The California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim | Pt.1 | The Arte Era Begins
How does a team blessed with a wealth of generational talent manage to be such a perpetual embarrassment? Easy, have an owner like Arte Moreno.
There is no team I hate more in professional sports than the Los Angeles Angels. There are teams with rich histories and unbearable fans like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers. There are teams embroiled in heinous cheating scandals like the Houston Astros. None of them bring me as much rage as the Angels. With the Angels there is no success to brag of or any known cheating to speak of. My hatred of the Angels comes from their inability to do just about anything right. Unlike other perennial losers, it’s not comedic or vindictive when the Angels lose. It is simply tragic.
In the grand scheme of things, they haven’t been this way for very long. The Angels won a championship in 2002, and were relatively successful for the remainder of the decade. From 2003 to 2009 they reached the postseason five out of six times and made the ALCS twice. However, in this time cracks began to form. Cracks that would eventually break the organization and send them into a tail spin that has resulted in catastrophe. For the past 20 years the Angels have suffered a slow death, and it all started with one man.
Behind every flailing franchise there is always a slimy billionaire behind the wheel. You have your greedy penny pinchers like John Fisher of the Oakland A’s, who will cut costs at every given opportunity. To them, winning and the fans are of no importance so long as they turn a profit. Then you have the meddlers like Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys. The meddlers let the power get to their head and micromanage their front office personnel while simultaneously running their team into the ground. Then you have Arte Moreno.
Moreno somehow manages to tow the line between greedy penny pincher and meddling blow hard. When he feels the time is right, the Angels will make the biggest and boldest splashes on the free agent market. In between the splashes the Angels will scour for scraps like a small market team but without any of the analytical savvy to actually put a complete team together. No matter what, every decision has Arte’s grubby little fingerprints on it.
Arte Moreno had a relatively successful start to his tenure as owner, purchasing the Anaheim Angels in 2003 from the Walt Disney Company. Despite just having won a World Series, the team was losing them money and plummeting in value. The team reported losses of $100 million from 1995 to 2001. Even in 2002 after a World Series win the team lost $10 million. In May of 2003, Moreno purchased the team with unanimous support from the rest of the league’s owners. He was marketed as an all-American life-long fan of the game, someone the fans could get behind.
He made a good first impression by quickly lowering beer prices and bringing in the best talent available on the field. Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon were signed to hefty deals, and both would have an immediate impact, winning the 2004 AL MVP and 2005 AL Cy Young respectively. Combine the new stars with a strong core left over from the ‘02 World Series team and you have a recipe for success. From Moreno’s first season as owner through the rest of the decade, the Angels were consistently at the top of the league in wins and attendance. All seemed well on the surface.
The first big red flag appeared in Moreno’s 2nd full season in 2005. Much to the chagrin of Angels fans, the team changed it’s name from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. In a textbook grubby marketing move, Moreno effectively tried to pretend that the Angels were a Los Angeles team in order to capitalize off the LA media market. In a shocking twist, this didn’t work because the Dodgers were already well established in the city with a rich history and loyal fans. Geographically the name doesn’t even make sense. The team’s stadium is still in Anaheim, 30 miles and a 45 minute drive away from Los Angeles.
This process involved the Angels dropping all mention of Anaheim on apparel and merchandise. The team changed from the California Angels to Anaheim Angels in 1996, part of a lease agreement where the city put $30 million into the team for stadium renovations. By including “of Anaheim” in the name, Moreno abided by the terms of the lease.
The city of Anaheim filed a lawsuit, alleging that they lost millions of dollars worth of impressions for the city, and that 'of Anaheim' made a mockery of the city. It was further argued that strict interpretation of the lease agreement allowed Moreno to call the team “The Angels Who Are Embarrassed to Be Associated With Anaheim,” if he so desired. The lawsuit failed. In a final blow, Moreno dropped “of Anaheim” in 2016, and the team became the Los Angeles Angels.
In spite of Moreno, the Angels managed to have some success in the 2000s. As mentioned previously, from 2003 to 2009 they reached the postseason five out of six times and made the ALCS twice. Led by the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, John Lackey, and Francisco Rodriguez, the team was consistently in the contending picture but never managed to get over the hump. In the regular season they never really displayed any significant weaknesses. In the aforementioned 7-year time span they were in the top 10 of offensive, defensive, and pitching war.
In both trips to the ALCS, the bats fell silent. In 2005, the team batted .175 in the 5 game series. Notably, Guerrero only had one hit in the entire series, going 1 for 20. In 2009, they made it to six games and had good production from both Guerrero and Torii Hunter, but received little other contribution. In both 2004 and 2007 they ran into eventual champion Red Sox teams, getting swept both years. Adding in 2008, they managed to lose to the Red Sox three times in five years. Outside of that 2008 year, they lost to the eventual World Series champion every year.
Running into teams of destiny and unfortunate playoff slumps are nothing new. A team could have the best owner in sports and still fall victim to these things. The 2000s Angels are not the reason I’m writing about this team and owner. Rather, I feel that the groundwork is important to give a full perspective. The issue here isn't the name-changing nonsense, but rather what it meant for the future. Ironically, this era ends with the selection of Mike Trout in the 2009 draft. Only with the Angels will you find a team who’s dark age begins with the addition of one of the greatest players of all time.