Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth and taste. I’ve been around for just a few years, stole many a game’s soul and faith.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name. But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.

Who am I? Well, hard-core hardball fans will have no sympathy for me, for I am the inventor of the ThunderStix.

If you haven’t been watching post-season baseball, you probably have no idea what the hell ThunderStix (or their partner in crime, CheerStix) are. Other than the obvious — that they are balloon-like tubes, about each three feet long, that several major-league baseball teams have seen fit to hand out gratis to fans entering their stadiums this year — they are the latest scourge to tarnish the good name of baseball, and their introduction into the national pastime and the Fall Classic is nothing less than a cheap thrill and a monumental distraction. In San Francisco, and particularly in Anaheim, the sites of this week’s World Series, the ThunderStix are omnipresent. And unless something is done to corral this annoyance, the sport of baseball — and most likely, eventually all others — may never be the same.

Why are they so aggravating? Well, to viewers at home, the sight of tens of thousands of fans thwacking the polyethylene noisemakers together is initially a sight of wonder, sort of like "The Wave" in its early days in the mid ’80s. Harmless enough to watch, yet not too noisy to distract one from the competition taking place on the field. Yet imagine if you are at the game, and have no intention of taking part in this latest fad of mass hysteria; what if you are just trying — horrors! — to watch the damn game, and don’t care to get interactively involved like the other so-called fans? How are you to ignore the guy in front of you beating his tubes together inning after inning after inning? Because of the sticks’ sheer size, for maximum effectiveness one must a) stand up to achieve the proper comfort level and space in which to whack, and b) clap ’em together rather regularly, creating a view that from behind is not unlike a pair of scissors opening and closing at helicopter-rotor speed. The result for the poor jamoke who’s trying to watch the game at hand, and has the misfortune to be seated behind the standing stix-trickster? I can’t imagine. I know one thing, though: it can’t be an enjoyable experience after paying hundreds of dollars per ticket.

In Boston, I don’t think we’ll ever have to worry about this trend invading our fair ball yard. It just wouldn’t be accepted. The same holds true for Yankee Stadium or Wrigley Field. (Camden Yards, Shea Stadium, Jacobs Field, I’m not so sure.) The traditional hotbeds of baseball would not lower themselves to such cheap entertainment, and the fans in the stands certainly would not tolerate the distractions inherent in these joysticks. But in relatively nouveau baseball towns — where the professional game has only been around since the late ’50s or maybe the ’60s — these kind of mindless fads proliferate and are accepted more readily. Hence the "Homer Hankies," which debuted in Minneapolis for the Twins’ World Series run in 1987, or the "Terrible Towels," which reign supreme at Pittsburgh Steelers games. Those, at least, are on the quiet side.

ThunderStix, which are mass-produced at a factory outside of Beijing, date back to Korean baseball games of the early 1990s. They crossed the Pacific and broke into the American market for a 1997 soccer game played between the US National team and Costa Rica. The Charlotte Hornets of the NBA and the University of Pittsburgh were supposedly the first pro and collegiate organizations to employ them, and the CheerStix even popped up among the delegates at the 2000 Republican National Convention. The Angels, though, were the first baseball team to distribute the devilish doodads, giving them out free at the turnstiles for those fans attending a mid-season series against Seattle. The Angels staged a late-game rally to win that initial contest, and the sticks were omnipresent the rest of the season as Anaheim made its improbable run to the series against the Giants. While the loony balloons are fairly noticeable at San Francisco’s chilly Pac Bell Park, they seem to be in every Angels fan’s grip at Edison Field, creating a sea of fluttering scarlet and a din that probably echoes off nearby Space Mountain.

The Angels’ marketing department has distributed 50,000 pairs per game in the post-season in the hopes of creating a significant home-field "advantage." One might tell me to get off my high horse and let the kids play with their toys, but I’m not alone in thinking that this development is bad for all sports. The Pac-10 conference, one of the major federations in collegiate athletics, has already voted to outlaw the inflatable wands, starting next season. Fact is, if you’re waving ’em, you’re not paying enough attention to the game at hand, and there’s no question that you’re distracting the fans around you; for that reason alone, these particular noisemakers should be banned.

Yes, I introduced ThunderStix to the Angels, and you can thank me later. But in the meantime, you can call me Lucifer, ’cause I’m in need of some restraint.

Okay, rant over. Let’s take a look at what’s going down in the World Series.

• It’s certainly not earned-run averages, that’s for sure. Anaheim’s starting pitchers’ ERAs are over nine runs per game, and the Giants’ staff is over eight. In game two, neither starting pitcher even got into the third inning, and Anaheim’s Kevin Appier — who has been given the task of denying the Giants their first West Coast championship on Saturday night— heads into game six with a World Series ERA of 22.50. Not to worry, though: his opponent Saturday night, Russ Ortiz, takes the mound with a mark of 37.80.

• The Angels took a 2-1 series lead on Tuesday, then jumped to a 3-0 lead in the third inning of game four. From that point onward, the Halos strung together 10 scoreless innings, and have scored but four runs in their last 15 en route to trailing the series, three games to two, heading back to Anaheim for the remaining game(s). They have eight players batting over .333, but they have been hurt by one-run losses in games one and four and some shaky bullpen work. Anaheim ace Jarrod Washburn has lost both of his starts, including Thursday night’s debacle, where he walked five and gave up six hits in just four innings of an eventual 16-4 Giants victory.

• The Giants, almost left for dead after facing a 3-0 fifth-inning deficit in game four, have scored 20 runs in their last 12 innings, and now have the inside track to take this West Coast slugfest. Heading into the weekend games near Disneyland, it has become evident that Barry Bonds is as close as one can get to being an impossible out. The surly slugger is batting .500, has walked 10 times, and hit tape-measure home runs in each of the first three games of the series. Yet when the Angels intentionally walked Bonds and then faced Benito Santiago, the ageless backstop four times burned them, collecting five RBIs in the process. Seven Giants are batting over .310 in the Fall Classic, and David Bell, batting out of the ninth spot, is hitting .375, including a game-winning RBI single in game four. In addition, churlish center fielder Kenny Lofton, who went one-for-12 in the first three games, has collected six hits in his last 10 at-bats out of the leadoff position, and Turtle Wax expert Jeff Kent has slugged three home runs in the last four games.

• When I watch five-foot-seven-inch Angels shortstop David Eckstein make throws to first from his shortstop position, I am reminded of the arcing throws hurled by the Little Leaguers in Williamsport last month. But man, does he get the get the job done, and the diminutive hit-by-pitch specialist is nonetheless swinging at a .364 clip in the series.

• If a game seven is needed, the Giants will send out Livan Hernandez, who lost 16 games this season (and 31 over the past two). So for Angels fans, there’s hope.

• Three hours, forty-four minutes; 3:57; 3:37; 3:02; 3:53. These are the lengths of the five World Series games to this point. Is it any wonder that I’m the only one on the East Coast watching these games? Nonetheless, there’s just one, maybe two games of baseball left in the 2002 season. So play ball! Faster!

Despite the lack of sleep, at least I’ve become fully familiar with the Fox Network’s stirring line-up of shows next week. So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com