JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

To complete my conditioning for the upcoming Major League Baseball

season, I wrapped up spring training last week in Arizona. As part of

this regimen, I managed a half hour of conversation with the new general

manager of the Anaheim Angels, Bill Stoneman. I wanted to make sure that

he understood why almost 20% of last year’s season ticket holders --

including the group I was in -- didn’t renew this year. And, more

important, what he planned to do about it.

Stoneman turned out to be a soft-spoken, low-key, good-natured baseball

lifer who said he had received only a few letters from Angels defectors

and wasn’t fully aware of the disenchantment among the troops. Somebody

upstairs should tell him.

I was in Arizona because Bob Shelton, with whom I have long shared both a

close friendship and a passion for baseball, suggested several months ago

that we sign up for a five-day junket to the Cactus League training camps

offered by Elderhostel, which creates and packages adventures that will

fit the budgets and interests and energies of older people.

We enrolled eagerly, but one hitch developed. Four programs were offered:

the Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants and the

Angels. Naturally, we signed up for the Angels. A month later, we were

told that the Angels program had been canceled for lack of interest.

Only three people had applied -- and we were two of them (if the third

happens to read this, I’d be interested in meeting her). Meanwhile, the

other programs had already reached their limit of 50.

After some agonizing, we decided to get on the waiting list for the

Seattle program rather than give up our trip. And when two openings

appeared, we grabbed them. We figured as long as we were in the

neighborhood, we’d connect somehow with the Angels. And that’s the way it

played out.

The Seattle group we joined was eclectic -- and about half women. But

there was one common thread: a love and deep commitment to baseball. The

speakers at the seminar sessions -- from former Major League pitcher Joe

Black to Diamondbacks Vice President Roland Hemond -- understood this

instantly and never talked down to their audience.

There was a tour of the Diamondbacks splendid new ballpark (its luxury

boxes are the best example I’ve ever seen of capitalism run amok) and

three spring training games, all involving the Mariners.

We cut off from one of these games to drive to Tempe and spend our day

with the Angels, who were playing the San Diego Padres. I not only

interviewed Bill Stoneman, but we saw the Angels win for the first time

that week and ran into George Will, who was just hanging out there for no

apparent doubled-domed reason.

This was two days before Stoneman traded Jim Edmonds to the Cardinals for

a real, honest-to-God Major League pitcher and a rookie second baseman

who will probably open the season there for the Angels.

I take no credit -- well, maybe just a little -- for the trade. I’m sure

it was just coincidence that I pointed out to the general manager that

any revival of interest in the Angels depended on something happening

besides the loss of Chuck Finley to Cleveland. Stoneman did catch me up

when I said that the only thing that had changed since last year’s

disaster was the health of several key players; he pointed out correctly

that this, alone, was actually a profound change.

I couldn’t tell if he was serious in defending the performance the day

before of one of his projected front-line pitchers, who gave up 11 hits

and nine runs in three innings.

Stoneman pointed out that all of the hits were ground balls, which is

what the pitcher was supposed to induce. It was just rotten luck, he

said, and a “cement infield that the grounders got through for base hits.

The figures don’t show that, but we know it.” He also added that the

Angels pitchers had a better spring earned-run average than the Yankees

-- who had won only six of 28 games at the time.

He noted several times that the Angels “aren’t looking in any rearview

mirrors this season. Last year is gone. In baseball, things can change

very quickly, especially under the staff we’ve brought together who have

all played and won. When Pat Kelly decided he was through playing and

left our camp the other day, he told me it was the best he’d ever been

in, mainly because our staff is so high on credibility, communication and

organization.”

These are the sort of statements that tend to make cynics of

sportswriters but are embraced by the people who want to believe. Who

want to buy season tickets again. Who find it credible, along with the

general manager, that all those ground-ball hits off our pitchers will be

outs when they get to Anaheim.

But us believers got bruised badly last year, and we’re not yet ready to

forgive. The lack of interest in the Elderhostel Angels program was an

example. So were the crowds at the games we saw.

The Mariners packed their home field in Peoria for a game with the

Padres. When they went to Ho Ho Kam Park to play the Cubs, it looked like

a Nebraska homecoming football crowd. By contrast, the Angels’ stadium

was only about half-filled for the game we saw.

But George Will and Bob Shelton and I are as ready as we can get for the

new season. While we wait for the Angels’ opening game next week against

the Yankees, we would welcome some kindred spirits.

So if you’re of a like mind, you might want to drop Bill Stoneman a

letter to let him know you’d consider coming back -- providing, of

course, that those ground balls stay in the infield when the games begin

to count.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column appears

Thursdays.