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Por Favor, No Cambie el Nombre de los Angeles de Anaheim
It was all going so well.
When Arturo ("Arte") Moreno bought the Anaheim Angels in May of 2003, they were the defending World Series champions and played in the most beautiful ballpark your humble columnist has ever seen (I haven't been to all of them, but, once you see Angel Stadium you can pretty much stop looking). He immediately lowered the price of beer. Last offseason he signed off on the Angels' acquisition of Vladimir Guerrero, one of the best young players in the game.
"Wow," thought fans everywhere. "This guy is going to be the best owner in the history of sports."
Now, however, rumors that were first reported this summer have resurfaced, with unnamed sources -- sources apparently in a position to know -- claiming that Moreno has designs on changing the team's name to the Los Angeles Angels. The sources, it seems, also say that baseball commissioner Bug Selig doesn't plan to stop him.
Oh, Arte. Please reconsider.
Moreno, as any owner would, undoubtedly wishes to increase his team's revenue, and he feels that he can attract a bigger audience -- in southern California and nationwide -- if he calls the team "Los Angeles" instead of "Anaheim."
The problem, as I see it (and I can say this as a Los Angeles resident and a big sports fan): people here don't care about the Angels. They just don't. At all. I don't know if they cared about them back when the team used to be called the Los Angeles Angels the first time, from its inception in 1961 until they started calling themselves the California Angels in 1965; that's before my time. But L.A. is a Dodger town, and probably always will be. And Moreno doesn't want to move the team to Los Angeles, he just wants to change the name.
But changing the name won't cause Dodger fans to switch allegiances; that's not how being a sports fan works. There are two types of sports fans: actual sports fans, and front-runners. Actual fans are fans of a particular team because they were born and grew up that way, and couldn't possibly change their loyalties no matter how stupid their team's fat coaches look year after year, standing ineffectual and dead-eyed on the sidelines as the Packers just march right down the field and score at will (I know about this from brutal, first-hand experience).
The other kind of sports fan, the front runners, cheer for whoever is winning, or whoever is supposed to win. These people are insecure, pathetic specimens who, if jobs in heaven were portioned out based on sports loyalty, would spend eternity spit-shining the toilets of people like me and my friend Tom. But their dollars count for the same as ours, so teams like the Yankees and Lakers always have a nice, steady stream of income from the mindless sheep of the sports fan world. Perhaps Moreno is going after these people. If so, it's not a fundamentally bad idea until one stops to consider how many front-runners the Angels attracted after winning the World Series in 2002: about as many as they ever will. If your whichever-way-the-wind-blows type of sports fan didn't sign on after the team won its first championship, they probably won't sign on just because the team calls itself "Los Angeles."
Two other reasons why it's a bad idea: 1) changing the name would tick off a pretty loyal and, frankly, well-behaved Anaheim fan base, a fan base that seems to have had a wonderful relationship with the team over the last few years, and 2) you can call the team anything you want, it's still quite a schlep from Los Angeles to Anaheim in rush hour or weekend traffic.
And that's the thing right there: call the team what you want, but, to make it down to Anaheim from Los Angeles for a ballgame, you've really got to like your baseball, and you've really got to like your Angels. I really like both, and here's hoping Arte Moreno and his team don't give me a reason to think otherwise.
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