LOS ANGELES (AP) – Tom Lasorda can’t imagine anything like it. Mike Scioscia likens the possibility to a bit of paradise.
In a place where Disneyland magic takes root and screenwriters trade in celluloid fantasies, these are heady times to be playing baseball in Southern California.
From freeway to freeway, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels are on the verge of doing something they’ve never done before – play each other in the World Series.
“It would be the greatest thing that ever happened,” said Lasorda, who guided the Dodgers to two World Series crowns in four appearances during his Hall of Fame career.
“This would be the baseball Mecca for a couple of weeks out here in Southern California, and that would be something special,” said Scioscia, who played for Lasorda’s title teams in 1981 and ’88 and managed the Angels to their only World Series championship six years ago.
an expansion team three years later, the teams have made the playoffs in the same season only once, in 2004. Both were eliminated in the first round that October.
The Angels, with strong pitching and the addition of Mark Teixeira to an already tough lineup, were the first team in the majors to clinch a playoff spot this season. They won the AL West for the fourth time in five years.
The Dodgers, boosted by the trade for Manny Ramirez and playing their first season under manager Joe Torre, have taken a solid lead in the NL West.
“I could see a lot of shirts being worn out there with one side `Dodgers’ and one side `Angels,”’ Angels hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said. “I think it would be something really big, especially with Mike and myself and a couple other guys who played for the Dodgers in ’88 now coaching against the Dodgers.
“It would be a weird situation, but I don’t think the rest of the nation would even care.”
Lasorda was reticent to talk much about a possible Freeway World Series because the Dodgers haven’t yet ensured a postseason berth.
“We haven’t done anything until we clinch it,” he said. “We’re not going to talk about something we don’t have. When the season is over and we’ve been declared the No. 1 team in the National League West, we’ve done something.”
roughout the playoffs.
“The Angels have a good ballclub, a heck of a ballclub,” Torre said. “I’m still concerned about our well-being.”
Scioscia realizes that despite everything his team has accomplished, there’s a long way to go before they face the Dodgers, or anyone else, in the World Series.
“That stuff is all going to play itself out,” he said. “If it happens to be something that’s as special as a Freeway World Series, then that would be great. But our plate’s full right now just trying to prepare for whoever we’re going to play.”
While the Dodgers haven’t clinched a postseason berth, they’ve been at their best recently, having won 12 of 13 games in one stretch to go from 4 1/2 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks to 4 1/2 games ahead.
“We’ve been hanging in there and putting ourselves in a position to hopefully win the division,” said Dodgers infielder Nomar Garciaparra, who grew up in nearby Whittier.
As for an LA-LA matchup, “it’s way premature,” he said.
“Right now, our focus is just trying to get to our goal, which is to get to the playoffs and get to the World Series,” Garciaparra said.
The Dodgers haven’t done that since 1988, when Orel Hershiser and Kirk Gibson led them past the favored Oakland Athletics in five games. They’ve made the playoffs only four times since then, going 1-12 in being eliminated in the first round each time.
d some good teams that have reached the playoffs, but they just haven’t been able to put together a run like we had in ’88,” Scioscia said. “It’s one of baseball’s storied franchises and incredible organizations, and they’ll rebound.”
The Angels played in the postseason only three times in their first 41 years of existence, but have done so five times in the last seven years – all under Scioscia, who played for the Dodgers from 1980-92.
Fans in Chicago have their hearts set on a Windy City World Series, with the Cubs and White Sox leading their respective divisions. That’s happened once before, in 1906 – two years before the Cubs last won the World Series.
There have been 14 Subway Series involving New York teams, but only one since the Dodgers and Giants moved to California 50 years ago. That was in 2000, when the Yankees beat the Mets in five games.
“When they had the Mets and the Yankees, the people out west didn’t care,” Lasorda said.
Marc Ludwick and Karen Hollyfield, season ticket-holders at Dodger Stadium, go to quite a few Angels games as well. They live in Santa Clarita, giving them an 80-mile round trip to see the Dodgers and 140 miles for the Angels.
Hollyfield said she’d probably root for the Dodgers in a Freeway World Series.
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Said Ludwick: “It’s a rivalry matchup that’s long overdue. I think the city would certainly relish seeing that World Series matchup. We have exhibitions and the interleague play between them, but that would really be something.”
Ludwick said he’d pull for the Dodgers, adding: “I think Blue.”
Greg Donovan makes the 180-mile round trip from Palm Springs to Angel Stadium for games, having married an Anaheim woman who’s a season ticket-holder.
“It would be tough for the rest of the country, great for us,” he said of a Freeway World Series. “Seeing Scioscia going up against the Dodgers would be fantastic.”
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