Twenty years ago, it started with the resolution of a players’ strike that canceled the 1994 World Series, halted the use of replacement players in the first of two truncated spring trainings in ‘95 and resulted in the shortening of the regular season to 144 games.

It finished with Tim Salmon watching another untouchable pitch from Randy Johnson sail past for strike three in a one-game playoff that extended the Angels’ season to 145 games, finalizing a 9-1 defeat and a collapse that ranked among the biggest in the history of Major League Baseball.

It began without expectations of meaningful late-season games, without thoughts of the playoffs, without dreams of division titles or wild-card berths or roaring home crowds. It was a season that promised little, but delivered so many unexpected twists and turns.

It ended, for all intents and purposes, with left-hander Mark Langston lying on his back in the dirt around home plate, staring up at the Kingdome ceiling, with his arms folded across his chest and the cheers of 52,356 Seattle Mariners fans ringing in his ears.

“That game never should have been played, that’s the way I look at it,” Langston said recently, looking back on the Angels’ final game of 1995, the disappointment and anger still evident in him after nearly 20 years. “We should never have collapsed.”

The Angels shouldn’t have done anything in ‘95, that was the way almost everyone in baseball looked at it. They were a fourth-place team in ‘94, a struggling club with a meager 47-68 record when the strike halted the season on Aug. 12.

When the strike ended and the team regrouped for a three-week spring training in Tempe, Ariz., there was zero reason to believe anything would change. The regular season began April 26 with a 7-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers at what was then known as Anaheim Stadium.

The Angels hit the road and won three of four over the Blue Jays in Toronto, and something strange and wonderful and unexpected began to happen. The Angels began to win and win and win some more. By the end of May, they were 20-13 and leading the American League West.

By the All-Star break, they were 54-33 and leading the Texas Rangers by 10 games.

Left fielder Garret Anderson hit .410 (43 for 105) in July, smacked seven home runs and eight doubles, knocked in 35 runs and scored 22 in 25 games. He was named the AL’s Player of the Month, the first rookie to win the honor since its inception.

Shortstop Gary DiSarcina, center fielder Jim Edmonds, lefty Chuck Finley and closer Lee Smith were selected to play in the All-Star Game. Edmonds would lead the Angels with 107 RBIs by season’s end. Salmon hit .330 with 35 home runs and 105 RBIs. Finley won 15 games and Smith saved 37.

“We had a group of guys who were having above-average years,” DiSarcina said. “When a team gets on a roll like that, offensively it was going well and we were scoring six, seven runs a night, it’s a joy to be a part of it. It was a lot of fun.”

It also was unsustainable.

The Angels’ biggest lead in the AL West was 11 games over the second-place Rangers, the last time on Aug. 9, and it was 13 games at its largest over the third-place Mariners on Aug. 2. The good times were about to come to an end, however.

DiSarcina tore a thumb ligament Aug. 3, and the Angels began to falter in a way no one could have imagined. They lost 12 of 13 games during one stretch, including nine consecutive, before Jim Abbott ended the skid Sept. 4 with a win over the Baltimore Orioles.

The Angels’ lead was 6 1/2 games.

DiSarcina was hitting .317 with five homers and 41 RBIs when he was hurt in a victory over the Mariners. Four replacements, including veteran Spike Owen, combined to hit .217 with zero homers and 13 RBIs while DiSarcina was sidelined from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.

“He was the glue to our infield,” reliever Mike Butcher said. “The shortstop runs the infield.”

Abbott ended a second nine-game losing streak with a victory Sept. 24 over the Rangers.

The Angels trailed the Mariners by three games on Sept. 26.

The race wasn’t over, however.

“Everyone remembers the supposed collapse of ‘95, but they forget that with five games left we were three games behind,” Angels manager Marcel Lachemann said. “I would say probably 95 percent of the teams in that situation would have ended the season eight games behind.”

