6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Kevin Brown LAN b. 1965, played 1999-2003, All-Star: 1992, 1996-1998, 2000, 2003. Is there a better single player — Mike Piazza notwithstanding — who represents Fox-era ownership better than Brownie?

• Expensive? At $105M/7 years, he was instantly the richest man in baseball.
• Had lots of downtime due to injury? Check, though it should be noted that three and a half of the five years he was with the squad, he was actually an effective pitcher.
• Had a rep as an ultimately disappointing mercenary? Check again, though much of that came from Kevin "The New Sheriff In Town" Malone's misconstruction of the teams he played on.
• Cuddly as a cactus? Check. It wasn't helped by his plumbing fixture destruction fetish.

Jud Daley BRO b. 1884, played 1911-1912, d. 1967-01-26

John Miller LAN b. 1944, played 1969

Jose Antonio Nunez LAN b. 1979, played 2001

Mike Strahler LAN b. 1947, played 1970-1972

Butch Wynegar CAL b. 1956, played 1987-1988, All-Star: 1976-1977. Starting catcher for two teams, the Twins and Yankees, mired in mediocrity for most of his career, he played backup backstop to Bob Boone with his time on the Angels.

Bobby Bonds CAL b. 1946, played 1976-1977, All-Star: 1971, 1973, 1975, d. 2003-08-23. Father of much that has ailed the Dodgers over the last decade, this Top 100 Angel was a solid player with some misfortune in his career; he got stuck behind Willy Mays early on with the Giants, but flourished in short order, hitting 32 homers in 1969 at the tail end of the deadball era of the 1960's. Strikeouts always plagued him, and finally the Giants shipped him to the Yankees in October 1974 for Bobby Murcer in the kind of challenge trade rarely seen these days. It worked out a little better for the Giants than for the Yanks, as Murcer stayed with the Giants two years, while Bonds was shipped to the Angels after only one year, for a guy who shoulda been on the Top 100 Angels list, Mickey Rivers.

Bonds' brief time with the Angels was marred by a hand injury that ended his 1976 season in August, but he delivered a 30-30 year for the club in 1977. He then became tradebait to deliver several very good players from the Chisox that helped the club to its first rush of glory: Brian Downing, Chris Knapp, and Dave Frost. Bonds finished his career playing for the Rangers, Indians, Cardinals, and Cubs over the last four seasons of his career; he was only effective in two of them.

Doc Casey BRO b. 1870, played 1899-1900, 1906-1907, d. 1936-12-31

Lou Fette BRO b. 1907, played 1940, All-Star: 1939, d. 1981-01-03

Mickey Hatcher LAN b. 1955, played 1979-1980, 1987-1990. A utility player for the Twins, he later hooked up with the Dodgers in 1987 after being released. He turned out to be one of those blessed guys who somehow does everything right for just long enough to help the squad bring home one of those flags that fly forever.

A surprise starter at first in 1988's NLCS Game 2, Hatcher scored the first run of the game when he got a one-out walk followed by a busted steal attempt that was later ruled a balk against David Cone, followed by a Mike Marshall bloop single; later, in the four-run second, he drove in a pair on an RBI double, going 3-4 overall. The Dodgers had been fired up before the game: having already lost Game 1, David Cone published a piece in the New York Daily News slamming Orel Hersheiser as "lucky" to pitch eight shutout innings the night before, and calling Jay Howell's curve a high school pitch. Hatcher called the piece "bush" before the game, saying later that "Some of the guys out there were bringing it up every inning. But when I was out there playing, I didn't think about it. My brain can't handle thinking of two things."

Hatcher went 3-17 the rest of the NLCS, though he did score one of the Dodgers' five runs in their Game 4 victory, and got on base for Kirk Gibson to drive him home in a three-run homer that helped propel the Dodgers to a 7-4 Game 5 win.

But the NLCS was just a prelude. Hatcher poured it on in the World Series, the forgotten hero of Game 1; Hatcher, too, homered, his second of the year and one that gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead, soon to be squandered by a Jose Canseco grand slam off Tim Belcher. To absolutely everyone's shock, he repeated the feat in Game 5, thus out-homering both Canseco and Mark McGwire.

After he retired, he became a coach in the Dodgers organization, and when Mike Scioscia was forced out, Hatcher followed to the Angels. I have said all that I am going to say about Hatcher's status as hitting instructor already.

Alfredo Martinez CAL b. 1957, played 1980-1981

Ralph Miller BRO b. 1873, played 1898, d. 1973-05-08

Bobby Rose CAL b. 1967, played 1989-1992

Rosy Ryan BRO b. 1898, played 1933, d. 1980-12-10

Dick Scott LAN b. 1933, played 1963