UNFAIR, OF COURSE, OF COURSE...:

Angels must beg, borrow or steal: Team needs to make a deal for a hitter so season won't go to waste. (Bill Plaschke, May 11, 2007, LA Times)

I don't believe what I just saw.

Jose Molina stole home.

In a year of the improbable, the impossible has happened.

Jose Molina stole home.

If the slowest cleats in organized baseball can steal a run, then I can steal Kirk Gibson sound bites, no?

All words escaped me Thursday in the fourth inning of the Angels' 8-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians, and for more reasons than that giant red jersey tumbling across home plate.

It's not only that Molina, with seven stolen bases in six major league seasons, swiped home.

It's that the Angels would be so desperate for runs they would actually ask Molina to swipe home.

"Right now, we're a team that needs to do stuff like this," bench coach Ron Roenicke said.

Here's hoping owner Arte Moreno was watching, and here's hoping he was understanding.

In May, the play was fun. In October, that play could be fatal.

If the Angels have to rely on Jose Molina's legs, someone should examine their heads.

...but one can't help picturing the episode of Mr. Ed where he tried out for the dodgers and in a scene where he slides across home plate they used a painfully obviously stuffed, and quite rigid, horse.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 11, 2007 5:27 AM