels their first World Series championship.
RSS