HE'S CSUN'S HERO.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

ANAHEIM - Not many years ago, Adam Kennedy's baseball bats, the aluminum kind he used as a Cal State Northridge player, chimed softly with line drives witnessed by mere dozens of fans and then were casually tossed aside in the coarse soil of Matador Field.

The kid - and his bats - have come a long way from Northridge.

Sunday afternoon, Kennedy's Rawlings Big Stick, a pale-grained model with his name stenciled major-league style on the barrel, thundered with three shocking home runs in the Angels' pennant-clinching victory in front of 44,835 fans - and immediately was dispatched to Cooperstown, N.Y., for display at the sport's Hall of Fame.

``The greatest baseball day of my life? Definitely,'' Kennedy, 26, said, looking surprised to even be asked. ``Definitely.''

You'd have thought on the day the Angels advanced to their first World Series in 42 seasons of existence, all that would matter at Edison Field was that they beat the Minnesota Twins 13-5 in the game and 4-1 in the American League championship series. Kennedy, though, came close to upstaging his entire team and all of its history.

Five players have hit three home runs in a playoff or World Series game. Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and George Brett, all Hall of Famers, Bob Robertson, a Pittsburgh slugger, and now Adam Kennedy, a slightly built, bottom-of-the-order, platoon-playing second baseman.

By the time Kennedy stepped into the left-handers' batting box in the seventh inning Sunday at Edison Field, with runners on first and second and the Angels losing 5-3, he had hit two solo home runs - matching his monthly quota.

Ordinarily, with left-handed reliever Johan Santana on the mound, Kennedy might have been pinch-hit for by platoon mate Benji Gil, but you don't pinch-hit for a guy who's this locked in at the plate.

What happened next told the baseball world not only that it was Kennedy's day, but that it's the Angels' year.

Kennedy looked down at third-base coach Ron Roenicke and saw the ``bunt'' sign. Manager Mike Scioscia wanted Kennedy to sacrifice and move Scott Speizio and Bengie Molina into position to score on a David Eckstein base hit.

Kennedy squared to bunt Santana's first pitch - and tapped the slider foul a few feet up the first-base line.

``He gets that bunt down 99 times out of 100,'' Scioscia said later, now happy he didn't.

Scioscia noticed how the Twins had deployed themselves in anticipation of the bunt, leaving huge gaps between the infielders. He took the bunt sign off.

``I felt good that he could find a hole in the infield,'' Scioscia said in the wild Angels' clubhouse. ``He found a hole, all right. About six rows deep in the bleachers.''

After two swinging foul balls, Kennedy launched Santana's 0-2 hanging slider into the right-center field seats. The Angels led 6-5 and were just getting started on a 10-run inning. The crowd was shouting loud enough to wake four decades of ghosts. A long way from the anonymity of Matador Field.

Later in the inning, Kennedy would single to left field, completing a 4-for-4 day on which he had 13 total bases, breaking Brett's 1978 record for an AL Championship Series game.

Asked where he'd have placed Kennedy on the list of Angels likely to do this, hitting coach Mickey Hatcher said, ``I'd probably have put the batboy and the clubhouse guy on the list before him.''

Kennedy was born in Riverside. He's the Cal State Northridge record holder for career batting (.414) after his 1995-97 career there. (He said then-Northridge assistant coach Chris Stevens was among 25 friends and relatives in the crowd Sunday.) He was 10 years old when the Angels came within a strike of the pennant in 1986 before losing to Boston. He said all he knows about that Angels disappointment is what he's seen on video replays.

``I don't remember a whole lot,'' he said.

Today's 10-year-olds will remember how the Angels finally won it.

They'll remember a little uppercutter named Adam Kennedy, who hit seven home runs all year but is capping his third full major-league season in a style that suggests he just might be capable of playing every day at second base.

``I told all these guys,'' said Hatcher, an unlikely World Series home run hero for the 1988 Dodgers, ``this is the time you prove to the world what type of player you are. If that pressure bothers you, you don't belong here.''

Reliever Troy Percival added, ``He stepped up to the plate like nobody I've ever seen.''

Now, a memento of Kennedy's historic day belongs in the Hall of Fame, and sure enough, hall officials immediately arranged to take the bat for their artifacts collection. A hall spokesman said a display schedule was to be determined.

From Northridge to Cooperstown. You can't hit home runs any longer than that.

CAPTION(S):

photo, 3 boxes

Photo:

no caption (Adam Kennedy after hitting his third home run)

Keith Birmingham/Staff Photographer

Box:

(1) KENNEDY'S DAY

(2) SERIES GLANCE: GAME 5 RECAP

(3) ANGELS 13, TWINS 5