Years from now it may be the answer to a question in Trivial Pursuit:
Which cast member from “Friends” proved to be the biggest success outside the long-running TV show?
Jennifer Aniston? David Schwimmer? Courteney Cox? Lisa Kudrow? Matt LeBlanc? Matthew Perry?
If the Anaheim Angels beat San Francisco in the 2002 World Series, the answer could be g: None of the above.
The newest A-list celebrity in Southern California is Katie, the monkey who played the role of “Marcel” on “Friends.” Katie currently is starring on Fox in her recurring role as the “Rally Monkey” and perhaps no one outside of Barry Bonds or Kiefer Sutherland has received more airtime during the postseason than the Angels’ funky monkey.
For those just tuning in, the Rally Monkey dresses in an Angels jersey and appears on the scoreboard of Angels’ home games when the team is tied or losing from the seventh inning on. The monkey jumps up and down, the fans jump up and down. Then, theoretically, the Angels come back and win the game.
It’s an Edison Field tradition that began on June 6, 2000, and accompanied a comeback victory over the Giants. Now it is receiving national attention during the playoffs as some fans swear by the power of the Rally Monkey. Others swear at the Rally Monkey, suggesting it’s just another marketing ploy that’s diverting attention from the accomplishments of a storybook team.
Does it work?
In Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, the Rally Monkey appeared on the board after Darin Erstad singled in the seventh inning of a 0-0 tie. The Angels went on to take a 2-0 lead, then buried the Twins with a five-run eighth.
In Game 5, the Angels trailed the Twins 5-3 in the seventh when Scott Spiezio singled to put two men on. Cue the Rally Monkey, and a postseason record-tying 10-run inning that propelled the Angels into the World Series.
Coincidence or not, the Rally Monkey has taken on mythical proportions in Anaheim, the town where Walt Disney Co. is king, running the Angels, the Mighty Ducks and, of course, Disneyland. The town is as jazzed for the World Series as it ever has been.
Or maybe not.
“How old are you?” former Angels manager Jim Fregosi said when asked about the crazed atmosphere at Edison Field. “Remember 1979? It was pretty exciting here then.”
But that was pre-Rally Monkey, and though Fregosi’s team finished first in the AL West that year, the Angels lost to Baltimore in the ALCS. Perhaps a Rally Monkey was what the ’79 Angels lacked.
“We had, `Yes We Can!'” Fregosi recalled, referring to the generic catchphrase of the ’79 Angels. “You have to have something.”
The modern-age sports mantra is “Just Market, Baby.” It’s never quite enough to have a winning team that plays well together and competes for a championship. The Rally Monkey, along with the inflatable plastic noisemakers called ThunderStix, combined to turn the Angels into the all-time champions of sports gimmickry. Non-stop mentions of the Rally Monkey during Angels playoff telecasts on Fox may have helped the monkey’s Q-rating, though not everyone is impressed.
“I absolutely hate that Rally Monkey,” one general manager said. “The funny part to me is you’ll have Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch, promoting a Disney gimmick over and over during World Series games. You’d think they’d do anything but promote it.”
Those who condemn the Rally Monkey as another sad sign that baseball has been turned over to the marketing staff conveniently ignore one small fact: Sports teams have been using gimmicks like the Rally Monkey for decades.
Remember Atlanta’s Tomahawk Chop and its accompanying chant–another gimmick shown repeatedly during Octobers past. The Rally Monkey is another in a long line of such cheerleading tools.
The Pittsburgh Steelers waved their Terrible Towels during their Super Bowl reign in the 1970s and San Diego Padres fans performed the Wave ad nauseum while bouncing back to win three straight from the Cubs in the 1984 NLCS.
The Pittsburgh Pirates danced to the Sister Sledge song, “We Are Family,” during their championship season in ’79, and the Minnesota Twins twirled their Homer Hankies to world titles in ’87 and ’91.
The Twins recently proved that what seemed like a good idea a decade ago can look stale and unoriginal when it’s twice-baked. Minnesota brought back the Homer Hankies for this year’s playoffs, but the Twins managed to go only 2-2 at the Metrodome with one home run.
Teams don’t always need props as cheerleading aids. Well before the Rally Monkey was a gleam in Disney’s eye, longtime Cardinals, Sox and Cubs baseball announcer Harry Caray hung out of his TV booth at White Sox and Cubs games, sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and implored, “Let’s . . . get . . . some . . . runs.” Chicago is home to some of the most notorious sports gimmicks in history, many from the mind of Bill Veeck, the master of marketing. In his first go-round as White Sox owner, Veeck had a promotion whereby a fan in a “lucky seat” would win 1,000 cans of beer, delivered to his seat.
“To give one can of beer to 1,000 people is not nearly as fun as to give 1,000 cans of beer to one guy,” Veeck wrote in “Veeck as in Wreck,” his autobiography. “You give a thousand people a can of beer, and each of them will drink it, smack his lips and go back to watching the ballgame. You give 1,000 cans to one guy and there is always an outside possibility that 50,000 people will talk about it.”
