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The 2002 Angels bullpen was a group of no-names. A collection of underdogs. Guys who took the nonlinear path to the majors.

Scott Schoeneweis began the year as a starter before ineffectiveness forced him out of the rotation. Ben Weber didn’t make his debut until he was 30, spending years playing in Taiwan where he redeveloped his pitching motion. Brendan Donnelly was also a 30-year-old rookie who’d been released numerous times and spent years in independent ball.

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Even the great closer, Troy Percival, was drafted as a catcher. His top postseason setup man, Francisco Rodríguez, started the year in Double A. All-time fan favorite Scot Shields was drafted in the 38th round.

The bullpen accounted for nearly 45 percent of the overall innings pitched in the World Series. The Angels’ starters were good. But their bullpen is what made the difference between a good season and an unforgettable one.

With the Angels down 5-0 in Game 6 of the World Series, Donnelly admittedly thought the season was over. But the Angels got three runs back in the seventh. He pitched a spotless eighth. And Percival closed the game out an inning later after the Angels got three more runs in the eighth.

That game was indicative of the whole season. The group was, in some ways, a flash in the pan. A puzzle that fit together perfectly. A relief corps that set a standard seen more prominently in modern-day bullpens.

These relievers were integral to the Angels’ 2002 World Series title.

“We all went out there with an attitude,” Donnelly said. “Leave our nuts on the mound and get ’em out.”

The Angels will celebrate the 20-year reunion of their 2002 World Series title at Angel Stadium on Wednesday. Many of the relievers will be there, and Percival will throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Ahead of the festivities, The Athletic caught up with him and several of his pen mates who helped make it all happen.

Building the bullpen

What’s special about this bullpen is that it came together in such an unexpected way. The group’s regular-season ERA in 2002 was 2.98, a significant improvement on the 3.54 ERA from 2001 and 4.16 from 2000. There were a lot of the same pitchers from 2001 to 2002, but a few key players were added to the roster.

Donnelly was signed to a minor-league deal at the urging of scout Moose Stubing. Weber, who was claimed off waivers at the suggestion of third-base coach Ron Roenicke, came into his own in 2002. Schoeneweis and Shields entered the bullpen full-time. And Rodríguez joined the pen at the very last minute.

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There were many players off the scrap heap. And it came together in a magical way.

Weber: After I got sent down for like the 15th time with the Giants, I knew I was done. I was like, I’m 30, I’m done. So I went to Triple A and I was like, I’ve got to totally reinvent myself again. So I came up with this windup that gave me some intensity. It gave me some deception. I was like, ‘Huh.’ But the sad thing is that I was with the Giants and they weren’t going to call me back up.

Donnelly: I didn’t have anywhere else to go. … It was a long road. I made mistakes along the way for sure. There’s a reason I signed 19 one-year contracts.

General manager Bill Stoneman: I did not know Brendan Donnelly. I’d never seen him pitch. But we had scouting reports that really recommended him highly. And same thing with Ben Weber. It was about information. I had never seen Ben Weber pitch. But we had information that his ability — he could be a lot better than what he’d shown.

Schoeneweis: When I got moved from the rotation to the bullpen, I was a young player. Relatively young player. Candidly, I didn’t handle that well. I looked at it as a demotion.

Our bench coach was Joe Maddon, and he took me aside and obviously knew that I was not — it wasn’t sitting well, and that I viewed it as a demotion. And he kind of opened my eyes to things and stressed that I was needed down there from a left-handed reliever standpoint. I think that kind of shaped how I thought team over myself.

LHP Dennis Cook: I thought I was probably going to retire (before 2002). … I just thought, well I’m probably going to be done. And (the Angels) called pretty quick wanting to know if I was interested. I told them yeah. I talked to my wife and she encouraged me to go back and play.

Getting to play for (manager Mike) Scioscia was awesome. I played with him in ’91 for LA. … I played with Buddy (Black) in San Francisco when I was with the Giants in the late ’80s.

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Shields: I think it was learning how to be a professional first. And then learning how to win. And knowing what it took to win and watching those guys ahead of me, what their mindset was, going into games. Percy and Frankie, they were the ultimate, ‘Rawr.’ They were intense. That’s what they fed on. I took that, but then I also had to be a little more loosey-goosey.

