Meet the Halos Heaven staff: Carlos Feliciano

Back in 2011, our old supreme leader, Rev Halofan, brought a handful of us Halos Heaven ruffians up from the realm of the comments and the Fanposts, and into the world of official, front page posting. Yep, he had given us the keys to the Halos Heaven muscle car and was now allowing us to take it for a spin whenever and wherever we’d like.

In a couple months, I’ll have been in my site manager/editor-in-chief role for two years, and one of the things I’m most proud of in that time is curating a new group of amazing and talented writers to grace the front page of our esteemed site. I have tried to do the same thing for the new blood I’ve brought on as Rev did for me all those years ago, giving them the outlet, the tools and all the audience one could ever need to broadcast their Angels-related opinions.

As a community, it’s also crucial to know these writers, to feel familiar and friendly with them, because that’s what makes the Halos Heaven vibe so special. So, once again, I’m doing just as Rev did back in 2011, and I’m posting some Q&As that I did for each of the new staff writers that we’ve seen come on in the past year. Heck, I even used Rev’s same questions!

So, without further ado, let’s meet the Halos Heaven staff, shall we?

Carlos is the man. When I was first scrambling to put together a new staff, to help me out in my newfound position of importance here at HH, Carlos was one of the first guys that seemed to not only be down for some serious Angels bloggin’, but he also seemed dependable, and he FOR SURE loved writing about this baseball team we all love.

I knew I had a live one on my hands.

Carlos has been up and down a bit in terms of his production here on the site, but that’s pretty much expected; all of the people that help me out, and all of the crew that Rev had brought aboard in his time as head honcho, have lives, families and careers, so time for writing can be rare.

That said, some people just tap out altogether, some will just chime in every now and then, but Carlos, even with his own extended periods of time away from the site, has been there for me (and all of Halos Heaven) when I needed it most, so for that I will be forever grateful. There were times where, if I wasn’t bald as hell already, I’d have pulled out all my hair, if not for Carlos.

For instance, if you look at last year’s season preview, there were about 15 articles total. Carlos wrote five of those, I wrote the rest. June 2015 to December 2015 was my honeymoon period with this gig, and then it became more and more stressful, less fun. I felt like I was doing it all alone, but I had Carlos! Without him, it would have sucked 1000 times more, at the very least.

(This stressful stretch is also why I am always so grateful for ALL of the staff; they’ve taken their share of the load, making this job fun for me again, and at the same time we’ve formed an Angels blogging Voltron that has turned this site into a powerhouse)

So yeah, I hold him in high esteem; he’s a the kind of guy you want to have your back when you’re blogging about the Halos (because that situation pops up in everybody’s lives all the time, right?). But on top of that, HIS STUFF IS GREAT! Carlos digs numbers, but he tries to mine them for some interesting gold in there, as opposed to just parroting stuff from other people or articles.

He’s also just the right amounts funny, snarky and/or incensed at various moves or situations the Angels find themselves in, and he’s a veteran of the site and its comments section. You can normally find him replying to someone’s offhand, 12 word comment with a two paragraph rebuttal of his own, that is lit up green like a Christmas tree from a deluge of recs.

So sure, Carlos ain’t exactly NEW by any stretch, not compared to guys like htennis or Chad Stewart. But he’s an integral part of my crew and has been for some time now; an original PIC for yer boy, Mayheminthehood. So it’s time we all are formally introduced to one of HH’s very best, Carlos Feliciano.

WHO WAS THE FIRST ANGELS PLAYER YOU DECIDED WAS “YOUR GUY"?

Charles Theodore “Chili” Davis. He became an Angel just as I was becoming old enough to know the players and I’m pretty certain I just liked that his name was “Chili”. He became the barometer of what I thought a hitter should be: good power, solid average, good eye. And he did all those things equally well from both sides of the plate.

He was the lynchpin to the 1995 line-up, batting clean-up behind Tim Salmon during his best MLB season. And he always had this cool-as-all-hell disposition. Bill Bavasi foolishly traded him for Mark Gubicza, crushing me like no trade since (No, not even the Vernon Wells trade).

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE CURRENT ANGEL AND WHY?

This current squad has some immensely talented players, but there is a severe lack of the fun personalities we enjoyed during the Vlad years. The one exception is probably Matt Shoemaker. He is more than just a beard with a forkball. I love his humble backstory as a career minor leaguer.

Unlike most players, he gives a pretty decent interview. And of course, he has the feisty wife on Twitter that clues us in to the idea that he’s probably a pretty cool dude off the field. And yeah, that beard and forkball combo is pretty badass.

WHICH SIDE OF THE “STATS VS CHEMISTRY" DEBATE ARE YOU ON AND WHY?

Easily on the stats side of that ledger, though I do like guys that are easy to root for, analytics be damned. Growing up I was always obsessed with the back of baseball cards more than the front. Rooting for an Angels team that was basically never competitive, I found myself instead pulling for my favorite players to compile stats so I could at least have the satisfaction of seeing their names populate the leader boards.

PICK A SONG FOR THE ANGELS TO REPLACE BUTTERCUP WITH?

I am definitely in the Halos Heaven minority on this topic. Not only do I not mind Buttercup, I think its tale of anticipation/disappointment actually encapsulates the stigma of this team pretty well. But if I’m going to play along and assume that we HAVE to go all Sweet Caroline during the seventh inning stretch, why not Twist and Shout? Isley Brothers, please.

IF YOU WERE IN CHARGE OF THE ANGELS SUMMER CONCERT SERIES, NAME THE PERFORMER YOU BREAK THE BANK TO GET…

I wouldn’t have to break the bank, nor would I look very far. I would go with OC’s own, the Vandals. It is punk, but catchy enough to keep people’s attention. The songs are silly, but they never fail to put on a good show. Maybe it’s an awkward fit for a baseball game, but the Vandals seem to do awkward well, so I think they would pull it off nicely.

SAY SOMETHING BALLSY / CONTROVERSIAL FOR US TO REMEMBER YOU BY…

I think we should trade Mike Tr….

Kidding! Actually, I think the opposite. I don’t care if we sign him to a deal so ridiculous that it prevents the team from ever being competitive again, I just want him to be a Halo for life. I got to see them win a World Series after years of assuming I would never even see them even make the playoffs, so I’m good.

Sorry, kids. If you weren’t around in 2002, sucks to be you. If a genie were to grant me the wish of Trout signing a lifetime contract tomorrow, with the caveat that the team never has a winning season again, I wouldn’t hesitate.