Angels

GREG Bucceroni's letter regarding the "smoke and mirrors" and "vigilante" Guardian Angels is xenophobic pabulum. I lived in West Philadelphia in 1988 to 1991, and would have appreciated any crime-fighting help to assist police in that era of murder. In fact, my experience in West Philly helped shaped my interest in fighting crime, and I've been a Guardian Angel for 14 years now. We've been serving Reno for 12 years. Vigilantes? As a minority, I get the same stereotypes about my race as the Angels get about what they do. Has Greg ever met or walked along with the Angels to see what they do?

California manager Marcel Lachemann says his players are pressing, trying to do too much. But again, the Angels did too little. The Angels lost their eighth straight game, falling last night to host Texas, 8-3, and falling out of first place in the AL West. California fell one game behind Seattle, a 10-7 winner of ver Oakland. The Angels had either held first place or been tied for the lead for the last 79 days. The Angels' 26th loss in 34 games also dropped them into a tie with New York for the wild-card spot.

Wally World is returning to the Angels. Wally Joyner, who played his first six major league seasons in Anaheim before going to Kansas City, San Diego and Atlanta, signed a minor league contract with the Angels yesterday and will attend spring training as a non-roster invitee. Joyner, 38, is a potential replacement at first base for Mo Vaughn, who will be sidelined for at least six months after undergoing surgery Feb. 6 to repair a ruptured biceps tendon in his left arm. In other news: CUBS: Matthews demoted Outfielder Gary Matthews Jr. was sent from the Chicago Cubs outright to Triple A Iowa.

The Anaheim Angels reacquired Tony Phillips from the Chicago White Sox in a trade yesterday. Phillips, who left the Angels as a free agent after the 1995 season, and catcher Chad Kreuter were acquired for lefthanded reliever Chuck McElroy and catcher Jorge Fabregas. Phillips likely will supplant Darin Erstad as leadoff hitter and Eddie Murray as the primary designated hitter. Murray, 41, is hitting .219, with two homers and 10 RBIs in 32 games. In 1995, Phillips scored 119 runs and hit 27 home runs as the Angels' leadoff hitter.

After conquering the Yankees on Sept. 6 in Yankee Stadium, Angels pitcher John Candelaria expressed his desire to play in New York rather than California. "I've always envisioned how nice it would be," he said at that time. "Just walking around New York the past two days, I imagined what it would be like to pitch here. I love it here. " The Angels yesterday made Candelaria a happy man by trading the southpaw to the Mets in exchange for two minor-league pitchers. Candelaria, 33, started 20 games for the Angels this season, throwing one shutout, compiling an earned-run average of 4.71 and posting an 8-6 record.

The Guardian Angels long ago got into volunteerism when lives actually depended upon it. So their help is just what Kensington needs right now. With a confirmed serial killer on the loose, the New York-based Angels - founded 32 years ago by Curtis Sliwa - launched safety patrols in the shadow of the Frankford El tracks. The move was in response to the three young women found strangled in the area in recent weeks. If more eyes on the street help Philadelphia police catch the killer, then the Angels' arrival will have helped ease the heightened fear on these mean streets.

"Angels in America" is very '80s. It is huge, ostentatious, has a few bad haircuts and Ronald Reagan- worshiping characters. But it is also the most important play of this modern age, a tour-de-force of hilarity and pathos - worthy of all the hyperbolic adjectives drama critics have lavished upon it even before its 1993 Broadway debut. "Angels in America" is also very long. Not grueling, like "Schindler's List," but broad. It is divided into two parts - the first, "Millennium Approaches," is easier to digest; the second, "Perestroika," is far more challenging.

In biblical times, angels were fearsome creatures who descended on chariots of fire, slew the enemies of God with bolts of lightning and protected the innocent with shields of righteousness. But these are the '90s, and each generation must re-imagine angels in its own way, in its own image, to address its own problems. Thus, we have angels who look like Della Reese and help people retrieve missing pets. And angels like the title character in "Michael" - a chubby, middle-aged white guy who likes the Beatles.

The California Angels didn't want the Seattle Mariners to clinch a tie for the AL West at their expense. "We didn't want to give them a chance to celebrate in front of us," manager Marcel Lachemann said after visiting California kept the division race close with a 2-0 victory over Seattle last night. "The guys didn't want that to happen and they didn't let it happen. " Chuck Finley (14-12) was the Angels' hero, allowing only three hits in 6 1/ 3 innings before a screaming crowd of 50,212.

