ANAHEIM, Calif. — Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter was smiling and joking during batting practice and preparing to play the Seattle Mariners tonight. He wasn't grinning a few hours earlier, when his new car was rear-ended at a stop light near the ballpark.

"My Bentley!" he shrieked in mock horror while talking to reporters. "I tried to treat myself a couple of weeks ago, and look what happened. I think somebody was trying to tell me something — that car's not that important."

The accident took place about 2:15 p.m. while Hunter was waiting for the light to change on Katella Avenue.

"I saw him in the rearview mirror, but I didn't know what he was doing," Hunter said. "He put his signal light on to go into the right lane, which was stopped already, then he turned around and looked to see if anybody was coming from behind. Then he turned back around and had to jam on the breaks, and I caught the tail end of the stop.

"His bumper hit my bumper and messed up my rims," Hunter added. "My Bentley's pretty much in bad shape. She's going to have to go in the hospital for a while. You would think some lawyers would pull up after seeing a Bentley on the side of the road. It would be like, 'Aw, hell, let me go represent him."'

No one in either vehicle was seriously injured. Hunter, who signed a five-year, $90 million contract with the Angels in November, exchanged insurance information with the other driver and drove his damaged car into the stadium parking lot. Manager Mike Scioscia didn't even know about the accident until one of the Angels' radio broadcasters asked him for reaction after Hunter spoke about it on the air.

"I was so upset, I couldn't feel nothing right away," Hunter said later. "I feel a little stiffness coming on now in my neck and my back, but I'm all right. It was like hitting the (outfield) wall. I haven't had an accident in 15 years. Then I come to L.A.

"The good news is that it didn't happen on the freeway, so it could have been a lot worse. I'm pretty excited about that. So all in all, my day is good. Once I came in and the guys found out I was OK, then I got all the jokes."

Not only was Hunter OK, he lined a three-run double down the left field line in the first inning against Seattle knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. Hunter continued to third on shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt's relay throw to the plate and tried to score when the throw got past catcher Kenji Johjima, but Dickey backed up the play and threw to Johjima for the tag on Hunter.