Ghost Busters

Heaven can wait. The Angels are going to the World Series.

At 5:04 p.m. Sunday, the Angels cast aside their image as bumblers and stumblers and losers. After four decades of frustration and humiliation, the Angels are champions of the American League, bound for their first World Series.

“I’m not even able to make sense of this,” said outfielder Tim Salmon, the longest-suffering Angel. “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

On a day when Babe Ruth was reincarnated as Adam Kennedy, a team without a superstar accomplished what so many All-Stars and Hall of Famers passing through Anaheim could not. There are no individual honors so great, closer Troy Percival suggested, as the honor conferred upon the Angels on Sunday.

“Angel immortality,” Percival said, “for this entire team.”

Kennedy became the fifth player to hit three home runs in a postseason game, a short list that includes Ruth and Reggie Jackson. In a 13-5 thumping of the Minnesota Twins, Kennedy hit solo home runs in the third and fifth innings, then hit the three-run homer that put the Angels ahead for good in a 10-run seventh inning.

Kennedy, formerly known as the guy the Angels got for Jim Edmonds, will henceforth be known as the guy who powered the Angels into the World Series. The Hall of Fame called for his bat. The red sea of 44,835 demanded a curtain call.

And no longer will the Angels be known solely for an awful history, for sorrows known to Angel fans by shorthand--one strike away, one win away, 11-game lead.

“Good things always happened to someone else,” said coach Joe Maddon, whose Angel career started as a minor league catcher in 1975. “It’s so wonderful to lay our negative history to rest and build a new history starting today.”

The baseball gods paid the Angels back Sunday, and how. A black-and-white portrait of the team’s founding owner, Gene Autry, hung from the suite occupied by his widow, Jackie. The ceremonial first pitches were thrown out by three of Autry’s favorite players -- Jim Fregosi, Bobby Knoop and Buck Rodgers, who returned as manager and nearly gave his life for the team in 1992, when the team bus crashed and he was seriously injured.

“This is still the cowboy’s team,” Rodgers said.

Mark Langston, Autry’s last major free-agent signing in 1989, visited the clubhouse. Gary Di- Sarcina, the team leader through the lost decade of the 1990s, called to extend congratulations.

And, although Gene Autry passed away four years ago, Jackie Autry smiled, drenched in champagne. Autry’s boys were in the World Series. Finally, they had won one for the cowboy.

“I know he’s watching it from somewhere,” she said.

As shortstop David Eckstein caught the last out, a pop fly hit by Tom Prince, the Angels erupted in celebration. The players piled atop Percival, and the pile oozed toward first base and slowly broke up. Brothers Bengie and Jose Molina, the Angel catchers, hugged. Percival escorted his protege, rookie Francisco Rodriguez, to the mound and embraced him there.

After the party moved inside the clubhouse, several players returned to the field, doffing their new American League championship caps to the fans.

Manager Mike Scioscia gave the championship trophy to Salmon, who has known nothing but frustration since making his major league debut with the Angels in 1992. Salmon ran a victory lap around the warning track, thrusting the trophy toward seemingly each and every fan.

“You always hear those stories about one strike away,” Salmon said. “I know this is not the World Series trophy, but this is huge. I wanted the fans to be part of it.

“I feel for them. They’ve been through so much pain and frustration. It’s nice to give something back to them. It couldn’t get much sweeter than that it happened here.”

The Angels won the best-of-seven series, four games to one. If they’re not the best team in the major leagues -- and who’s to say they’re not? -- they’re the hottest team, at the most important time. In dismissing the Twins and New York Yankees from the playoffs, the Angels went 7-2. They hit .376 against the Yankees. They outhomered the Twins, 8-0.

In the 1929 World Series, the Philadelphia A’s pounded out 10 hits in one inning, setting a postseason record that stood alone for 73 years.

Until now. In 2002, the Angels collected 10 hits in an inning twice, in the game that eliminated the Yankees and in the game that eliminated the Twins.

Victory did not come easily, despite the score. The Twins rallied to take a 5-3 lead in the seventh inning, scoring against the suddenly mortal Rodriguez on a bases-loaded walk and bases-loaded wild pitch.

But Scott Spiezio singled to start the bottom of the seventh, and Bengie Molina singled too. Kennedy, who does not start against left-handers, fouled off a bunt against left-hander Johan Santana. Then he took a full swing, another foul. Then he took a full swing and homered, his third home run of the game in the biggest game of his life.

“My first reaction was, this just doesn’t happen,” center fielder Darin Erstad said. “I was about ready to pass out.”

For Kennedy, the most valuable player in the series, and for the rest of the Angels, the World Series starts Saturday at Edison Field. For Mo Vaughn, who bellowed in spring training that “they ain’t got no flags hanging at friggin’ Edison Field,” that American League pennant ought to put to rest once and for all the notion that you can either play for the Angels or play for a winner.

“There is no more ‘we can’t get it done,’ ” Percival said. “We’ve got it done this far. We’ve got four more games to win.”

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*--* No Mercy Angel closer Troy Percival continued his mastery of the Twins on Sunday by retiring them in order in the ninth. His career statistics against Minnesota: Games 36 Innings 38 1/3 Hits 9 Runs 2 Earned Runs 0 Walks 16 Strikeouts 48 *Strikeout Pct 41.7% ERA 0.00 Opp. Batting Avg 078 Save/Opp 20/22 W-L 1-0 * Of batters retired

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