Memo to the Angels:

You should have saved the airfare.

You should have stayed there in Disneyland, right there with Mickey Mouse and Pluto.

You should have put a white towel on the plane and stayed home. Just have someone throw the white towel on the field before the game is supposed to start, the symbol that it’s over, like they do in boxing.

Because this is over.

The Angels had their chance. The home-field advantage. The first two games at home. The chance to atone for last year’s sweep by the Sox in the playoffs. Coming off winning 100 games in the regular season.

They had their chance.

And they squandered it.

In doing so, they resurrected all the negative perceptions of the Angels, even with their 100 wins. The sense that they’re too Southern California, not tough enough, lacking some undefinable something that caused them to lose the first two home games and put themselves one game away from baseball oblivion.

And if we have learned anything about the Red Sox the last few years it is that they are tough.

Who would have believed that once upon a time, the words “tough” and “Red Sox” in the same sentence?

That’s what 2004 did, that playoff run that changed everything, not just Red Sox history. Before then, the Red Sox were not tough. They were just the opposite, the team that always was going to find a way to lose when it counted the most, courtesy of history, or curses, or their own lack of will. Take your pick. That was the Red Sox we grew up with, the Red Sox of infamy, the team that somehow would find a way to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

No more.

Now they are a team that plays like it’s been there before, a team that isn’t going to beat itself.

In a sense they are reminiscent of the Yankees of the late 1990s when they were winning their four straight world titles, back when some of the names were Jeter, Martinez, Brosius, and O’Neil, guys as tough as the city they played in. Guys you had to beat, because they never were going to beat themselves.

Ortiz. Varitek. Youkilis. Pedroia. Lowell. Bay, even the much maligned J.D. Drew. In their own way, they are all the new dirt dogs, all guys not in awe of the magnitude of the playoffs.

There are several theories about this, certainly.

Perhaps the most telling is the one that says that these players have become toughened by the environment they play in, the hothouse atmosphere of Fenway Park, with its sellout crowds, media saturation, and constant talk-show culture. Suffice to say, it’s either sink or swim.

Or as Manny Ramirez told the L.A. Times last week, every game is like a Sunday NFL game.

Forget the fact he was complaining about that. He was right. Every game in Fenway has a certain life and death aspect to it, even one against Kansas City in April.

“There is pressure from Day One when you step on the field for the Red Sox,” Kevin Youkilis said the other day.

This Sox team is a product of that, a team that plays like it’s been through all the pressure and came out on the other side.

This, too, is the legacy of 2004, the year that changed everything for the Red Sox, the year this team still carries with it, even if some of the players now were not there then. No matter. All teams have a personality, and this is one with the utmost professionalism. You could see that this year. This team managed to survive both injuries and the midseason loss of Manny, never mind having to start these playoffs on the road against a team that won 100 games.

You could see it a few days ago in Boston when Terry Francona said that he wanted his team to play in the playoffs as if it’s just another game. What was left unsaid that day was that Francona knows that his team plays both hard and smart, a team that may lose, but is not going to beat itself.

You could see it in Jon Lester’s performance in the first game, so different from the ones by both the Angels’ John Lackey and Ervin Santana, the kind of performance that defines playoffs.

You could see that in the first two games in Anaheim, two games the Sox were underdogs in. In both games they jumped out quick, got the early lead, made the Angels have to chase them, no small thing in a playoff game. On Friday night, in a game the Angels had to win, they scored four times in the first inning, and even when the Angels made their late-game charge, Drew hits a home run against vaunted closer Frankie Rodriguez and sent a symbolic message to the Angels.

Over and out.

The Angels?

The Angels are the flip side.

They come out of an opposite environment, where too many fans come late and leave early, and if the Angels lose, there’s always the beach tomorrow, right?

At least that’s the way they played in the first two games.

So a memo to the Angels:

You should have stayed home and saved the air fare.

You should have stayed there in Disneyland, right there with Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

You should have just stayed home and sent a white towel instead.

Because you had your chance.

And you squandered it.

This is over.

It ended when Rodriguez gave up the home run to Drew, the symbolic collapse.

And I know that the Sox were down, 3-1, to the Indians last year, and I know anything can happen in baseball, but this seems over to me.

All we’re waiting for is the white towel.

breynold@projo.com