World Series will bring Giants and Angels up to bat

SAN FRANCISCO -- Baseball will have another wild-card champion.\nThe San Francisco Giants won the NL pennant on Monday night, setting up a World Series matchup of second-place teams when they play the AL champion Anaheim Angels.\nGame 1 is Saturday night at Edison Field, with Barry Bonds hoping to succeed in his first trip onto baseball's biggest stage against the Angels, who have never been to the Series and don't have any players who have, either.\n"Saturday, I'll get there finally," Bonds said. "It's pretty nice. Any World Series is nice."\nNeither team has much World Series experience, but they do have some head-to-head matchups to look back on.\nFor those who thought Francisco Rodriguez's first win in a major league uniform came against the Yankees in the division series, think again.\nOn March 13 at Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona, Rodriguez pitched a scoreless inning to get the win in an 11-10 spring training game against the Giants.\nBonds and Jeff Kent didn't play in the game and even fewer regulars were around to face Rodriguez in the eighth inning.\nAnaheim won all three Cactus League matchups this year. But the Giants hold an 11-5 edge in the regular season with Bonds homering five times in those games.\nBonds has waited his entire career for this moment. He was so close in 1991 and '92, when he fell one game short with Pittsburgh.\nAfter struggling in his first five trips to the postseason, Bonds has shined this year with four homers and 10 RBIs to put himself in position for the title that would punctuate has sparkling career.\nBonds can ask five of his teammates what the Series is like. Livan Hernandez and Robb Nen, who were on the only other wild-card champion with Florida in 1997, when Hernandez won the MVP. Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton and Jay Witasick have also been to the Series.\nThis year's playoffs have shown that second place truly was best.\nIn the first seven years of the wild card, only two second-place teams made it to the Series, with Florida winning it in 1997 and the New York Mets losing two years ago.\nThe Angels won a franchise-record 99 games in the regular season but still finished four games behind Oakland in the AL West. But Anaheim knocked off the four-time defending AL champion Yankees in the first round and blew away AL Central champ Minnesota in the ALCS.\n"To be with this organization as long as I have, and to feel the emptiness of the fans all these years, and the pain and frustration, it's like we're paving a new road here," said Anaheim's Tim Salmon, who waited 11 years for this trip.\nThe Giants (95-66) couldn't catch defending World Series champion Arizona in the regular season, finishing 2 1/2 games back in the NL West.\nBut San Francisco beat NL East winner Atlanta in the first round, and knocked off Central champion St. Louis in the NLCS.\nSan Francisco won its third pennant since leaving New York after the 1957 season -- losing in 1962 to the Yankees and 1989 to Oakland. The Giants last won it all in 1954.\nThis will be the first all-California matchup since the Bay Bridge Series 13 years ago and the fourth ever.\n"A World Series in California. That's crazy," Hernandez said.\nBonds is the Giants' biggest star, but it's been the lesser-known players like Benito Santiago and Rich Aurilia who have come through with the clutch hits.\nThe Giants have a deep rotation, led by hard-throwing Jason Schmidt and Russ Ortiz and a strong bullpen anchored by Felix Rodriguez and Nen.\nThe Angels advanced to the Series behind a lethal lineup and an electric bullpen.\nAnaheim has a .320 batting average in the postseason with 60 runs in nine games. The Angels have gotten contributions up and down the lineup, from pesky leadoff man David Eckstein, to clutch-hitting Troy Glaus, to Adam Kennedy, who hit three homers in the ALCS clincher.\n"The Angels are a team that doesn't quit," said Giants manager Dusty Baker, a former teammate of Angels skipper Mike Scioscia. "They can score a lot of runs. They don't strike out. They can put the ball in play"