ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Two World Series teams trekked back to their clubhouses Sunday night after a Game 7 that sent them hurtling in two different directions.

The looks on their faces, the sounds of their voices, did more than just tell you how their final Sunday night of playing baseball this year had gone. Those looks, those voices, told you where their future paths were leading them.

	Everything continues to look up for the Angels, who won this season playing baseball the old-fashioned way.

In the Anaheim Angels' locker room stood Darin Erstad, wearing the glow of a winner -- a winner whose team finished 41 games out of first place the year before, a winner whose team plays baseball different than any other team in the major leagues.

"The way this team plays -- that's the definition of baseball," Erstad said. "I hope the kids watching this game have folks who tell them, 'Watch the way that team plays.' "

In the San Francisco Giants' locker room sat Rich Aurilia, wearily searching for answers to all kinds of questions -- about the 5-0 lead that vanished Saturday, about the Game 7 his team had just lost, about the murky future of a group that had gotten so close to a title that the champagne literally had to be yanked out of the ice.

"Right now, I feel bad for the guys in this room," Aurilia said. "These are guys who have played the game a long time. We had an opportunity to win the World Series, and we didn't get it done. ... And we know time is running out for some of us."

These were two teams so similar in so many ways. Two wild cards. Two underdogs. Two teams that understood and executed the nuances of their sport better than many of the bigger-budget teams that never got here.

But right now -- the beginning of the baseball winter -- is the milepost where their roads divide. The Angels are a team with virtually no significant free agents. The Giants are a team that started a Game 6 lineup in which six of the nine names on the lineup card -- and the man who wrote out that card -- could be free agents.

The Angels are a team totally committed to their manager in every way, and their manager is just as committed to them. The Giants are a team with no good read on whether their manager even wants to come back, and their manager has done everything possible to encourage that perception.

The Angels -- because they play the game as if they just dropped out of a 1960s time warp -- now become their sport's trendiest new blueprint for How You Build A Winner (batteries and $120 million payroll not included).

The Giants -- because the formula around which they've been constructed for six competitive seasons is suddenly so close to crumbling -- now become a team simply trying to hold it all together, while at the same time reshaping the concept of how you build a team around the great Barry Bonds.

So the Angels could have a ripple effect on the way many teams in baseball shape their rosters and their philosophies this winter.

The Giants, on the other hand, have a mountain of major internal issues to address. And how ably and swiftly they address them will directly affect their chances of providing baseball's biggest star with the opportunity to return to this time and place before he finally feels his age.

The Angels
How did they do this? That's a question every downtrodden organization in the sport will be asking this winter.

How did a team that was mathematically eliminated before Labor Day last year transform almost the same group of players into a team looking for a parade float?

Oh, they made some changes last winter -- subtracting Mo Vaughn, trading for DH Brad Fullmer, adding two starting pitchers (Kevin Appier, in a deal for Vaughn, and Aaron Sele, as a free agent). And they do have that all-powerful Rally Monkey. But is that why they won the World Series? Heck, no.

		But above all, (Mike) Scioscia sold them on this idea that it wasn't always stars and dollars that put those championship flags on your fence. It was faith, even if you start 6-14. It was focus -- one night at a time. It was chemistry. It was the little things. And that championship ring on his finger made him a lot more convincing.

They won the World Series because they had a manager, in Mike Scioscia, and a coaching staff who were able to sell the players on an approach to playing baseball that we all thought was as unthinkable to the modern player as traveling by train.

This was a team to which numbers were irrelevant. These were guys who, except for maybe Troy Glaus, didn't care if they ever hit a home run. They fouled off a thousand pitches a night. They refused to strike out. They were determined to make every out productive. They took extra bases as if every one kicked in another incentive clause. They were the only team on the continent that was truly selfless.

"On this team," said hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, "it's never about 'Me.' It's always about 'All of Us.' "

Hatcher sold them on the concept of fouling off pitchers' pitches simply "to get to the next pitch." Pitching coach Bud Black sold them on the concept of a pitching ensemble, in which you didn't need a Randy or a Pedro to play in October. You needed five or six decent innings from all five starters and a supporting bullpen cast that got the game to one of the best closers in the business, Troy Percival.

But above all, Scioscia sold them on this idea that it wasn't always stars and dollars that put those championship flags on your fence. It was faith, even if you start 6-14. It was focus -- one night at a time. It was chemistry. It was the little things. And that championship ring on his finger made him a lot more convincing.

"It starts at the top," Erstad said. "It starts with Scioscia. That's just the way he is, the example he sets. We don't quit. We keep playing. And it becomes infectious. The greatest feeling you can have as a team is when every single guy is on the same page. And that's us."

Ironically, the team they modeled themselves after was the Yankees. No, not their names or their payroll. Their attention to detail, their feel for the game, their selflessness.

"You look at the Yankees and their situational hitting," Erstad said. "They all sell out for the right things in the game. So we said why should we not try that? We started to apply that philosophy, and it worked. Guys got convinced of what that kind of teamwork can do."

"That's been their focus," Hatcher said. "And now they understand what it does. It makes you a champion."

