Giants live in fear of mad Angels as underdogs fight over World Series

Diamond geezer Bonds rules the roster in the pitched battle of payroll paupers.

One giant who towers above 49 dwarves, a pair of yapping underdogs and a daft but cute ape: it sounds the sort of World Series that only Disney could dream up.

How right and proper, then, that not only does the curtain rise tonight roughly 40 minutes by Cadillac from Hollywood but the hosts Anaheim Angels are bankrolled by the creators of Mickey Mouse and Jiminy Cricket.

At 38, a year older than Babe Ruth when he made the last of his 10 Series appearances, Barry Bonds, the diamond's most dazzling and durable talent, has finally made it to the so-called Fall Classic. It would not be stretching things too far to suggest his 24 fellow San Francisco Giants, as well as the entire Angels' roster - inspired by a mascot called the Rally Monkey - will not so much be overshadowed as unlit. For lovers of feelgood movies, nevertheless, this best-of-seven contest is nothing if not seductive.

The last all-California clash, in 1989, was disrupted when an earthquake hit San Francisco; this autumn the shockwaves have already done their worst, sending tremors through the boardrooms of the game's swankiest and ritziest.

The Arizona Diamondbacks, champions last year, have fallen by the wayside, as have the two most dominant teams of the age, the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves; not once in six play-off series did the favourites prevail. So was the stage left to the Angels and Giants, surging through unprecedentedly as wild cards.

For all the bleating about a lack of quality and megastardom, this Series is the most welcome shot in the arm in many an aeon, even though it came close to not taking place at all.

At the end of August a players' strike was only just averted, the main gripe being the club owners' decision to impose a wealth tax - effectively a salary cap - in the hope of levelling an increasingly uneven playing field. That the Yankees failed despite a $133.5m payroll that almost matches the com- bined salaries of the Giants and Angels has prompted wild rejoicing. The Angels added injury to insult by compiling the highest-ever team post-season batting average in trouncing the Bronx Bombers in the divisional series. "These guys are hungry," noted the Yankees' David Wells. "You can see it in their eyes."

Not that the schadenfreude stops there. The Minnesota Twins (27th out of 30 in the payroll table) and the Oakland A's (25th) also qualified for the post-season. By contrast five of the eight heaviest spenders failed to get that far, including the Texas Rangers, once co-owned by George W Bush, and the New York Mets, who both propped up their divisions.

In the first five seasons after the 1994-95 strike only one team outside the top half of the wage list progressed to the playoffs; out of 224 games those in the bottom half won five. Welcome to the socialist republic of baseball? You never know.

Bonds apart - and despite collecting four home runs to date, his overall input has been erratic - the individual catalysts are also cut from unpromising cloth. In the concluding chapter of the American League Championship Series against the Twins the Angels' second baseman Adam Kennedy, last and least muscular member of the order, mocked a career average of a homer every 20 outings by becoming only the fifth player ever to smack three in a play-off game.

The Most Valuable Player of the National League Championship Series, meanwhile, was the Giants' Benito Santiago, a grizzled veteran catcher whose career had been all but written off following a car crash. Jason Schmidt, tonight's starting pitcher, understands the motiva tion: "He's living for the moment."

The outcome could well hinge on whether Anaheim's decidedly unangelic corps of relief pitchers, led by Troy Percival, continue to embrace the Devon Malcolm Principle: the dodgier the eyesight, the greater the intimidation.

"He's blind," claims Ben Weber of Percival who, unlike Brendan Donnelly, Francisco Rodriguez and Weber himself, disdains goggles, glasses or even contact lenses on the mound. "He really is." Crucial to a pitcher who loses out the innings, however, is that aura of menace: the only spectacles that interest Percival are those he intends to make of Bonds and co.

"You know what you're going to get with Percival," says the Twins' Doug Mientkiewicz. "You're going to get a squinting madman who throws 200 miles an hour." Exaggeration may be the lifeblood of Hollywood but the Giants, like the Greeks, will do well to beware the wrath of Troy.