It's not science, but here's a mindless World Series experiment for your off-day enjoyment: Take the Giants and Angels and mix 'em up. Pick four guys -- top starter, top reliever, Bonds and Kent, Glaus and Anderson -- from each team to protect and then pick two captains and choose out the rest of the 25-man teams.

	“	You'll learn how to play the game the right way by watching this World Series. You'll learn how not to give up and how to carry yourself on the field. Every out is crucial. ”
		— Troy Percival, Angels closer

You might have Benito Santiago catching for the Angels, Scott Spiezio playing first for the Giants -- but would it matter? Over the course of seven games, would you see much of a difference from what we're seeing now? The thought here is no. It would still be a great series, and it would be played in much the same way.

In this case, same way means the right way.

Maybe it's David Eckstein's influence seeping into both dugouts, like ink through cotton, but these teams hustle, take the extra base, hit the cutoff man and move runners around the bases as well as any teams in the past decade.

Respect the game has become a mantra in the serious baseball talks conducted by managers, former players and old salts like Shawon Dunston, and through two games of the 2002 World Series we've seen those words enacted on the field. Continually.

They've played two great baseball games, and they've played great baseball. The two don't always go together, but the first weekend of the World Series has been a wonderful advertisement for the game.

"You'll learn how to play the game the right way by watching this World Series," says Angels closer Troy Percival. "You'll learn how not to give up and how to carry yourself on the field. Every out is crucial."

The Giants are as hard and seasoned as Benito Santiago's face -- tough, lined, worn. Not afraid of anything. The Angels are as energetic as their indefatigable fans.

"The Giants are just as greedy as we are," Percival says. "We haven't seen that from anybody this year. This is new to us. They don't quit. They don't get intimidated. They're fun to watch just like we are."

The perfect metaphor for the Series was provided Saturday night by J.T. Snow. He chased Tim Salmon's popup toward the first-base dugout, fell down in a Charlie Brown heap, got right back up and caught the ball. This is simply the way these two teams have learned to play the game. Too bad our metaphorical synopses don't always come that nicely wrapped.

The Angels scored five runs in the first Sunday night, and the Giants scored four in the top of the second. So Eckstein led off the second with a bunt single. Has there ever been a better way to defuse the momentum gained when a team cuts a five-run deficit to one.

"Oh, I was going to do that anyway," Eckstein said. "If it was 5-0, I was bunting. I was doing it anyway."

When I told him it seemed like the perfect way to re-ignite his team after swagger turned to sag, he said, "Yeah, it would have been. But it would have been a good way to get it going again if we were up 5-0."

The right way? Rich Aurilia led off the top of the fifth Sunday night by hustling a bloop single to center into a bloop double.

There are home runs, of course, majestic and timely and stunning home runs. But it's the stuff on the margins -- and this Series is about to set a record for spilling onto the margins -- that is most fascinating. It's a double steal with Brad Fullmer stealing home on the back end, and Eckstein responding to a question regarding the improbability of Fullmer stealing home by saying, "Brad Fullmer is one of the best baserunners on this team. Watch him. Watch how he reads the ball and takes the extra base."

(By the way, there was a lot of talk Sunday night in the Angels' clubhouse about the composition of the league-approved World Series baseball. This, as far as we can tell, is the first conspiracy alert of the 2002 World Series. These baseballs are harder and smaller, says Eckstein, who knows from small. "I'm particular about a baseball," Eckstein says. "We have practice balls that are a little smaller, and I won't throw those. I get the game balls and throw them, but these World Series balls are small, like the practice balls. And they're hard as rock. I can grip 'em with two fingers, and I make a lot of three-finger throws.")

Until the ninth inning of Game 2, Barry Bonds was the only Giant without a hit. It wasn't really his fault -- three walks and a laser-shot groundout off the preposterous Frankie Rodriguez will do that to a guy. But he came to the plate with two out and nobody on in the ninth, his team down two runs against Percival.

"In a one-run game, there's no way I would do that," Percival said. "But with a two-run lead and me needing one out, it was mano a mano. I'm going to throw as hard as I can and figure I've got a chance that he'll miss it."

He didn't miss it, of course, but Percival seems at peace with himself. He should be, too, because he just carried on a two-game tradition: He was playing the game the right way.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.