Welcome to the Yard Work 2008 Season Preview. Every day or so, up until and past Opening Day, some person from some place will sound off on some team. We begin, of course, with the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles, and Angels TV color commentator Rex Hudler.

Hey there baseball fans! Welcome back to another fantastic season of Major League Baseball! I gotta say I was really honored to get picked by the fine fellas here at Yard Work to kick off their award-hoping coverage of the upcoming campaign. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t picked to kick it off. You see, in case you didn’t know, a few years ago the team that I broadcast for – the 2002 World Series Champion Anaheim Angels – changed their name. They’re now supposed to be called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

At first I was fine with the change. Not that they asked the old Hud-Dog what he thought of it, but it was cool. But then I was talking to my good friend Jose Mota – you might’ve seen him doing a great job on the sidelines during the Angels / Red Sox ALDS last year, reporting on the sort of reporterly stuff you don’t get to see too often on TV nowadays, what with all the reality TV shows and that other stuff they’re showing. Take that, sideline hotties! But I was talking to Jose over some homemade Meximelts and kick-ass queso, and he told me that “Los Angeles” was actually Spanish for “The Angels”. Are you serious? How stupid is that? I mean, it’s great that Arte Moreno (the best owner in all of baseball, in case you were wondering) wants to stick it to those fancy-pants Dodgers over in that boring part of baseball, but come on! The Angels Angels of Anaheim doesn’t make no damn sense at all! Sorry to be the first one to bring this up to you folks, but it’s true.

So that’s why I proposed the little team-name change to the Yarders of Work that you see up there at the top of your screen. In fact, I’m making this an official Request For Change with the Offices of Major League Baseball – you’re on notice, Bud-dy! You need more reasons why this makes all sorts of great sense? Well, here they are:

1) That 2002 World Championship belongs to the Anaheim Angels, not that team with the stupid name. Let’s give it back to where it belonged in the first place!
2) “Anaheim” is before “Arizona” in the alphabet, meaning that we’re #1 in all of baseball! Like “aardvark”!
3) The Angels are the best well-rounded team of baseball you’ll see this year!

Now, you’re going to hear a lot of talk leading up to the season about the team’s problems, talking about how the Angels’ hitters ain’t gonna do jack to help our their awesome pitching staff (now bolstered by former White Sox ace Jon Garland). For those folks, I got two words – Torii. Hunter. Now, those might not be actually words. Well, “hunter” is. But you’re smelling what I’m waving in front of your face, and it’s smelling like the truth. You’re gonna try telling me that adding a 30-homer, 100-RBI, 20-SB, highlight-reel-catching, Gold-Glove-winning, all-around-awesome-bro-down-guy like Torii can’t help an already potent line-up like what the Angels already had last year? You know what that second “i” in Torii’s name stands for? “Inconceivable”! As in, it’s “inconceivable” that folks believe he’s not going to make this team better!

And (if that’s not enough for you) he’s entering his prime at the tender young age of 33! Let me tell you, I would beat up a boatload of immigrants to be 33 again. Hell, I had my best year of my career in 1996, when I was 35! And if I can hit 16 homers in half a season, imagine what Torii can do with two more years on the Wonder Dog! And he’s not the only spring chicken here! Big Vladdy Daddy, Sarge Jr., good old GA, and especially Wittle Juan Rivera, the baby of the group – they’re all just starting to peak, and when this group is hitting on all cylinders, in combination with super-speedster Reggie Willits, the American League better watch out!

Now, in the infield, there’s no way to underestimate what losing Original Confidence will do to the team’s chemistry fabric. He was a sparkplug, a linchpin, a keystone, and a great situational hitter, as well as a really great all around swell man’s man sort of guy. But this is where the Angels’ great farm system comes into play, giving us not one but TWO superstars-in-waiting. Imagine future All Star Howie Kendrick feeding double play grounders to either masher Brandon Wood (the guy just screams NOMAR to me, I don’t know why) or super-sub gloveman Erick Aybar! And then they throw the ball onto sluggers like Casey Kotchmann or Kendry Morales to finish off the twin killing! And then they toss it around the horn to Chone Figgins at the hot corner! All great players, and all home-grown. It doesn’t take any real talent to go out and trade for good players, or even go out and overpay for them. But if you can get those players yourself from the start, then you’re really cooking, and the Angels are like blackened catfish on top of burnt collard greens.

And speaking of getting burnt, that’s what hitters are going to be feeling next year when the pitching staff’s done making them look like overpaid millionaire chumps that don’t know how to hit major league pitching! With all due respect to C.C. Sabathia – that stands for “Counting Calories,” right? – the real Cy Young Award winner is right here in California, and he goes deer hunting with the Wonder Dog every off season, and he’s a big fan of Freedom Rock, and his name is John Lackey. Then follow that with another Cy Young perennial like Kelvim Escobar just waiting to put it all together, and young studs galore – Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, and the aforementioned superstar Jon Garland. Then follow that up with a bullpen that’s just sick on top of sick, and killer kloser K-Rod Rodriguez acting like the cherry on top of that sick sundae.

Now, as you might know, there’s a story that came out recently about K-Rod saying the Angels didn’t want him anymore, simply because they haven’t offered him a contract extension yet. Well, I’m here to say that it’s all a big deal about nothing. I call K-Rod at least three times a week, and whenever I get ahold of him, all I can talk to him about is how much the Angels want to have him around. He knows the Angels want him, and I’m pretty sure – I’d say 100%, but I don’t want to sound like I’m full of myself, so I’ll say 99% – that K-Rod and the Angels front office will work out some sort of deal that’ll make all involved parties more than happy. And when I say “parties,” I mean the front office, the Francisco Treat, his entourage, the fans, his teammates, the coaching staff, the news media, the merchandisers, the concessioneers, the parking attendants, the scalpers, the Ticketmaster operators, the spirit of Gene Autry, Kingfish Salmon, and, last but most definitely not least, yours truly.

Man, I didn’t even get to talk about how great Mike Scoscia and his staff is! Or the fans! Or the Rally Monkey! That’s the problem with great teams like the Anaheim Angels – there’s so much to talk about, but there’re only so many hours in a day. And come April, those hours are going to be all about the game played between those two bright, beautiful lines of lime they put out on the baseball diamond every day! They look so good I could just snort ’em up all quick like! I hope you’re as excited as I am! Let’s get Figgy with it!