If you’ve been following my “work” for a year or three, you probably can guess my reaction when I saw this tweet last week:
Raise your hand if you’ll miss “of Anaheim”
Stephen Dunn
'Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim' could be no more http://t.co/JrKBdmPfOb #baseball
— baseballreddit (@baseballreddit) August 31, 2013
Huzzah!
Because of course LOS ANGELES ANGELS OF ANAHEIM is right up there with the worst sobriquets in the history of major American sports, along with Utah Jazz and Minnesota Wild. I mean, I could explain why LOS ANGELES ANGELS OF ANAHEIM is so ridiculous, but I probably don’t have to. The abridged version, though:
1. they’re not in Los Angeles, either the city or the county
2. OF ANAHEIM is fatally inelegant
3. the translation of LOS ANGELES ANGELS is the Angel Angels
So when I saw “could be no more,” I just assumed the Angels might soon have a good sobriquet. You know, because I always figure that however long it takes, cooler and wiser heads will prevail.
I was wrong.
The Anaheim City Council is expected to vote Tuesday to enter lease negotiations with the Angels that could keep the team in the city through 2057 but enable the team to drop the clumsy "of Anaheim" suffix from its name.
--snip--
The two sides already have agreed that the Angels will have sole control over the team name, according to a memorandum posted on the city's website.
In 2005, Moreno changed the team name to "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim," in order to satisfy a lease provision requiring the name to "include the name Anaheim therein." The city sued Moreno and lost.
Under the new deal, Moreno could simply call his team the Los Angeles Angels.
source: Bill Shaikin in the L.A. Times
As a human who doesn’t figure to live much past 2057, I’m glad that all the wise heads aren’t worried about the zombie apocalypse happening before then. If I were a human who lived in Anaheim, or for that matter anywhere in Orange County, I would be annoyed with the Angels and the Anaheim City Council for showing approximately zero civic pride. And as a professional writer, I’m offended that nobody’s taken my suggested name -- Orange County Angels -- as seriously as it deserves.
Apparently a $200 million renovation of Angels Stadium is coming. This might all have a happy ending if the renovation includes the removal of the silly fake boulders and waterfall from beyond the left-field wall. You know, because of all those wise heads figuring everything out.
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