Team owner Arte Moreno came on the field, clapping his hands and repeatedly signaling thumbs-up to the red-clad fans. They responded with chants of "Arte! Arte!"

"Right now I'm more interested in how we finish up the season and get prepared to play in the playoffs," he said. "Obviously, you always like to have home-field advantage."

Pitcher Jered Weaver was the most exuberant, waving his cap and pumping his arms. A teammate poured beer into his mouth.

A couple players grabbed the hose behind the pitcher's mound and turned it on, spraying their teammates and fans gathered behind the Angels' dugout.

The Angels, with the best record in baseball, can now spend their final 17 games resting and setting up their rotation for the playoffs.

"There's no such thing as too soon to clinch," Hunter said. "We've been going hard to get to this point. It doesn't matter if we clinch early or late, as long as we clinched."

Los Angeles wrapped up the division without starters Chone Figgins (injured), Mark Teixeira (ill) and Hunter, who was suspended for helping trigger a bench-clearing scuffle with Yankees catcher Ivan Rodriguez on Monday.

The Angels will try to do something that none of their previous division-winning teams accomplished - reach the World Series. They won their first and only World Series title as a wild-card team in 2002, the year they knocked Hunter's Minnesota Twins out of the playoffs.

Perhaps, there might even be the first Freeway Series this year - the Dodgers lead the NL West.

Like Hunter, Teixeira was thrilled to come to the Angels after years of playing with the Rangers in the same division.

"I've always been jealous of the Angels," he said. "Some great players play their entire careers without ever getting a taste of the postseason, and I'm going to have that opportunity this year."

Inside the clubhouse, manager Mike Scioscia grinned when pitcher Ervin Santana delighted in dumping more booze on his head. A couple players returned to the dugout, alternately spraying champagne on fans and chugging from the bottle.