Stoneman: The way (Rodríguez) was pitching — he was tearing it up in Triple A up in Salt Lake. Our scouts and I had seen him. So we just said, hey, this is a guy who could be, his arm was good enough. And it looked like his competitiveness was great. So we said, ‘Let’s put him on the playoff roster.’ And just mentally, he had no problems. He wasn’t nervous or anything.

Donnelly: Cheeseburgers and beers were no joke. We didn’t say it. It was just more of a blue collar thing. We lived it.

Schoeneweis: It was very special to be a part of a bullpen. I’ve always equated the bullpen to the offensive line in football. You can have the best quarterback in the league. You can have the best running back in the league. And receivers, etc. But if your offensive line isn’t very good, then you probably aren’t going to be very good offensively.

… I wanted to be a part of it. I could have asked for a trade or any of those things. And I wanted to be a part of it.

Weber, of Schoeneweis: That’s no demotion, man. He got pro-moted.

The hijinks

Three separate Angels relievers referred to the bullpen group as “a team within a team.” This was a group that was close. They got lunch together. They got dinner together. They poked fun at each other and held each other accountable.

That camaraderie developed when sitting in the bullpen during games. They played a game called “flip” where they stood around in a circle and tried to hit each other with a ball in a way where it couldn’t be caught. They played a card game called 31 where your cards had to add up to 31. “A monkey could do it,” Donnelly said.

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It created a sense of community among the group. A club exclusive to those who were a part of it.

Weber: We barely even watched the games. I know they don’t want to hear that now. But we were just flicking pumpkin seeds. And at the end of the game, our grounds crew would be so ticked off at us because the whole ground would be covered in pumpkin seeds. It looked like it snowed in Anaheim.

Percival: We tried to tell the guys, see the game. Know what the umpire’s strike zone is, but don’t focus on the game. It just depletes your brain power. You’re only capable of so much. If you’re sitting down there for an hour and half living and dying with every pitch, you’re not going to be quite as focused (when you pitch).

Schoeneweis: We all drank this energy drink that tasted awful.

Percival: Energy stuff called Therma Fusion that we were taking. It tasted nasty.

Weber: Yes! I didn’t even know what was in that thing. We won’t comment about that.

Schoeneweis: I don’t want there to be some illegality of this drink or something like that. It wasn’t steroidal or anything like that.

Donnelly: We knew when to get our fluids in. We did things like that. We played pranks on each other. We did all kinds of things. … We were all friends.

Cook: Trust me, my wife would tell you different. I’m 59 right now and I still act like a 12-year-old. I would never be too old to have fun.

Shields: You joked around. … But when it was time for any one of us to get our mindset right because we knew of the possibility that we’d be going in the game soon, then that kind of stopped and (we) let the guys who were getting focused, focus.

Schoeneweis: We were just a big mish-mash of misfits down there really. I also think that that made us special and brought us together and gave us motivation.

Changing the game

Modern-day bullpens, particularly in the postseason, are often tasked with a heavy burden. Starters are averaging fewer and fewer innings as more readily available analytical data shows the dangers of allowing starters to see the same batters three times. More than that, protection of arms has become a higher priority.

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This wasn’t completely the case in 2002, when starters would often be pushed into very deep pitch counts. This Angels bullpen, however, allowed the staff to be more judicious with how it handled its starting pitchers.

Schoeneweis: It’s not like we didn’t have good starters or whatever. They kept us in the game. I think it was like the precursor to what’s going on today and what kind of changed or started to change in the mindset of teams about the importance of the bullpen.

Maddon: It was a really strong game from back to front, it absolutely was. I think a lot of teams have adopted that method.

José Mota: It is the first time I heard any manager, besides (Tony) La Russa, say, ‘We have the ability to shorten games.’ I’m like, ‘Shorten games?’ And (Scioscia) goes, ‘Well my starter knows that if he gives me a good six, it’s pretty likely that he’s going to win the game.

Bud Black: I think bullpens really changed with La Russa in the ’80s with (Dennis) Eckersley, with a true one-inning closer. Prior to that, the guy at the end, the guy who got the saves, a lot of times was throwing multiple innings, consistently. … We had a good bullpen. Because our starters were just OK.

INF Scott Spiezio: We had some good starters, but our bullpen, we knew that if we could get into the fifth inning, they weren’t going to be scoring any runs. … We knew that even if our starters gave it up, that our bullpen could keep it down and give us a chance to come back. And that’s why we had so many comeback wins.

