Angels Winging It All; Favre Packs A Viewing Punch

Baseball playoffs full of Dodger and Yankee stunners.

College football jammed with Bama and Texas charges.

The NFL packed with Brett Favre.

Is this fall heaven or what? With an apt team riding these clouds: the L.A. Angels.

Yea: The Angel bats, speed and arms broke Boston. Nothing like a sweep to answer the Henderson homer of 1986. And to draw a snappy rallying cry from R.J. in Riverside, as called in to Jeff Biggs' Angel radio show: Create Your Fate.

Boo: Joe Nathan's job title is closer. The only thing he closed Friday was Minnesota's series shot. As soon as he surrendered A Roid's rope, the Twins were done. As was my upset pick.

Yea: Chone Figgins has a funny first name. And he's one fun guy to watch at Angel Stadium. Glove, gun, bullet fast. The third baseman is pure entertainment. Especially on one night this summer. Between innings, the Angels ran their promo with a kid dashing to pick up the third base bag. But he couldn't lift it. So Figgins pulled it up for him, and the little buddy carried it across the finish line in time. Now that's a prize moment.

Boo: NBA teams playing games on consecutive nights. Baseball players chatting with guys on the other team during games. Both are drags, as spelled out by Jeff Biggs on his KLAA radio show.

Yea: Dave Campbell of ESPN radio. No better analyst in baseball.

Boo: Yankee fans. Can they come up with something more original? Their sense of entitlement will take a beating once the Angels whip them on the way to the championship.

Yea: Being an L.A. fan. The Angels and Dodgers could meet in the World Series. The champion Lakers could win 70 games.

Boo: Being a St. Louis fan. The Cardinals didn't exactly have a Holliday in the playoffs. The Rams look worse than their pre-George Allen days. And Mizzou. Playing in the downpour against Nebraska Thursday night, the Tigers looked downright poor. God help us when we go to Texas Oct. 24.

Yea: James Loney’s hustle in that miracle Dodger triumph in Game 2 over St. Louis.

Boo: Juan Rivera’s hustle. It slows in the field and on the base paths too often for the Angels. Mike Scioscia better get Rivera flowing fast in this title run.

Yea: Good to see Manny stiffening up his bat again. Must be back on those pregnant pills.

Boo: The L.A. Times sports section predicted the Cards would sweep the Dodgers in three. What? Bad enough to knife the local lads. Horrible when you're dead wrong.

Yea: Patrick Cain was dead on. He's an office colleague, sports nut to the max. And he predicted the Dodgers' ditching of the Cards when no one else saw it. Nothing new from Cain. He called the Arizona Diamondbacks' division title of 2007 and the Seattle Mariners' rise from the depths this year.

Boo: Someone at Angel Stadium please fix the typo atop of the visitor-side dugout. It reads: ANGELS BASEBALL '09. With the apostrophe turned the wrong way.

Yea: Jim Tracy. He dropped off the map after managing the Dodgers to the playoffs and directing Pittsburgh to nowhere land. The minute he popped up in Colorado at midseason, I sent a text to a pal in amazement. Now everyone's amazed at how the Rocks rolled under him.

Boo: So Obummer wins the Nobel Prize for piece of what? Considering his girly toss ahead of last summer's All-Star Game, the best line came from the guy behind me at work: He was more deserving of the Cy Young trophy.

Yea: Harold Reynolds. He's as smooth on MLB Network as he was as an MLB second baseman. At least as smooth as he was with the ladies at ESPN, which booted him for exactly that trait. Glad he's been back on the screen a couple of years now. He's the main reason to flip to channel 213.

And one more yea: Favre. You knew his stare-down of his old Green Bay gang would bust ESPN Monday night records. And when he chatted during that usually boring postgame press conference, you couldn't change the channel. That's one quarterback who has it. Period. Paragraph.

Bucky Fox is an author and editor in Southern California who runs BuckyFox.com.

From Pacquiao to Teixeira, I Want Answers Now

Questions after a weekend of boxing bashes, Derby dashes and general sports clashes:

How can I land Teddy Atlas' job? Dude picked Ricky Hatton to beat Manny Pacquiao. No wonder Atlas sports a mashed nose. The bone must've jammed back in his brain.

The only thing the Hitman hit was the canvas in Round 2. That was after Pac-Man planted his feet for the longest period in boxing history and hooked Hatton silly.

