Management Provides Appreciated Relief

Team President Tony Tavares played misty for them and the Angels won again Wednesday, giving him an assist for their ninth victory in 11 games.

Tavares rented some mist fans that provided welcome relief from temperatures that reached 114 degrees on the field, according to equipment manager Ken Higdon.

“I wanted to cheat and just put them in our dugout, but Milwaukee wanted a couple of them too,” Tavares said, smiling. “Hey, anything I can do to help.”

Left-hander Allen Watson, who says he has pitched in St. Louis when it was 130 degrees on the field, got the seat closest to the fan in the dugout while his teammates were batting.

“I had that thing blowing down my neck,” said Watson, who gave up just two earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. “I thing it helped a lot.”

Terry Collins credited the rented air-conditioning with “saving about three or four guys,” as well as proving to the players that the franchise is doing everything it can to aid them in their battle for the division title.

“When an organization is willing to go out and do something like that, it’s pretty special,” he said. “It helped us win.”

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Tony Phillips led off a game with a home run for the 28th time in his career, but it was only his seventh homer of the season. Collins likes to say--loudly, when Phillips is within earshot--that he’s “heard Tony has some power, but I haven’t seen much of it.”

Of course Collins wouldn’t be especially concerned if Phillips never hit another home run. Phillips has scored 53 times in 73 games with the Angels since he was acquired from the White Sox on May 18 and has started in six positions. But Collins’ appreciation of the 14-year veteran’s worth goes beyond runs and versatility.

Asked recently if he was worried about some of his players getting too wrapped up in scoreboard watching, Collins--noting that Phillips had suffered through the Angels’ infamous collapse from a 11-game lead in August of ‘95--said, “Do you think Tony Phillips is going to let anyone in that clubhouse get too excited about what the Mariners are doing? I think he’d pull them down to earth in a hurry.”

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Designated hitter Eddie Murray drove in his first run since May with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning and said later that it was nice to contribute again.

“You wish you could do more,” Murray said. “I had another opportunity [with two runners on in the eighth] and let it slip away, so you do one good thing and then you cancel it out.”

Murray, who missed 51 games because of a wrist injury before returning to the roster Monday, says it will be a while before he regains his timing on breaking pitches because you “don’t see any curveballs in batting practice.”