The have-nots have it, send Yankees packing

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- As soon as David Eckstein settled under the popup, the red-clad crowd of 45,067 at Edison Field began celebrating.

And when the Anaheim shortstop caught it for the final out, a most stunning AL division series was over.

While the New York Yankees sat and stared blankly from the first-base dugout, the Angels and their fans cheered as never before, having beaten the big, bad New York Yankees 9-5 to win the best-of-five series 3-1.

"It's been a long time coming for myself and this organization, a lot of blood, sweat and tears," Tim Salmon said after the Angels won a postseason series for the first time. "To finally come through and do it, it's just special."

Shawn Wooten homered and hit an RBI single during an eight-run fifth inning as the wild-card Angels put an emphatic end to 42 years of frustration.

"I didn't have my head in the sand, a lot of people didn't give us much of a chance," manager Mike Scioscia said.

"The perspective is, it's one rung up the ladder," he said. "It has to give us confidence to beat the incredible club we just played against."

The no-name Angels hit .376 -- the highest ever in a postseason series -- against a vaunted pitching staff Yankees manager Joe Torre had called his best in his seven-year tenure.

And New York's 8.21 ERA was its worst in 57 postseason series.

"It really got ugly for us," Torre said. "I have no reasoning for it or excuse for it. It's a bad taste right now. They played a whole lot better than we did. They did what they needed to do and we weren't there."

By losing the four-time defending AL champions were the first team eliminated from the playoffs this October.

The Angels, meanwhile, play at either Oakland or Minnesota in Game 1 of the AL championship series on Tuesday night.

Born as an expansion franchise in 1961 as the "other" team in the Los Angeles area, the Angels made the playoffs only three times before this year.

They blew a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five ALCS against Milwaukee in 1982 and were one strike away from the World Series in 1986 before losing the last three games to Boston.

That's six chances to win a series, and six losses.

It was a different story Saturday.

"Nobody gave us a chance against the Yankees. Maybe we caught them on a bad week, I don't know. You can't say enough about how our club's playing," said Salmon, the longest-tenured Angels player.

The Angels, who won a club-record 99 games during the season, took advantage of another collapse by Yankees pitching -- this time, David Wells got roughed up.

Torre gave the Angels credit, but wouldn't say they were a better team than the Yankees.

"I'm too proud to say that," he said. "We were beaten by a team that played a whole lot better than we did this week."

Benji Gil, like Wooten a seldom-used right-handed batter inserted by Scioscia against Wells, also had two of his team's postseason record-tying 10 hits in the fifth, which ended with the Angels on top 9-2.

The Angels have played in 20 postseason games in their history while the Yankees have won 26 World Series, including four of the last six.

But it's the Angels, who battered New York pitching for 56 hits and 31 runs in this four-game series, who are moving on.