The ref's immediate stoppage made it a TKO. By technical, that must mean technically Hatton was a boxer.

In reality, this was a knockout a 3-year-old girl could've seen coming. I asked little Bianca at a boxing party when Pac-Man would win, and she put up three fingers. Close enough.

When it came to Pac-Man, what was with the Atlas shrug? The old Mike Tyson trainer must've been too busy pondering his next ESPN dollars to have any sense. Ax the guy and hire me.

How do I get Michael Buffer's job? I mean, how tough is introducing boxers? Promise, I can handle "Let's get ready to stummmmmbllllllle."

What's with HBO averting its gaze from the round girls? You know, the high-heeled, hotly garbed babes trotting in the ring with posters in case you forget what round it is. Instead of feeding us the babage, HBO zeroes in on sweaty faces of boxers and corner men.

One word for this pay-per-view trade-off: ripoff.

How can I replace the Kentucky Derby's voice? There was Tom Durkin on NBC noting every horse down the stretch. Except the one passing them all. When he finally said Mine That Bird, he had long clinched the roses.

One of the truly blown calls. I'm ready to stand in.

Does Barry Melrose have it good or what? Couldn't cut it as Tampa Bay's coach in the shortest tryout in NHL annals. So he's back breaking down hockey for ESPN.

Remember that ESPN broadcasts no hockey games. So Melrose spends, oh, two minutes a night chatting after catching action on the tube. And makes tons. I'm in the wrong business.

Amid the Manny and A-Rod hysteria, what to do about steroids? Legalize them.

Even if the Lakers make the NBA Finals, how do they handle LeBron James? Nail him on a steroid charge.

Why did the Lakers’ bench go from NBA tops to flops by playoff time? They traded Vladimir Radmanovic. With him starting, L.A. sizzled with a second unit starring Trevor Ariza. Now that Ariza fills Rad’s starting spot, no one’s left to spark the reserves. That’s why those 15-point leads vanish faster than you can say Luke Walton.

When will Orlando Hudson see straight? The Dodgers' second baseman recently bitched that baseball doesn't field enough black Americans. Something's coloring his juvenile outlook if hasn't caught on that blacks are filling MLB rosters. Only the talent comes mostly from Latin America.

Maybe Hudson is too pretentious to notice such teams as the San Francisco Giants, whose left side of the infield is as black as their caps. Only the third baseman, Pablo Sandoval, hails from Venezuela, and their shortstop, Edgar Renteria, is a Colombian.

Then there's the obvious shift down the road from Hudson's Dodger Stadium. The Angels won the 2002 World Series with two black regulars, L.A.'s own Garret Anderson and Puerto Rican Bengie Molina. Now they have two white regulars, Floridians Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis.

When will teams' radio networks get with it? They feed the waves with pabulum whenever callers question talent and strategy.

That's why it was a breath of fresh air when Adam Dodge spoke up as a guest partner with Jeff Biggs on the Angels' KLAA. When a caller rooted for a Reggie Willits return to the Angels' outfield, I was expecting the knee-jerk response: "You're right, buddy. The guy's scrappy. Bring him back."

Dodge was different. He dismissed the idea. Said enemy pitchers had figured Willits out.

Dodge, a writer for Angelswin.com, sounded honest and compelling. That's a double play that radio should embrace. Advice for Biggs: Don't dodge him.

When will teams quit shelling out for losers? Take Mark Teixeira. Puts up huge numbers in Texas. So fantasy baseball types call him the second coming of Lou Gehrig. The Braves buy into it. They get worse. The Angels get sucked in. They go nowhere in the playoffs. The Yankees are sold on him. They're foundering.

The only pundit who blew the whistle was Phil Rogers. He's my old pal who covers baseball for the Chicago Tribune. Right after the Angels landed Teix last summer, Rogers shared his Texas drawl on KLAA and tattled on that down trend. Cut through the Bill James ratings -- Runs Created, Approximate Value -- and you can see Teixeira simply helps his teams lose.

Remind you of other Yankees? Maybe Bobby Bonds and A-Rod?

Bucky Fox is an editor in Southern California who runs BuckyFox.com and is the author of three baseball books, including "The Highflying Angels: Their 50 Greatest Hits, Pitches and Plays"