The 2008 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim season was the 48th season for the franchise. The regular season ended with the Angels winning their seventh American League West division title and setting a franchise record for single-season wins. In the postseason, they were once again defeated by the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series, the same team that defeated them in the 2004 and 2007 ALDS, as well as the 1986 ALCS.
General manager Bill Stoneman retired at the end of the 2007 season and was replaced by relative newcomer Tony Reagins. Reagins quickly made two headline roster moves, trading shortstop Orlando Cabrera to the Chicago White Sox for starting pitcher Jon Garland, and signing free agent outfielder Torii Hunter. Partway through the season the Angels traded first baseman Casey Kotchman to the Atlanta Braves for Mark Teixeira.
On September 10, the Angels clinched the American League West division title, their seventh in franchise history, and became the earliest team to clinch the division in its history. Three days later, closing pitcher Francisco RodrÃguez broke the single-season save record with his 58th save.
Famous quotes containing the words los, angeles, angels and/or season:
“If Los Angeles has been called “the capital of crackpots” and “the metropolis of isms,” the native Angeleno can not fairly attribute all of the city’s idiosyncrasies to the newcomer—at least not so long as he consults the crystal ball for guidance in his business dealings and his wife goes shopping downtown in beach pajamas.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Cities are ... distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: Towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: Earthquake.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)