Shields: Starters now, if you go five, six innings, that’s a heck of a start it seems like. And hand it over to the bullpen and let the guys do their job. And, yeah, I guess that’s how we were built.

Pervical: Our starting rotation were a bunch of battlers, but didn’t go deep into games very often, which means that the bullpen had to be pretty solid. And that group was just relentless in how they took the ball. Everybody would take the ball every day. Nobody wanted a day off. And that’s pretty rare.

Frankie the Phenom

Rodríguez, later nicknamed Frankie, and eventually K-Rod, spent his first three seasons in the Angels’ system as a starter. He started the 2002 season in Double A as a reliever and posted a 2.27 ERA in 50 games before making his MLB debut on Sept. 18.

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He pitched in five scoreless appearances in the regular season. Then he was put on the playoff roster, where he was heavily relied on throughout the run. He pitched 18 2/3 innings that postseason, at just 20 years old.

His presence reshuffled the bullpen. But it didn’t matter. He was the key to the Angels winning it all.

Black: It can be risky adding a guy late. But Frankie’s first game was in Oakland. I remember he came in with the bases loaded and he struck out two, and Mike and I looked at each other. We saw the stuff, saw the fastball, saw the breaking stuff, saw the swings, and we were like, ‘Where’s this guy been?’ From that point on, we couldn’t wait to get him in the game.

RHP Matt Wise: I think that was the first year he moved into the bullpen. His stuff jumped. He looked the part of a late-inning reliever. The slider and the fastball — there weren’t a lot of guys that threw that hard. The slider was special. I don’t even think he threw his changeup then, but as his career progressed, he threw a lot of changeups.

Stoneman: As a starting pitcher in the minors who wasn’t doing that well … at Double A, they turned him into a reliever, and all of a sudden nobody could hit him.

Percival: Frankie, I saw him one day when I went down to the stadium, and he was on the opposing team. And he wanted to thank me because he said I never knew at the time that you were trying to make me better. Because he kind of had a chip on his shoulder, which I don’t blame him.

But I remember working with him one day telling him what he was doing wrong. And he’s like, ‘Everything you did was to help me.’ And I said, ‘Yes, of course, I wanted to win.’ And I knew he was going to take my job. There was no secret about that. … I always felt like it was my job to make everybody better. If you can’t make the guys around you better, you just really don’t have a business in my bullpen.

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Mota: Egos were set aside. I think Percy kind of set the tone on that. I think it was on a plane ride one time. It was after the (ALDS) series against the Yankees. And I go, ‘Do you realize what’s going on here?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, I know. I watch these guys on TV. I have an idea.’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He goes, ‘I have an idea of how to pitch to them.’ Of course when you have three dominant pitches, why not?

The closer

Percival was the leader of the bullpen, sure. But he was also one of the true leaders of the entire team. In many ways, he was a coach. He mentored players and established a mindset among the group that permeated throughout the entire season.

Much like everyone else in that bullpen, Percival took a roundabout way to earn his job. He was drafted as a catcher in 1990, and spent a season in the Angels’ farm system as a catcher. But unlike most everyone else in that pen, Percival had been there a while — debuting for the Angels in 1995 and becoming the closer in 1996.

The 2002 season was his best — posting a 1.92 ERA, while striking out 68 batters over 56 1/3 innings. Percival pitched in nine of the Angels’ 11 postseason wins, and recorded a save in seven of them.

Shields: We were texting a few months ago, and I just thanked him for everything he did at the end of my career. Just because I don’t know if I would have done everything the rest of my career if I wouldn’t have had that leadership at the beginning.

Wise: That bullpen was led by Troy Percival obviously. And he kind of set the tone. Him and Darin Erstad did for the entire team, from my perspective. Percy took it upon himself to raise the relievers the right way. Obviously the coaches did a good job too. But he was the peer that everyone went to.

Black: Percival was the guy. Even prior to Mike, we got there in 2000, but he was on his way to establishing himself as one of the better closers. He was the anchor. By personality, by professionalism. Good guy. He kept the group together.

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Weber: It was Troy Percival — he kept us under his wing. It was a good group of guys. We didn’t take ourselves seriously. We just went out there and were going to lay it on the line.

