Sojo hit .265/.297/.352 over his two seasons with the Angels. He did Black Ink once though, leading baseball with 19 sac hits in 1991. The Angels were somehow unimpressed by that stat and traded Sojo back to Toronto for Kelly “Hans” Gruber and a sack of unmarked bills.

Sojo was claimed off waivers by the Yankees in 1996 in time to win his second of five World Series championships. He played with some kid named Derek Jeter that year. Sojo actually helped wingman Jeter through his awkward early years when Jeter could only date B-list actresses. According to the story I made up. But Sojo was an Angel first, so we wish him a happy birthday from the Hangout.

Luis Bleeping Sojo celebrates his Little League grand slam as Mark Langston takes the Angels epic collapse sitting down. (Photo courtesy The Orange County Register)

Luis Sojo… Luis Bleeping Sojo… Sixteen years to the day, the precocious Mariner utility man is still Anaheim’s physical manifestation of all that was wrong with waning days of a summer long since past. Watching the Red Sox and Braves blow seemingly insurmountable Wild Card leads on the final day of the 2011 season I was reminded of the fabled Angels collapse in 1995. I am, once again, reminded of Luis Sojo. No, Sojo did not lose the American League West for the Angels. That was a collective effort. No, he did not strike out 12 California swingers, nor allow one run on three hits in the season’s final do-or-die tie-breaker. That was the Big Unit, Randy Johnson. Sojo was, you’ll remember, the two-hole hitting shortstop for Seattle in season’s final game, the man who slapped a flat Mark Langston slider just inside of the first base bag and into -then under- the bullpen seats starting what resembled a snowball fight as the Angels in the outfield threw the ball all over the infield. Sojo’s seventh inning single-turned-grand-slam broke open what had been a 1-0 pitcher’s duel between Johnson and Langston, and gave the Mariners an insurmountable 5-0 lead and the AL West crown. You can relive the carnage yourself after the jump. (more…)