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Spiezio helps Angels paint the town red Posted: Wednesday October 23, 2002 12:30 AMUpdated: Wednesday October 23, 2002 1:25 AM
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Scott Spiezio is willing to dye for the Angels. The player with streaks of red in his hair and goatee helped paint this ol' town Angel red Tuesday night, getting the biggest hit as Anaheim burst to an 8-1 lead and silenced all those Giants fans in orange and black. Spiezio's two-run triple to the deepest part of the ballpark put the Angels firmly in control in a four-run third inning. He singled home another run in the fourth as the Angels went on to a 10-4 victory and a 2-1 World Series lead. Just the way his father, former major leaguer Ed Spiezio, had taught him from the time he learned to walk. "He's basically been preparing me my whole life for this moment," Scott Spiezio said. "We had drills that we'd do. He'd pitch me batting practice every day, and we'd always end it with a situation where I'd be in the World Series. "I think that's probably the reason I feel comfortable here, because I've done that in my head so many times as I grew up, from age 3 till probably a couple of years ago is the last time we did stuff like that." A heavy metal rocker, Spiezio is quick with a joke and with his stroke. These days, he's making noise with his bat, not his band. "My mom keeps saying, 'I can't believe you're in the World Series.' I said, 'Why not? Dad was in three,'" Spiezio said last week. "She said, 'But you're playing.'" Ed Spiezio, a backup for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s, went 1-for-2 lifetime in Series play. His son is already 4-for-11 with five RBIs after batting .375 with 11 RBIs in the AL playoffs. He's three RBIs short of the postseason record for RBIs, set by Cleveland's Sandy Alomar Jr. in 1997. "Right now, I'm just focused on winning the next game. After this whole thing is done and we're winners, then I'll think about it," Spiezio said. Spiezio, the only free-agent signee on the Angels' postseason roster, won the first-base job last spring after the trade of Mo Vaughn to the Mets and injuries to Benji Gil and Shawn Wooten. Spiezio set career highs with a .285 average and 82 RBIs and made just three errors -- 15 fewer than the bulky Vaughn's total for New York. "Every question about Spiezio now is, 'Is he deserving of a Gold Glove?'" Angels outfielder Tim Salmon said. "Well, they're getting to see him now. They're getting to see what he can do with the glove and what he can do with the bat. Being a West Coast club, we don't get that national recognition and exposure, so this is good for those guys." On Tuesday, the Angels had just gone ahead 2-1 in the third inning when he lined a pitch by Ramon Ortiz to right-center, sending the ball rolling to near the 421-foot sign. Spiezio huffed and puffed his way to third. "It seemed like my legs weren't moving that fast around there," he said. "I didn't know if I was going to make it to third. This is a big park -- the ball doesn't carry that well, unless you're Barry Bonds." While he's excited to be in the World Series -- he uses the words "awesome" and "great" a lot -- he'd almost rather be someplace else. Almost. "We're cutting into the band time," he said the other day, shifting his thoughts to his role as lead singer of Sand Frog. It's the type of music David Wells would love, he says, not the kind appreciated by his father, who played the accordion. His video with the metal band has been completed, according to www.sandfrog.com. Spiezio, 30, may not have inherited his father's sense of music, but he does covet two of dad's possessions.
"He has two rings," Spiezio said. "I'd like to get one."
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