by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

KANSAS CITY–Last time the San Francisco Giants went to a World Series as a Wild Card, was 2002, and they lost against the Anaheim Angels. For the Kansas City Royals, this is their first World Series since 1985, period. They are the Cinderella team.

The 2002 World Series was a real thriller, a seven game roller coaster; as I recalled, as I was doing the Giants Spanish play by play. We stayed at the team hotel the Anaheim Hilton, right on Katella Ave, across Disneyland. It was the first World Series for the Angels franchise, who have played in Anaheim since 1961 and had Gene Autry, The Disney Company and Arte Moreno as owners.

The San Francisco Giants were the favorites to beat the Angels. The Giants had Barry Bonds, Kenny Lofton, Rich Aurilia, Jeff Kent(not Bonds best friend) J.T. Snow, Benito Santiago, Reggie Sanders, Shawon Dunston, it was a good team.

Games one and two were played at the new Pacific Bell Park(today AT&T) my good friend and co-broadcaster in the 1990’s with the Golden State Warriors, named this park “The Phone Booth” which I think is a perfect name, since it has been Pacific Bell, SBC Park, and AT&T Park -a telephone company thing. First game was won by the Giants 4-3,the Angels won the second game 11-0.

The series then went to Edison Field(Today Angels Park) at Anaheim. The Angels took the first game there(Game three of the series) 10-4, the Giants came back and won the next one(Game four) by score of 4-3. It was a weird series, tight games and then blow outs, one after another. The Giants were leading the series three games to two, when they played Game six) and that’s when the series completely turned around.

The famous home run by Scott Spiezio off Giants reliever Félix Rodríguez in the seventh inning is forever engraved in the memory of Angels fans. In that game six,the rally from five runs down marked the biggest comeback in the World Series by a team facing elimination. Spiezio kept fouling sliders from Rodríguez until he finally deposited one over the short right field fence-down the line.

In the booth to my right at Edison Field was a galaxy of Hollywood celebrities Pierce Brosnan (007) who that same year had the hit movie “Die Another Day”, actress Cameron Díaz, Pat Sajack of Wheel of Fortune, they all dropped by Jackie Autry’s luxury box, which was to my right.

Game six turned the whole thing around. That same night after the game I was on an elevator with Kenny Lofton and other players and Peter Magowan the owner; you could not hear a pin drop, it was like everybody knew this team was done. After leading by five runs the gave up six runs in the last two innings. The next day, game seven and final the Angels sealed the deal and beat the Giants 4-1,to win their first and only World Series.

After that game seven, I went into the party room for the Giants, at the mezzanine of the Anaheim Hilton, it was like a cemetery. I remember there was only one Giants player there, affable Rick Aurilia, the shortstop, today working as commentator after Giants games on Comcast. Rich is a classy guy and he answered a lot of questions to some of us in the media that were there.

Later in that same lobby I ran into Benito Santiago, the excellent Giants catcher and won previously the Rookie of the Year for the San Diego Padres; he was extremely sad and dissapointed. Sometimes in not losing a game, but they way the Giants lost that 2002 World Series, when they had it in their pockets with a 5 run lead later in the game just needing six outs to win their first World Series (at that time) in 44 years since they moved from New York to San Francisco.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for Angels baseball and is doing commentary throughout the 2014 World Series for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

photo credit: google images