Good thing Mike Scioscia isn't managing the Dodgers as they bathe again in champagne -- hopefully careful not to wash away any of the magic dust.
Scioscia probably benches Manny for standing out from everyone else, or vetoes the acquisition of the carefree one.
OK, so no question the great guy is a really good manager, but Scioscia is the reason why the Angels have fallen flat and now appear to have been lapped by the Dodgers -- four wins away from the World Series.
He spends most of the season squeezing the emotion out of the Angels, making what's supposed to be a game, just a job. The playoffs start, everyone else gets juiced -- and that's no Gary Matthews' reference -- and the Angels get left behind.
Manager Joe Torre, meanwhile, wears his emotions on his worn face, talking about meaningful games in May, scoreboard watching on a regular basis and almost crying after a first-game win in Chicago.
A few months back I made the calculated decision to stop paying attention to the Angels, skipping games at Angel Stadium, which is 10 minutes from home, to hang with the Dodgers wherever they went because they had Manny and are allowed to display personality.
The Angels, meanwhile, are boring. They are corporate 9-to-5, just the way Scioscia insists, never too high, never too low, just punch the clock and execute. Everything and everyone closely monitored by Scioscia.
It's unclear if Torre knew the name of all his players when the season started, off to China with half the team only to return hands in jacket pockets, and rolling with Page 2 when reprimanded for not making everyday starters right away out of Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier.
Ask Scioscia where the Angels reside in the standings, and he will tell you he has no idea and really doesn't care, although the Dodgers will tell you no matter how many games you lose, the only thing that counts is where you sit in the standings.
Torre frets. Torre second-guesses himself. Torre rolls with the hypothetical and listen to him explain why he says it's so important for the Dodgers to bring out the champagne again before moving on to the next round.
"There's so much pressure and tension in the playoffs," he says. "I think it's important when you get that high to come down and take a break before getting back up again."
It's why he had Nomar Garciaparra managing the Dodgers on the final day of the season in San Francisco. Yucks all around, knowing the next time they got together it would be for a monumental game in Chicago.
