Yankees-Angels: Requiem for an old rivalry

With so much history between the Yankees and the Dodgers, it’s easy to forget the Angels also play in Los Angeles. Moreover, it’s easier to forget that, for a time, the Angels and Yankees did not like each other.

Granted, it doesn’t help that the Angels name has changed a bunch throughout its history. Los Angeles Angels. California Angels. Anaheim Angels. And now, the mouthful that is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

What’s more is that, now that the Yankees swept the Halos in Anaheim, we can officially say the rivalry is dead. Reggie Jackson leaving in free agency and signing with the Angels in 1982? No worries. The 2002 and 2005 playoff series are practically ghosts of memories now, no more instant rage at remembering them.

The crossover doesn’t end there, either. Pitcher Jim Abbott, the 10-year MLB veteran born without a right hand, came up with the Angels before being traded to the Yankees and throwing a no-hitter in pinstripes. When George Steinbrenner finally unloaded Dave Winfield’s contract in 1990, the team acquiring the future Hall of Famer was…the Angels.

And underneath it all? Probably one of the best kept secrets in all of baseball history:

For a long, long time, the Angels simply owned the Yankees. Twenty-five years, to be exact.

That’s right. You read correctly. From 1993-2008, the mighty Yankees did not suffer a single losing season and were still an average 60-57 against the Angels. If we shrink that just to Joe Torre’s tenure, from 1996-2008, New York was 58-68. A losing record against Angels teams who, over that stretch, made the playoffs just five time starting in 2002.

And who did the Angels knock out first in two of their first three trips back to the playoffs?

That would be the New York Yankees.

It all changed when Joe Girardi took over in 2009 and stayed the same when Aaron Boone took the helm in 2018. The Yankees have only lost three season series against the Angels since then. Torre, by comparison, lost nine.

But those days are gone now. The Angels are stuck in rebuild purgatory, trying to rebuild a farm system from the ground up that’s little more than spinning the wheel and hoping for the best. The Yankees, contrastingly, are the defending American League Champions and hold a comfy seven-game lead in the AL East.

Not even the 2009 ALCS added fuel to this mini-rivalry. The Angels went big-spending mode on Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson, and Josh Hamilton at the expense of the farm system. Mike Trout could have been a thorn in the Yankees’ side for years, but the oft-injured star may have to settle for just being a .309 career hitter against them.

Safe to say, this feud is no more. The Angels have gone from cross-coast rival to a west coast team that occasionally steals wins from the Yankees.

Well, at least we’ll always have the Wade Boggs bullpen experience.