Moreno picks up shopping tab for fans

Owner Arte Moreno surprised some three dozen Angels fans by inviting them on an impromptu shopping spree in the team’s gift store after Friday night’s home opener.

Merisa Jensen, a 25-year-old USC senior from Lancaster who has attended the last five Angels’ home openers, said she and her sister Rachel were standing outside Angel Stadium about an hour after the game when Moreno and his wife, Carole, came out and began talking with some of the 30 to 40 people still milling about.

“Suddenly he walked over to the Angels store . . . opened the door and let in the whole group of people,” Jensen said.

The souvenir shop was closed, Jensen said, but Moreno told workers to ring up a T-shirt for everyone. Cashiers gave everybody a hat too.

Everybody except Moreno. Jensen said he was handed a lengthy sales receipt, which he signed.

“I was really shocked,” said Jensen, who chose a red Angels shirt. “I’m a big Angel fan. But I’m an even bigger Angel fan now.”

Asked about the store visit Saturday, Moreno paused, then smiled.

“It’s just a rumor,” he said.

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Angels special assistant Preston Gomez, hospitalized in intensive care in Palm Springs since being struck by a pickup truck in a freak accident 12 days ago, suffered a setback in the last few days.

“He’s not doing well,” Ileana Raspall, Gomez’s niece, said from Miami. “[But] we’re still hopeful.”

Raspall said Gomez, 84, who suffered severe head trauma in the accident, was alert and eating solid food last week, but he began to regress Thursday and has been reattached to a respirator.

“We’re very religious,” said Raspall, who asked Angels fans to pray for her uncle. “We’ve had many miracles in our family. If the people who he loves so much pray for him, we’ll get that miracle.”

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As expected, the Angels activated reliever Scot Shields from the disabled list before Saturday’s game, optioning right-hander Rich Thompson to triple-A Salt Lake to open a roster spot.

Manager Mike Scioscia said he’ll tread lightly with the 32-year-old. Shields, who led big league relievers with 361 2/3 innings pitched over the last four seasons, had never been on the DL.

“Back-to-back [games] is OK but I think we want to maybe work him in a little earlier in the game and let him get his feet on the ground until we see where he is,” Scioscia said of the right-hander, who has been used at the back end of the Angels bullpen.

Shields went on the DL at the end of spring training with tightness in his right forearm.

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Outfielders Torii Hunter and Vladimir Guerrero were honored in pregame ceremonies. John Lackey, the Angels’ representative to the players association, presented Hunter with the union’s man of the year award for 2007 in recognition of his on-field performance and his off-field work with numerous community groups. Then Moreno and General Manager Tony Reagins presented Guerrero with his fourth consecutive Silver Slugger award as one of the American League’s best-hitting outfielders after a season in which he batted .324 with 27 homers and 125 RBIs.

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Lackey, out with a strained right triceps, played catch Saturday and could begin throwing off a mound early this week. . . . Scioscia used Garret Anderson as the designated hitter for the Angels’ first two home games after Anderson complained of an ankle made sore by the notoriously hard turf in Minnesota, where the Angels opened the season. Anderson is expected to return to the outfield this afternoon.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com