TheDaily News Pet of the Week is Angel, a 1- to 2-year-old pitbull mix at the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society. Angel is friendly and sweet after meeting a person, and would do fine in a home. To adopt Angel, contact PAWS at 215-238-9901 and provide her tag number, A15431533-Clinic. Her $75 adoption fee includes sterilization, vaccines and microchipping. n

Angels starter C.J. Wilson became a footnote in baseball's long and well-documented history Saturday when he started in two consecutive games. Wilson threw only 22 pitches before a 1 hour, 56-minute rain delay in the first inning on Friday night at Texas. The lefthander didn't return after the rain stopped but went back out on Saturday evening. The last major-leaguer to start consecutive games was Aaron Myette for Texas on Sept. 3 and 4, 2002. Myette was ejected from the first game after only two pitches.

Edward Williamson was no sun worshipper. In fact, most of his life he diligently avoided it. "I never saw my father with his shirt off," recalls his daughter Tara Coates. "He didn't enjoy being out in the sun and on the beach. " Adds his son Greg: "He worked indoors all life; his skin was the color of milk. " The one thing that drew him outdoors was golf, a favorite pastime. He wore a hat and covered his arms. The only part of his body that was exposed was the small area of his neck where his golf shirt parted to form a V. And it was there in 2005, when Williamson was 59, that his wife, Adell, noticed a suspicious-looking flat brown patch.

Some news items are so strange you can only offer them without comment and let the readers make up their own minds. The Anaheim Angels benched slumping star Albert Pujols on Saturday. The three-time National League MVP has gone a career-worst 33 games and 137 at-bats without a home run, since late last season. He is hitting .194 with five RBIs. When the slugger grounded out in the ninth to cap an 0-for-4 night against Toronto on Friday, Angels fans rained boos down on the field.

Provençal rosé is doing the quick fade, at least when it comes to color. Popularity of the refreshing southern French pink, in fact, has never been stronger, with a 62 percent growth in U.S. imports between 2010 and 2011, according to the French customs agency Ubifrance. "It started with the yacht crowd in the Hamptons," one distributor told me, "and spread from there. " The fashion among Provence's modern rosés, however, has been to make them as pale as possible, and the best, like Château D'Esclans, manage to achieve this without sacrificing fullness of flavor.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Dave Weaver was in his usual seat, 20 rows behind home plate, drinking a beer and shouting instructions to his son in the quiet lulls between pitches. His wife, Gail, was alongside him, calmly enjoying a little night baseball. It really could have been any night in three lives filled with similar evenings at ballparks all across Southern California. Instead, Jered Weaver made an ordinary Wednesday at Angel Stadium unforgettable for the close-knit family that put him on that mound.

RIGHTHANDER Jered Weaver threw his first no-hitter as the Angels pounded the Minnesota Twins, 9-0, Wednesday night. The only two baserunners for the Twins were Chris Parmelee in the second inning when he struck out and ended up on first on a passed ball by catcher Chris Iannetta and a seventh-inning walk to Josh Willingham on a 3-and-2 count. The Angels collected a season-high 15 hits. Howie Kendrick went 4-for-4 with a three-run home run. Weaver (4-0) struck out eight and walked just nine on his way to the near-perfect game.

Evelyn Thomas Young had a passion for exposing her children to art, music and literature. But how do you do that when you don't have much money? You find out which musical productions are free, which museums do not charge admission, and, of course, there is the Free Library with its bountiful collections of books and regular educational programs. You don't have a car, so you spend a lot of time on buses. That's how she did it, and her three children gained a cultural education they wouldn't have had if their mother had been less resourceful.

LOS ANGELES - A gunman opened fire on a BMW near the University of Southern California campus on Wednesday, killing two students from China in what may have been a bungled carjacking attempt, police said. The couple were sitting in the new 3-series luxury car when the gunman fired around 1 a.m., shattering the car windows. The woman was slumped in the front passenger seat. The wounded man managed to get out of the car and run to a nearby home, where he pounded on the door pleading for help, and someone called 911, Police Cmdr.

Though Astral Artists has long been an alternative to competition-winning virtuosity, this young-artist organization's annual Kimmel Center showcase illuminates how much a genuine musical personality is a priority for being noticed; no longer are youthful charisma and great technical ability alone the ticket to a career. All three of the Astral artists on stage Monday night - flutist Angel Hsiao, clarinetist Benito Meza, and violinist Benjamin Beilman - revealed at least a nascent temperament, and often much more, in concertos that afforded comparisons with the best.