Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.
Let's begin by forgiving Anaheim for suffering from an inferiority complex. This is a city best known, after all, for being the home of a famous mouse.
There is something, though, a bit Goofy going on in a town which likes to boast that it not only has Disneyland and major league baseball, but also the lowest utility rates in Southern California.
You've probably heard the news by now, unless you were too busy trying to figure out how two 8-8 teams managed to make the NFL playoffs or how many points Auburn had to score to stake its claim to the college football title.
The Anaheim Angels are no more, unceremoniously dispatched just two years after they won a World Series title that earned them a parade down Main Street USA.
No, the moving vans aren't pulling up to the stadium gates to spirit Vladimir Guerrero and company out in the middle of the night. This time, a greedy owner has come up with another way to rob a city's soul.
The new favorite in the American League West? The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
It's a mouthful, but don't worry. The Anaheim part will soon disappear, as it already has from the team's Web site, press releases and merchandise in recent weeks.
Only a few months ago, Arte Moreno was the most popular man in Anaheim after buying the Angels and immediately lowering beer prices at the stadium. Now he's playing Mickey Mouse with a city that welcomed him the same way it did Walt Disney 50 years ago.
Say goodbye Anaheim, to your name, if not your team. Downtown LA may be 30 miles and a whole other world away, but from now on the Los Angeles Angels will be playing in the (former) Big A.
"I think people are really bummed," said Joe Manzella, owner of The Catch restaurant, which he likes to tell people is just a 9-iron from recently renamed Angels Stadium of Anaheim.
Manzella is bummed, too, even though Moreno comes into his restaurant once or twice a week for dinner and he considers him a friend. Losing the Los Angeles Rams was one thing, but losing the Anaheim from the Angels is another.
"We don't want anything to do with Los Angeles, their culture or their sports community," he said. "Arte came in and did such a good job with good will, and one stroke of the pen and it's gone."
Actually, Moreno and his lawyers made sure they kept Anaheim in the team's new name. They had to, because a deal the Walt Disney Co. signed in 1996 in exchange for millions from the city called for Anaheim to always be a part of its name.
A team spokesman, though, all but conceded the name was a formality, and the team has already gone to great lengths to strip Anaheim from its web site, press releases and merchandise.
There's a lot more money to be made among the beautiful people of Los Angeles than in the Magic Kingdom.
The city plans to sue, of course, to repair the damage to civic pride. And it didn't take long for the ridiculously formal name to become easy fodder for radio talk shows.
"No other professional sports team that I can think of has two different cities in its name," city spokesman John Nicoletti said.
Not yet, anyway. If some whiz in a team's marketing department can figure out a way to make money off of it, there could be more.
Does New York Giants of East Rutherford have a ring to it? How about the Dallas Cowboys of (thanks for raising your own taxes to build our new stadium) Arlington?
Here's some advice for Anaheimians (Anaheimites?): Get over it and be glad the team is doing so well that it's not tempted to head down Interstate 15 to Las Vegas.
You see, the Angels have always been pretty much of an afterthought in Southern California anyhow. They began life as the Los Angeles Angels in 1961 in a minor league ballpark, came to Dodger Stadium as a second-class tenant a year later and then moved to Anaheim only after founding owner Gene Autry refused the demand by Long Beach officials to name the team the Long Beach Angels in exchange for a new stadium.
In between, the team changed names more than some Hollywood porn stars.
The Dodgers came to LA with Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, and quickly began winning World Series. The Angels countered with the likes of Bo Belinsky and a team that took two decades to make the postseason.
Today, the movie crowd hangs out among its own in Chavez Ravine at a stadium as beautiful as the day it opened 43 years ago. Down south, they had to tear down football seats and build a pile of fake rocks to make the Anaheim stadium presentable.
"True Angelenos know there is only one baseball team in Los Angeles, and that is the Dodgers," the Dodgers crowed Monday in a press release.
There's only one baseball team in Anaheim, too.
You can't miss them. They play right across the street from the Los Angeles Disneyland of Anaheim.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at [email protected]
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