When James Finally Gets In, He Just Can’t Get Anybody Out

Mike James labored for six years with this final destination in mind. So what if he sort of slipped in through the side door Tuesday night.

The bottom line is he was in Dodger Stadium for the historic Dodger-Angel interleague debut, pitching for a major league baseball team.

Had things worked out differently--had James crossed the final hurdle from triple-A Albuquerque to Los Angeles a few years ago--he might have been sporting Dodger Blue on Tuesday night.

But he was glad to be wearing Angel pinstripes for the occasion. The only problem was that sometime during the eighth inning of the Angels’ 4-3 loss before 41,428, James felt like slipping right out through that side door.

After a masterful performance by Chuck Finley, who escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the bottom of the sixth, James came on to pitch to the heart of the Dodger order with a 3-1 lead in the eighth.

Four pitches later it was 3-2 after Todd Zeile launched a James fastball deep into the left-field bleachers for his 13th homer of the season.

Mike Piazza then lined a single to left, and Eric Karros added another single, and the moment James had looked so forward to was over before he even had time to enjoy it.

It took most of the Angel bullpen to extract James from the fine mess he got his team into, but the Dodgers won it in the ninth on Zeile’s second homer of the night, this one off closer Troy Percival.

James entered Dodger Stadium on Tuesday afternoon in a much better mood.

“I chased this place around for six years,� he said. “It was pretty neat coming here for the first time in the Freeway Series, but now it’s a different feeling, playing in the middle of the season in a game that counts.�

James, a 43rd-round pick of the Dodgers out of Lurleen B. Wallace Community College in Florida in 1987, was a starter for his first four minor league seasons, ascending from Great Falls of the rookie league to Albuquerque in 1991.

But the Dodgers converted James to a reliever, and the right-hander had some trouble making the transition, going 2-1 with a 5.59 earned-run average for Albuquerque in 1992 and 1-0 with a 7.47 ERA in 1993.

The Dodgers traded James to the Angels for outfielder Reggie Williams after the 1993 season, and after one year at triple-A Vancouver, James established himself as one of the Angels’ most reliable relievers, going 3-0 with a 3.88 ERA in 1995 and 5-5 with a 2.67 ERA in 69 games as Percival’s primary setup man in 1996.

James is 3-2 with a 4.45 ERA this season, spending the first six weeks filling in for the injured Percival before moving back to his customary setup role in mid-May.

James admits he was “definitely shaky� during his transition from starter to reliever in the Dodger farm system. That’s why the quirky right-hander who sports a pierced tongue and two large tattoos on his back, who loves to surf in the off-season and dabbles in art away from the field, did not bring an ax to grind with him Tuesday night.

But he had hoped to show his former employers that they might have given up on him too soon.

“I want to do well against them, but I’m not going to let it get in the way of my job,� James said. “I’m not out to prove anything. Those days are over. I don’t hold a grudge. Just to be here in the big leagues makes you feel better about things.

“I was trying to get somewhere for so long and I finally got there another way. . . . It kind of makes you proud of yourself, like you can say, ‘I told you so.’ �