The World Series was won. The champagne was on ice, the tarps to cover the lockers were being unloaded from the boxes. It was almost time to celebrate.

The situation? A 5-0 lead in the seventh inning of game six, with just nine outs to go for the world championship. The opposition, having been shut out for 12 consecutive innings over the course of the past two games, seemed to have that look of resignation and defeat in their eyes. The fans back home were at the ready, gleefully preparing for San Francisco’s first-ever baseball title.

The Giants won the pennant. Now they were going to win the whole shebang. God, what would it feel like?

Well, too bad for the Frisco faithful that they’d forgotten Forrest Gump’s immortal words: "Life is like a box of [Ghirardelli] chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get." What did the Giants get?

Heartbreak. The kind that Yankees fans got last year after heading West with a 3-2 Series lead. The flavor tasted by fans from Atlanta (1991), St. Louis (1987 and 1985), and Milwaukee (1982), all teams that seemingly had the World Series in the bag — needing just one win over the final two games to cash in — but instead suffered crushing defeats. Cleveland fans surely remember game seven of 1997, when the Indians took a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth at Florida with their seemingly unhittable closer, Jose Mesa, on the mound. With long-suffering Indians fans kneeling and praying for their first championship since 1948, Mesa promptly coughed up the lead, and two innings later the Tribe went down to 11th-inning defeat as the Marlins — the bleepin’ Marlins! — won the World Series in stirring fashion.

The Giants and their fans had learned nothing from the past, however, and a loss in game six was completely out of the realm of possibilities. The Giants were going to be world champs.

Perhaps Giants fans forgot about the 1951 miracle home run hit by Bobby Thomson that won them the pennant over the cross-town Dodgers. Maybe they forgot about Don Denkinger’s blown call in the 1985 World Series that just might have cost the Cardinals their second crown in four seasons. And maybe, just maybe, they forgot about the collapse upon which all other collapses are based: the 1986 Boston Red Sox. Details need not be put into evidence at this time, Your Honor.

Whatever it was, the 2002 Giants, as we all know by now, failed to learn from history, and consequently destiny again learned ’em a few things. The result? Your World Series champions, the Anaheim Angels!

While most of the Eastern seaboard had long before turned off their sets or their interest in the game-six developments Saturday, the Angels fought back from that five-spot deficit, scoring three times in the seventh and eighth innings to capture the 6-5 victory, tying the Series at three. And like those following the 1986 Sox, everyone but their long-lost brother Clem knew that the Fall Classic was over right there and then. The Giants had had their chance, and they let it slip away. And game sevens rarely offer up the potential of redemption when championship hopes have been so rudely dashed the night before.

There were several similarities between the ’86 and ’02 game-six collapses. Both of those losing teams had 5-3 leads that disappeared as a result of a three-run game-winning rally in the home team’s final at-bat, resulting in identical 6-5 finals. Both were on Saturday night, the night of daylight-savings time, and in both cases resignation had seemingly set in among the home fans (and even players, as the Mets’ Keith Hernandez was in the clubhouse sipping a brew when the ’86 Amazins staged that epic 10th-inning rally). And finally, the Giants, like the Sox of 16 seasons ago, took an early lead in Sunday’s finale, but the dam broke an inning later, and the Angels were en route to a 4-1 Series-clinching victory (New York’s game-seven margin was 8-5).

No tears will be shed here for the likes of Barry Bonds, Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, and Jeff Kent. Those surly-to-bed, surly-to-rise ingrates deserve this pain and suffering, not for their performances on the field, but for their overall lack of positive character traits. It was truly fitting for the churlish Lofton to make the final out of the Giants’ loss, and I would have loved to see him bawling in the dugout alongside manager Dusty Baker’s three-year-old batboy son. San Francisco’s devastating loss had to be made all the more painful by the fact that the Giants — who had scored 16 times in their game-five thrashing — scored just one run over the final 11 innings of the Series.

There were two revealing insights into Bonds’s character in game seven. There he was, in the on-deck circle in the first inning, when Kent hit a towering blast to the warning track. Most players would probably get caught up in the magic of the moment — it being the final game and all — and maybe even show some emotion as Kent’s shot took wing. Not Bonds. He just watched it nonchalantly, probably ruing the fact that if Kent got a homer, it would deprive him of the spotlight and a possible RBI opportunity. There was not one iota of emotion on his face. The other indication was in the ninth inning, with the Angels leading, 4-1. Maybe it’s just me, but if my team is up for perhaps its final at-bat of the season, needing a three-run rally to tie, I just might be at the top of the dugout stairs, participating and yelling encouragement to the upcoming batters. Not Bonds. There he sat, in the corner of the dugout, seemingly pouting. He apparently had no interest in the inning at hand, probably because, with the 6-7-8 batters coming up, it was unlikely that he would get a turn to hit.

And which owner is more deserving of a championship trophy? The proud and classy widow of Angels owner and founder Gene Autry, or stone-faced Giants owner Peter Magowan, who let his manager, Baker, twist in the wind all season long? Baker, unsigned beyond this year, was forced to manage out the final year of his contract, and management did not even offer up an extension, much less a vote of confidence, even as the player-friendly skipper (who compiled two first-place finishes and six seconds during his 10-year stint at the helm) led the wild-card-winning Giants to the World Series.

No, in spite of the fact that ThunderStix-thwacking Anaheim fans (couldn’t they have put the inflatable tubes down when the Angels finally won it?) are as deserving of a title as the Homer Hanky–waving Twins fans of a decade ago; in spite of the fact that the Angels are the seventh expansion team to win a World Series (after the Mets, Royals, Twins, Blue Jays, Marlins, and Diamondbacks — a total of nine titles among them) since the century-old Red Sox franchise won its most recent; in spite of the fact that the Angels’ one and two starters both failed miserably on the brightest stage, I’m delighted the Angels won. And you should be, too, particularly considering the cast of malcontents who served as the alternative to an Anaheim championship.

Five-foot-eight-inch shortstop David Eckstein is deserving. Darin Erstad, who made one error all season long patrolling centerfield, is deserving. Series MVP Troy Glaus, who hit .385 in the Fall Classic, is deserving. So are Garret Anderson (nine years with the team, the base-clearing double on Sunday that won it for Anaheim), closer Troy Percival, reserve Benji Gil, manager Mike Scioscia, et al. They survived Oakland’s record 20-game win streak late in the summer, they endured a brutal September schedule, and then, as the AL wild-card representative, proceeded to eliminate both the division-winning Yankees and Twins en route to this championship.

Coincidentally, the Angels, like the Patriots, are both franchises that won their first titles at age 42. Both won by focusing on the team concept, rather than individual stars, and both were remarkable underdogs heading into the post-season. The Angels and Patriots captured their 2002 bookend crowns on heart, and won with gritty performances that challenged all voices of reason or common sense.

The 2002 Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. The 2002 World Series champion Anaheim Angels.

We’ll probably never get used to the sound of either of those monikers, but they do, after all, have a nice ring to them.

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