During Veeck’s second go-around with the Sox in the mid-’70s, he gave Caray carte blanche to act as the team’s unofficial cheerleader, turning the seventh-inning stretch into an institution and teaming with organist Nancy Faust to make the song “Na, Na, Hey-Hey, Kiss Him Good-bye” a South Side tradition.
Some forget the song inadvertently backfired during the ’83 postseason at Comiskey Park. Sox fans serenaded Baltimore starter Storm Davis off the mound during Game 4 of the ALCS immediately after Davis was pulled in the seventh inning of a 0-0 game. After Tito Landrum’s upper-deck home run off Britt Burns gave the Orioles a 10-inning victory that sent them on to the World Series, the Orioles players loudly sang “Na, Na . . . Hey-Hey” in the clubhouse during their postgame party, shoving it in the faces of Sox fans.
The Giants have no imminent plans to counter the Rally Monkey, though they will have a combination of ThunderStix, “rally rags” and pom-pon giveaways during the three possible games at Pac Bell Park. San Francisco has led the National League in home attendance for the last three years since Pac Bell opened in 2000 and most fans there consider themselves above gimmicks.
San Franciscans are notoriously anti-mascot and once forced management to ditch its walking crab mascot at Candlestick Park, throwing food at and harassing the crusty crustacean. Since moving to Pac Bell, they added a seal mascot named Lou Seal, whose act is unlike the Rally Monkeys.
“He’s a lovable, furry critter who jumps into McCovey’s Cove,” Giants spokesman Jim Moorehead said.
As Fregosi said, you have to have something.
STATS & STUFF
World Series schedule
Game 1: Saturday
at Anaheim, 7:04 p.m.
Game 2: Sunday
at Anaheim, 7:02
Game 3: Tuesday
at San Francisco, 7:27
Game 4: Wednesday
at San Francisco, 7:35
Game 5: Thursday, Oct. 24
at San Francisco, 7:22-*
Game 6: Saturday, Oct. 26
at Anaheim, 6:58-*
Game 7: Sunday, Oct. 27
at Anaheim, 7:02-*
Note: Best-of-7 series; *-if necessary; all games on WFLD-Ch. 32
Angels playoff roster
Manager: Mike Scioscia
CATCHERS HT WT B T
1 Bengie Molina 5-11 210 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.245 105 5 47
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.241 7 0 4
28 Jose Molina 6-1 215 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.271 19 0 5
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
(1 AB) .000 0 0 0
44 Shawn Wooten 5-10 225 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.292 33 3 19
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.471 8 1 3
INFIELDERS HT WT B T
22 David Eckstein 5-8 170 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.293 178 8 63
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.282 11 0 3
6 Chone Figgins 5-9 155 S R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.167 2 0 1
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
(1 AB) 1.000 1 0 0
20 Brad Fullmer 6-0 220 L R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.289 124 19 59
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.316 6 1 4
10 Benji Gil 6-2 210 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.285 37 3 20
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.571 4 0 1
25 Troy Glaus 6-5 245 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.250 142 30 111
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.314 11 4 5
2 Adam Kennedy 6-1 192 L R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.312 148 7 52
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.409 9 4 8
23 Scott Spiezio 6-2 225 S R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.285 140 12 82
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.375 12 2 11
OUTFIELDERS HT WT B T
16 Garret Anderson 6-3 228 L L
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.306 195 29 123
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.316 12 2 7
17 Darin Erstad 6-2 220 L L
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.283 177 10 73
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.390 16 1 4
18 Alex Ochoa 6-0 200 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.277 18 2 10
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
(4 AB) .000 0 0 0
3 Orlando Palmeiro 5-10 182 L L
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.300 79 0 31
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
(2 AB) .000 0 0 0
15 Tim Salmon 6-3 235 R R
REG. SEASON AVG H HR RBI
.286 138 22 88
POSTSEASON AVG H HR RBI
.242 8 2 7
PITCHERS HT WT B T
27 Kevin Appier 6-2 200 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
14-12 3.92 64 132
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
0-1 4.11 7 6
53 Brendan Donnelly 6-3 200 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
1-1 2.17 19 54
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
0-0 10.13 5 4
41 John Lackey 6-6 205 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
9-4 3.66 33 69
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
1-0 0.00 1 10
36 Ramon Ortiz 6-0 170 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
15-9 3.77 68 162
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
1-0 10.13 5 4
40 Troy Percival 6-3 235 R R
REG. SEASON SV ERA BB SO
40 1.92 25 68
POSTSEASON SV ERA BB SO
4 2.70 0 7
57 Francisco Rodriguez
6-0 165 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
0-0 0.00 2 13
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
4-0 1.80 4 15
60 Scott Schoeneweis
6-0 185 L L
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
9-8 4.88 49 65
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
0-0 9.00 0 0
62 Scot Shields 6-1 175 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
5-3 2.20 21 30
NO POSTSEASON ACTION
56 Jarrod Washburn 6-1 187 L L
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
18-6 3.15 59 139
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
1-0 2.84 3 11
77 Ben Weber 6-4 210 R R
REG. SEASON W-L ERA BB SO
7-2 2.54 22 43
POSTSEASON W-L ERA BB SO
0-1 7.36 2 3
Note: The Giants roster will appear in Friday’s edition.
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