The Angels defeated the Mariners 2-0 on Sept. 27 at the Kingdome, with Finley out-pitching Seattle’s Tim Belcher. Then they swept the Oakland Athletics in a four-game series at Anaheim Stadium while the Mariners lost two of three to the Rangers.

The Angels were 78-66.

The Mariners were 78-66.

A one-game playoff Oct. 2 in the Kingdome would settle the AL West. The winner would advance to play the New York Yankees in the AL Division Series. The loser would go home. Langston, who was 15-6, started for the Angels; Johnson (17-2) for the Mariners.

“I really believe we started to get hot again,” Langston said of the Angels’ late-season rally. “If we faced anyone other than Randy Johnson, we win that game hands down because our offense was back in order. Randy Johnson was just that good.”

Johnson, who would win the AL Cy Young Award was nearly flawless through seven innings, but Langston kept the Angels close. The Mariners led 1-0 in the seventh, a precarious edge in an indoor stadium known for unpredictable bounces on the artificial turf and for being home-run friendly.

Seattle loaded the bases with one out in the seventh, with Langston contributing to his own troubles by bobbling Tino Martinez’s bunt and hitting Joey Cora with a 1-and-2 pitch. Langston then retired Vince Coleman on a sinking liner to right that Salmon snared with a sliding catch.

Luis Sojo was the next batter, a light-hitting utility player and a former Angel.

Langston threw him a sinker that was off the plate, the pitch breaking Sojo’s bat.

The ball hugged the first-base line, skidding under the glove of J.T Snow.

Two runs scored before Salmon retrieved the ball, which came to rest in the bullpen. Salmon delivered a strike that Langston gloved halfway between home and first base. Langston turned and threw wildly past catcher Andy Allanson and a third run scored.

Allanson raced the backstop to pick up the ball. Langston ran to the plate.

The throw arrived too late to get Sojo and Langston collapsed onto his back.

The Mariners led 5-0.

“Once that ball gets by J.T., that game is over,” Langston said. “It stays 1-0 and anything can happen. In that ballpark, a swing of the bat is the difference. It stays 1-0, and I’m not saying we would have won that game, but that play makes it a different game.

“I’m running to cover first base and J.T. goes right to it. He’s got his glove down. It goes right under his glove. Don Mattingly and J.T. Snow are the best first basemen I’ve ever seen or played with. It’s almost 100 percent of the time, J.T. puts the ball in his back pocket and it stays 1-0.

“Bizarre deal.”

The “Curse of the Cowboy” continued for the Angels and owner Gene Autry, following playoff collapses in 1986 to the Boston Red Sox and ‘83 to the Milwaukee Brewers, which followed a loss to the Orioles in their first postseason appearance in ‘79.

“I remember the pain and how Marcel Lachemann took everything on himself,” said Tim Mead, the Angels’ assistant general manager. “He did everything a manager could do. It tormented him and tore him up to go through what we did. It was hard.”

It also marked a turning point, although it wasn’t apparent at the time. Anderson, Salmon and reliever Troy Percival were key members of the Angels’ World Series championship team in 2002. Snow played for the San Francisco Giants in the ‘02 Series.

Edmonds was a World Series champion with the St. Louis Cardinals in ‘06.

“The fact is, we weren’t supposed to do anything and we did, and a lot of the kids who were the backbone of the 2002 championship team, started to figure out how it worked,” Lachemann said. “Great kids. Great people. Good group of guys.”

Many of them continue to be a part of the Angels’ organization.

Langston serves as an analyst on their radio broadcasts. DiSarcina is their third-base coach. Butcher is their pitching coach. Lachemann is a special assistant to general manager Jerry DiPoto. Mead is the vice president of communications.

Looking back, DiSarcina called the ‘95 season a “hell of a ride.”

“You can play great for two, three months and have a 10-game lead, but he beautiful thing about baseball is it’s a 162-game season” he said, overlooking the fact that the ‘95 season was 145 games for the Angels. “It’s a long season.”