Percival: My job was to make the bullpen flourish and set a precedent that we are always available. No excuses. We had the right group of guys with Weber, Donnelly, Shields, myself. Frankie comes in late. … It did not matter the situation. Did not matter if it was a one-run game, either direction. Nobody was scared to take the ball.

Donnelly: A lot of behind-the-scenes things happened with (Scioscia) and Percy. I don’t have proof of that. (That’s how) he would communicate with us. … That’s my guess, I still don’t know to this day.

Mota: The one common thing that I heard was we are so glad that in every single series, the last guy on the mound was Troy Percival. And that kind of gives me chills to go, ‘Wow, that’s kind of funny and strange that the whole thing worked out where your leader is the guy on the mound celebrating every single one of those series.’

Percival: I honestly think there’s a lot to that team. But without the bullpen, I think that it’s gonna be a long year.

Winning it all

The Angels lost all three Game 1s of their playoff run. The first to the Yankees. The next to the Twins. And finally to the Giants in the World Series.

The group had yet another comeback in them — one of the most famous in World Series history — in Game 6 against the Giants. Down 5-0 in the seventh inning, the Angels rallied to win that game, then won Game 7 to clinch the title.

With the tying runs in the ninth inning of Game 7, Percival said he thought back to Donnie Moore. He was the Angels reliever who allowed the Red Sox to come back in the 1986 ALCS with the Angels one strike away from the World Series.

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Percival got the job done this time around, throwing mostly fastballs. With two on and one out, he got Tsuyoshi Shinjo to strike out swinging. Then Kenny Lofton flew out to Erstad on the first pitch. It’s a catch — and image — that will live on forever.

For many in this bullpen group, it meant so much to even pitch in the major leagues. Now, they were champions.

Percival: The tying run was always on base. I think they should have named me the close-er instead of the closer. It never really bothered me at all. But I do remember stepping off at one point (in Game 7 of the World Series) and I knew the tragedy. I was an Angel fan and Dodger fan back in the day, but I knew the tragedy of the Donnie Moore story. I stepped off at one point and I just said, ‘No. This isn’t happening again.’

Mota: They knew that they were carrying that torch. And it finally came to pass that they were world champions.

Donnelly: After Game 7, on the field, someone tried to interview me, and I couldn’t get through it because I got emotional because all that came rushing in at once. … I was able to look back on that later and say, ‘Man, no, I didn’t think that was ever going to happen, and now I’m here. And the last thing I ever want to do is leave.’

Shields: My oldest (child) was born the last day of the regular season that year. … My wife and my daughter, 2 weeks old, 3 weeks old to come out to San Fran for Games 3, 4, and 5. So it was pretty cool. They weren’t supposed to travel. The doctor told them on that one, ‘Yeah, I gotta really say no to you traveling, but if my husband were in the World Series, I’d be going. So they came out.

Cook: I’ve always had a goal to play until I was 40 years old. And actually, on my 40th birthday, October 4, we’re in the middle of the World Series. And I had surgery on my shoulder that finished my career on my 40th birthday. I had surgery in the morning and then I went to the game that night. I probably shouldn’t have because I was dying but I wasn’t going to miss it.

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I remember sitting in the clubhouse after everybody left and packing my locker up and brought everything to my truck knowing it was going to be the last time I was going to play. It was a lot of euphoria. And then kind of a, ‘Man.’

Schoeneweis: If I had pressed it and gotten traded, then I would have regretted it. Because I wouldn’t have been a part of that team. The longer they go without winning, the more special that team becomes.

Weber: Bizarre. I’m not going to use the word surreal. It’s the same thing. I hate that word. … But you’re right. I’m in the bullpen. About three years ago I was in Taiwan rescuing animals and trying to avoid the mafia. And here I am in the World Series.

Percival: I never really looked at any of that until I was done playing. I guess I took for granted that I was always going to get to the big leagues. It didn’t matter to me if I was pitching, catching, or what I was gonna do. I just knew I was going to get there. And now I look back and go, it was pretty special the route that I took.

And that bullpen was so special. Because if you ever go back and watch video, how different we all were. That’s what I watched. I watch the game now, and so many bullpens, every guy is the same. Throw 94 to 98, straight, same mechanics. That bullpen that we had? Everybody had their own little taste on who they were. Everybody was so different.

— The Athletic’s Nick Groke contributed reporting to this story.

(Top photo of Troy Percival: John Cordes / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)

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