Baseball: Bonds helpless as Angels' team spirit secures series

Score it to the Rally Monkey. The unheralded Anaheim Angels are the 2002 kings of baseball, after a nail-biting 4-3 World Series triumph over the San Francisco Giants in which they elevated the comeback to an art form.

After the scarcely believable Game Six, which might have been orchestrated by the maddening little simian who danced on the giant TV replay screen in Edison International Field, Sunday's decider was almost an anticlimax. With a straightforward 4-1 victory the Angels wrapped up proceedings against a visibly deflated San Francisco to claim the first world championship in their 42-year history.

It was a night for the unsung – like 24-year-old John Lackey, only called up by Anaheim from the minor leagues in June, who became the first rookie pitcher since 1909 to win baseball's ultimate test of nerve, Game Seven of a World Series.

The winning hit on Sunday belonged to Garret Anderson, with a bases-clearing fourth-inning double that put Anaheim up 4-1 for good. But the Series MVP award went to the Angels third baseman Troy Glaus – though how long it stays intact is an open question. "We'll divide up that trophy into 25 pieces," his team-mate Scott Spezio said, "there are too many MVPs on this team to pick just one." Mike Scioscia, the Angels' manager, made the same point another way: "I've been around baseball a long time and I've never been around a group of guys so passionate about the game."

The Angels may be owned by Disney (though the entertainment group wants to sell), while one of Sunday night's loudest cheers was for the late Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, who founded the team in 1960 and owned it until his death in 1998. But aside from the forests of bright red Thunderstix, used by the crowd to make a frightful din, and the maddening Rally Monkey – film of which is flashed up when the Angels are behind – there was no showbiz flash about the way the Angels won.

A side without superstars, they relied on perseverance and an utter refusal to accept defeat. From the start of the post-season, when they dispatched the mighty New York Yankees to the recovery against the Giants, they were living proof of Yogi Berra's maxim, "It ain't over till it's over."

This Series was settled not in Game Seven, but in Saturday's Game Six when the Giants, needing a win to clinch the title, led 5-0 with one out in the Angels' seventh inning. The Giants' manager, Dusty Baker, opted to change pitchers – and the mistake was vital.

In another sensational comeback, Anaheim scored six runs in two innings to snatch the game, level the Series and – most important of all – seize the psychological advantage. The Giants had blown their chance and they knew it.

Though they briefly led in Game Seven, it was never going to happen. Even Barry Bonds – who hit a record eight home runs in the post season and had an average of .471 in this Series – could do nothing this time. Stone-faced in the dug-out, the greatest slugger of the age watched as his latest, perhaps his last, chance to secure a World Series ring was blown away by the all-powerful magic of the Rally Monkey.

WORLD SERIES: Anaheim Angels 4 San Francisco Giants 1 (Anaheim win best-of-seven series 4-3).