It is not exactly a death in the family, because it is baseball. Plus, the dearly departed is alive and healthy and will be doing quite well financially, thank you.
But when the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim take the field at Angel Stadium on April 6 for opening day 2009, the roll call will be, most likely, missing one familiar "here."
After 14 full seasons in Anaheim, Garret Anderson will be wearing somebody else's uniform. No matter what the color scheme, no matter what the logo on the cap, it won't be quite right. The Big A won't be at the Big A. The player known to his teammates as "G.A." will go from Gentleman Angel to just a guy named Garret, on a team named something else.
Unless, just maybe, perhaps, in a late development . . .
More on that later.
For all intents, Anderson had his key to the front door taken away when he was on the airplane returning home from Boston, after the Angels had been eliminated from the playoffs by the Red Sox.
"Mike came by and said we needed to have lunch next week, and that he'd call me," says Anderson, who knew immediately that Manager Scioscia's lunch agenda was not social.
"We had lunch about a week later, with [General Manager] Tony Reagins, and they told me they were not going to exercise my option. I said, yeah, I know. They asked how I knew. I said, 'Have you had lunch with Vladdy or Lackey to tell them you were keeping them?' "
Vladimir Guerrero and John Lackey remain, of course. For the moment, Anderson, matched only by Chipper Jones in same-team, big league longevity -- is gone. The Angels had an option on his services for the 2009 season at $14 million. They could buy out that option and make him a free agent by paying him $3 million. When the check arrived at Anderson's home in Irvine recently, reality set in.
"My wife [Teresa] told me to face it, that they had moved on," Anderson says. "She could see it more clearly. She wasn't emotionally involved. I was."
Lest anything be misinterpreted here, Anderson has no anger toward the Angels. Quite the opposite.
"I harbor no ill will," he says. "They gave me 14 great years, a World Series. Nothing but positives to look back on there."
Still, as much as he understands that this is business, that he is 36 years old, that the Angels have made a commitment to a younger and less costly Juan Rivera in left field, he also hoped -- and still does -- that there will be a home for him at his old home this season.
