My healing foot and I went with a friend to the Angel game Saturday evening. I went mostly to see two people play- the new Angel pitcher, Dan Haren, and my favorite player, Vladdy Guerrero of the Rangers.

Haren pitched his heart out- 119 pitches, if memory serves me correctly, in a complete game masterpiece. He hit 90 mph in the ninth inning! Did the Angels win? Nope. Haren made only one mistake… one bad pitch to Vladdy. It was a two run homer and the Angels lost 2-1.

For those of you not familiar, Guerrero used to be a member of the Angels before being cast aside this year as being past his prime. Vladdy is a shy, humble man who was always a fan favorite. So he got into terrific shape, went to Texas and reenergized his career. And he has haunted the Angels ever since. Going into Sunday’s game, he has knocked in ten runs at the Big A this season for the Rangers, including a grand slam home run. You can’t tell me that’s just a coincidence. When Vladdy comes to Anaheim now, he must be motivated to prove his former bosses wrong. By the way, he got a nice round of applause every time he came up on Saturday. And friends who went to last month’s All Star game in Anaheim tell me that Vladdy received the biggest ovation of anyone. Vladdy is so nice he would never gloat. But it must’ve felt good coming back to the Big A as a starting All Star, voted in by the fans. It’s a great story and I love it.

The game started at 6pm, which is an odd time for a game, given all the weird shadows being cast on the field at that hour. Then again, summer is all about the “slow roll.” I made it to a movie that night too. To be continued…

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