Baseball: Bonds versus the Angels - a Series to save the game

America's obsession was in decline, until last week

You wouldn't think so from the TV ratings, but this all-California World Series, and the gripping post-season which went before, may go down as the one that helped save baseball. The Anaheim Angels and the San Francisco Giants started the play-offs as makeweight wild-cards, far removed from the sport's current aristocracy. But for the last week they have produced an irresistible storyline: the team that proved money isn't everything against the best slugger of his age who lacks just one thing to prove it – a World Series ring.

That synopsis may do an injustice to the more-than-competent pitchers and the decent hitters who are Barry Bonds' team-mates at the Giants. The fact is, though, that a rejuvenated Bonds has towered over this contest. How were the Angels to pitch to the most feared hitter in baseball, holder of the single-season home-run record of 73, and owner of a league- leading .370 batting average for 2002? And could the Giants make the Angels pay for ducking Bonds, by cashing in the extra base-runner earned by his every intentional walk? When the Series left gorgeous Pac Bell Park, overlooking San Francisco Bay, on Friday, honours were with the Giants ahead of the last two games in Anaheim. After treating the Angels to a 16-4 thrashing in Thursday's Game Five, San Francisco held a 3-2 lead, and by the time this newspaper appears may have wrapped the best-of-seven series. But whatever the outcome it will have been a Fall Classic truly worthy of the name.

One game – the Angels' nerve-racking 11-10 triumph in Game Two – belongs among the finest ever in a World Series. A couple of others are in the near-great category. No less important, some reputations have been transformed.

Take the Angels. Not long ago, they were the self-indulgent beach children of Southern California: a team founded by cowboy star Gene Autry, now a division of Walt Disney which the entertainment empire is seeking to sell. They were a lazy bunch, mostly as anonymous as the Anaheim landscape of strip malls, cheap condominiums and parking lots. Twice in the 1980s they blew chances of making the Series, and the worst thing was, no one seemed to care.

The 2002 Angels vintage is the polar opposite. Under manager Mike Scioscia, they practise the grittiest baseball in the majors. With the possible exceptions of closer Troy Percival and rookie reliever Francisco Rodriguez, with the cute smile and unhittable fastball, they are a team without superstars. Instead they smother opponents with unrelenting pressure, especially on the bases. Time and again, they have stretched singles into doubles. No chance to steal is missed.

It's the sort of niggling "small-ball" that reduces opposing starters to nervous wrecks. Just ask the Giants' Livan Hernandez, who owned a perfect 6-0 post season record – until he sat weeping in the dugout after being shelled for six runs in under four innings in Game Three.

Scott Spezio, the Angels' first-baseman and until now a major league journeyman, summed up the philosophy thus: "Get as many guys to the plate as we can. One, two, three, four runs isn't enough. Every guy, no matter what the situation, thinks his at-bat is the most important in history." That sort of attitude wins ballgames. Anaheim have been on a post-season hitting binge without precedent. As of Game Four of the World Series, the Angels were hitting a collective .332 in the play-offs. In the divisional series, they blasted the Rolls-Royce pitching of the Yankees for 31 runs in four games.

This time, it's been harder – because of Barry Bonds. And Bonds too is shedding a reputation. He might rank fourth on the all-time career list with 613 homers (and with an outside chance of reaching Hank Aaron's record of 755), but until now he has commanded admiration, not affection. Bonds, it was held, played for himself, not the team. But now the scowling, arrogant presence, with the trademark diamond ring in his left ear, has mellowed. He's still terse, with a simmering intensity that's scary. But just occasionally he smiles. He even talks with team-mates. Above all, he has delivered.

His seven post-season home-runs are a record. But even that is by the by. "I just want to win, I just want a World Series ring," he said after the Giants lost on Tuesday to go 2-1 down. The following night his direct contribution was marginal, as the Angels walked him three times. But his brooding presence dominated.

The Giants this post-season are 2-5 in games where Bonds homers, and 7-0 when he does not – but that only proves the aversion of opposition teams to taking him on, unless the bases are empty, or the game is beyond even his powers of retrieval.

But even this overachieving Anaheim team and the greatest slugger of the era have achieved more than self-vindication. Together they have proved that baseball's underdogs have a shot at the biggest prize – that the World Series is not the preserve of the super-rich. A menacing boredom had settled over baseball, reflected in declining attendances and TV ratings, and worry that a strike would deal an irreparable blow. The strike was averted at the 11th hour. Now this wonderful World Series, however it ends, is another step on baseball's return to health.