They won the World Series even though their No. 1 and No. 2 starters (Jarrod Washburn and Appier) didn't win a game. They won the World Series even though the other team scored four more runs than they did. They won the World Series with three rookies pitching the first eight innings of Game 7.

Any more questions about whether conventional baseball wisdom applies to this team?

In any sport, when someone new comes along and wins in a whole new way, you see a dozen other teams jumping on that bandwagon, trying to rebuild that model. So sit back over the next six months and watch all the baseball impressionists out there try to see if they can imitate the Angels. They might find out it's tougher than it looks.

"The secret," said Tim Salmon, "is to get the right group of guys who buy into the concept and develop it. We found out we could have success by playing the game the way it was meant to be played."

"To be part of a team like this," Erstad said, "is unique, not just in baseball but in professional sports. Every single guy, every single coach -- and not just the guys here right now, but even the guys we called up during the year -- we were all on the same page. We were here for one reason and one reason only -- to play the game right."

So now we'll find out if they really are unique, or if it actually is possible in this slugging-for-dollars age to find enough We-Not-Me players to populate more than one team like this.

If it is, these Anaheim Angels won't just go down as a team that changed their own star-crossed history. They'll go down as a team that changed the face and the spirit of their whole sport.

The Giants
They've had six amazing seasons. True, they've won no World Series. They own no rings. But the 1997-2002 Giants have played a grand total of 11 games in six seasons that meant nothing. Because every single year, even if they didn't win the pennant race, they've been in one down to the last weekend.

There have been four constants in those six years: the superstar (Mr. Bonds), the 100-RBI machine at second base (Jeff Kent), the manager (Johnny B. "Dusty" Baker) and one of the sharpest general managers around (Brian Sabean).

The Rich Aurilias, J.T. Snows and Robb Nens all contributed mightily. But the sun around which everything else orbited has always been Bonds and Kent, Baker and Sabean.

Until now.

		But two different baseball officials said last week they think (Dusty) Baker still wants to return -- except only on his terms: At levels of control and dollars that he dictates. And in a way that very publicly humbles the owner.

Sabean's contract is up. But there is no doubt he is coming back. Bonds has three years and an option left, so the only place he is heading is toward the precipice of his 40s.

But he also needs somebody with presence around him in the lineup. Or else there will either be nobody to drive in or 300 walks in his future. Or both.

Since 1997, that somebody has been Kent -- a man with a steady bat and an unsteady temperament who has become as aloof and distant from his teammates as Bonds, which is practically impossible.

Now, though, Kent's free-agent ship has docked. And it's clear he's ready to sail on it, in search of one last gigantic payday at age 34.

The Giants made a point of letting Kent know last week they would be happy to bring him back, most likely as a second baseman now and eventually as a first baseman, if Snow departs via free agency after 2003. But the suspicion is that he's ready to auction himself to the highest bidder -- particularly after a long, tense season that included (ahem) a "car-wash" injury in spring training and a very public dugout scrum with both Bonds and Baker.

"It's up to Jeff," said owner Peter Magowan. "If he wants to seek his fortune elsewhere, it's a free country. There isn't much we can do if he doesn't want to be here."

If he's gone, though, the Giants would have to launch a full-speed search for another big-time bat, or possibly two. Bonds turns 39 next July -- and if his clock is ticking, that means this whole team's clock ticks right along with him.

The bad news is, the free-agent market is low on hitters. The good news is, the Giants' farm system is stocked with a half-dozen pitchers many teams view as potential No. 1 or No. 2 starters down the road. If you have pitching to trade, there is always someone interested in knocking on your door.

But Baker's situation is way more confusing. Even long-time Dusty-watchers are having trouble dissecting all his mixed messages this month.

They have trouble believing he really wants to leave a place where he is a hero, where his family is happy, where his father lives up the freeway in Sacramento, where an entire fan base and media corps accepts him for what he is, with very little question.

But every time he was offered a chance to send a signal that his differences with Magowan aren't that significant, Baker very obviously sprinted in the other direction.

When Magowan said last week that he'd like an opportunity to "clear the air," Baker suggested it was a little late for that. When Magowan reiterated it was always his intention to talk about Baker's contract (and Sabean's) after the World Series, Baker counterpunched that "if somebody wanted (you) back ... you wouldn't wait until the last minute to tell them."

Meanwhile, the Cubs have done all but fly a banner from the top of Wrigley Field to let Baker know their job, and serious money, are his for the asking. And there are increasing signs Baker is extremely interested.

But two different baseball officials said last week they think Baker still wants to return -- except only on his terms: At levels of control and dollars that he dictates. And in a way that very publicly humbles the owner.

Will those terms fly, though? Will Baker be willing to make a decision in the next week, as the Giants are expected to demand? And if the answer to both of the above is "no," how will the bust-up of a 10-year marriage be spun by both sides?

How will the fallout affect the Giants' local popularity at a time when it has never been higher? And can the next manager -- be it Jim Fregosi or Bud Black or some mystery man off the radar screen -- hold together the peculiar chemistry of a World Series team centered around a star who does his own thing just about 24 hours a day?

So you think losing Games 6 and 7 of the World Series was painful? For the San Francisco Giants, the really painful days could loom in their near future, not their recent past.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.