This was bound to happen, as baseball pursues its love affair with Arctic Circle baseball. In the capricious weather of autumn, fielders have been known to lose track of the ball because of the sun, the lights or the wind. But Erick Aybar of the Angels managed to lose track of a high pop-up on Friday night, craning his neck to track the ball while wearing a bright red balaclava under his bright red cap. Players do not ordinarily wear this garb for home games in Orange County, Calif. To my benumbed way of thinking, the balaclava must have had something to do with the gaffe. The teams concluded their teeth-chattering opener Friday night, with the Yanks beating the Angels, 4-1, in the American League Championship Series. They faced the possibility of heavy rain Saturday night before heading to California, where baseball actually makes sense at this time of year. The players, neither sissies nor complainers, understand that their stupendous salaries come from playing postseason games at times dictated by the television networks. And the fans, being fans, show up, wearing winter clothes. 'Anybody can play this game with 70 degrees and it's beautiful,' said Mike Scioscia, a Philly guy who manages the Angels and has been working in California most of his adult life. 'When it's going to be like it is tonight,' Scioscia said Friday, 'you have to keep your focus, keep your focus defensively, and certainly on the mound with whatever happens with the pitcher and the catcher. Bring your game plan out there and execute it as well as you can.' The Angels did not execute, particularly on a towering pop-up after the Yanks scored a run in the first inning. Aybar and third baseman Chone Figgins paid too much attention to each other and the ball dropped for a run-scoring single. Aybar said he did not hear Figgins, who appeared to be shouting for him to take the pop-up. A resident of the Dominican Republic, Aybar said he had never played in such cold weather. Strange things do happen this time of year. Billy Loes, a pitcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers, had a hard shot hit him in a knee as the go-ahead run scored in the sixth game of the 1952 World Series (against the Yankees, of course). Later, Loes said he had lost the ball in the sunlight, which people made fun of for decades. In reality, the late afternoon sun did slant through the open stands of Ebbets Field in early October and could easily have disrupted Loes. That's right, kids, they used to play World Series games in the sunlight, which is why those times are called the Good Old Days. It's a different age now, with 30 teams instead of 16 and three tiers of postseason series. Forget about domes and roofs. Given modern drainage and field maintenance, teams can play in serious rain, and often do, what with the huge advance ticket sales. But that does not mean baseball has to give up on common sense. If Saturday's scheduled Game 2 had to be called off because of rain, baseball was set to play at 4 p.m. Sunday, with Fox even willing to go against King Football, which it hates to do. But Major League Baseball was stubbornly insisting that the Monday game would remain at the scheduled 1 p.m. in Anaheim, meaning players would get no more than a few hours of sleep after the long flight from New York. That plan smacks of rigid and, in fact, contemptuous thinking toward the players, who have to live with any injuries or errors from lack of sleep. All that was ahead of them Friday as the Yanks and Angels played in windy 45 degrees. Scioscia said he had no rules about the protection the players could wear. 'If you want to go out in short sleeves and show your tattoo off and do whatever, God bless you,' he said. 'If you want to go out there with 18 layers of clothes and you can still do what you can do to make a play, hey, we're fine with that.' Asked about the coldest he ever felt at a game, Scioscia recalled catching for the Dodgers in the final game of the league series in 1981 in Montreal, with the roof locked in an open position. The Expos had two runners on and two outs in the seventh. 'Fernando Valenzuela really pitched a gem,' he recalled. 'It was a pop-up. I looked up and I was getting under it and catching it through the snowflakes. It was cold.' According to weather reports for Oct. 19, 1981, the temperature at Mirabel Airport ranged from 39 to 50 with winds gusting from 16 to 25 miles per hour and traces of moisture downtown. And Scioscia did better with Warren Cromartie's pop-up than Aybar did with Hideki Matsui's on Friday night. Scioscia said weather can also be erratic during the regular season -- 'if you've ever been to Wrigley Field and that wind is blowing straight in.' It was not hard to miss the contrast. In the other league series, the Phillies were playing in Los Angeles -- a day game, blue sky, 93 degrees -- as a cold night fell on the Bronx. 'We were like, wow, that weather looks pretty good compared to here,' said Joe Saunders, scheduled to pitch the second game for the Angels. 'They're there and we're here. We have to take care of business here. We'll get back there soon enough.' By then, Aybar may have mastered the art of catching a pop-up -- with a stiff Bronx wind lashing at his balaclava. 