Arte, Ye Hardly Knew Us!

When Incredible Daughter #3, my co-Angels fanatic, heard the news, it was as if Angels owner Arte Moreno had renamed the team, "The Los Angeles Santa Claus Is Dead." Her face, in its childhood innocence, betrayed what we all feel:

What?!?!?!

As a marketing/PR guy, I'd say Arte alienated his base for the risky proposition of making savvy advertising execs and chauvinistic LA residents suddenly think this OC team is really an LA team. Won't happen.

At the same time, he failed to capitalize on the growing national perception that OC is a "cool place," and bastardized us by renaming our team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. If we liked LA, we'd live there. We don't, and we don't.

While it may be true "Los Angeles" has more advertising appeal than "Anaheim," Anaheim is emblematic of affluent, hip OC, and has more advertising appeal than Oakland, Seattle, St. Louis, New Orleans, Houston, Cincinatti, Baltimore, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and just about every other burg where they play major league baseball.

For you out-of-towners, here's what our local paper, the OC Register, has to say about it:

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim [top of page one]
Anaheim plans to sue Angels [top of sports]
Sports getting lost in dollars and nonsense [Sports columnist Mark Wicker]
Playing the name game [interview with Arte Moreno]