On the surface, one might think Mo Vaughn would be miserable right around now. He’s playing 3,000 miles away from home, playing for a last-place team and not playing all that well, thanks to sprained ligaments in his left ankle that kept him out of the lineup for 14 games.
But think again. Despite the Angels’ standing and his Opening Day trip to the disabled list, the Seton Hall product doesn’t regret his decision to leave Boston for Anaheim.
And while the cynic might say he was miserable in Beantown and he’s $80 million richer in Anaheim, the fact is Vaughn just wants to play where he’s wanted, and above all else, he wants to win.
“I’ve got a lot of injuries nagging me, but it’s just part of the game. It’s just one of those things,” Vaughn shrugged before his Angels played the Yankees last night. “It’ll take a lot of time to go away, but overall I’m fine. I like where I am. I like my situation.
“We’ve got some injuries, but when we get everybody healthy, we’ll be a better ball club, no doubt about it. And this team has the opportunity to win this division; it’s a good, young, solid team, even though we haven’t shown it at all yet. When we get our act together, we’ll be able to win.”
The Angels haven’t done much of that. They’re 13-19 and last in the AL West, mainly because of enough injuries to fill an episode of ER. They have eight players on the DL, including Tim Salmon, who went on yesterday. But no injury was bigger than Vaughn’s on Opening Day.
Vaughn chased a first-inning popup into the Cleveland dugout, and he landed awkwardly, bruising a bone and spraining ligaments. He played five more innings before leaving in the sixth and going on the DL.
“No question, it takes something out of you. He’s an emotional leader,” Randy Velarde said. And the first pitch their leader saw after coming off the DL? He crushed it 451 feet off Toronto’s Pat Hentgen for a two-run home run. Then six days later, he hit a pair of two-run shots in Toronto, including a game-winning, eighth-inning blast in a 12-10 win.
“He’s a leader. He knows how to win,” manager Terry Collins said. “He lives to be in the spotlight. He lives to have the game on his shoulders.”
But Vaughn still clearly isn’t healthy. He is hitting just .246 with four homers. He calls his rehab “Pain, man. A pain in the [butt], to tell you the truth. All day, every day.”
And he even suffered through a humbling 1-for-11 with six strikeouts in a Red Sox sweep in this weekend’s return to Boston. But he doesn’t regret his move; Anaheim is just four games out, and he hopes to carry them until they can get healthy.
“The decision that I made had to be made, and I’m glad I made it,” Vaughn said. “I know what I did was right. It was time to move on.”