Angels are ever in the outfield

JOSEPH N. BELL

It’s time for my annual baseball column, which my in-house critic

says I should skip this year because I always say the same thing

about spiritual renewal and the opportunity to start afresh with a

clean slate.

Her attitude grows, of course, out of a limited grasp of the

inspirational role baseball plays in offering all of us a stable

point of reference in an otherwise chaotic world.

I’ve said all that before, too, but somewhere in the fifth inning

of the Angels’ freeway series game with the Dodgers last Sunday, I

looked out over a stadium jammed with fellow human beings

reinvigorated by the start of a new baseball season, awash in beer

and hot dogs and little kids and hatred of the Dodgers and great

expectations, and I knew I had to say it again. It’s my patriotic

duty.

In light of the incessant drumbeat of half-truths, outright lies

and character assassination facing us in the next seven months of

this presidential election year, we’re going to need every diversion

we can find. And baseball has long held an honored place high on that

list.

So for three hours Sunday, I basked in watching the Angels

humiliate the Dodgers. And there was no slackening off during the

last five innings when the Angels’ Salt Lake City farm team was on

the field. But the relaxed atmosphere of a big lead allowed me to

observe some glitches in the renamed -- and properly so -- Angel

Stadium.

The new owner, Arte Moreno, hasn’t made a single wrong move since

he lowered the price of beer after he took over the team last year.

And his positives have seemed even more remarkable in contrast to the

bumbling of both the old and new owners of the Dodgers. So I’m

willing to give Arte some slack for turning his ballpark into one

huge billboard. That’s how he made the fortune he used to buy the

Angels -- as an outdoor advertising impresario. And he has now put

that stamp on Angel Stadium. We were outraged when Disney turned the

ballpark into bad vaudeville between innings. We will be patient

while Moreno finds his proper billboard level. The difference is that

Disney neither loved nor understood the uniqueness of its baseball

product, and Moreno does both. For that he can be forgiven much.

But while we’re still exulting in the talent he brought to Anaheim

this year, maybe he could make a few adjustments in the props around

the stage. Some tweaks here and there. Like in that huge new

scoreboard that towers over the left field stands. It is divided into

three parts. In the center, we see what has just happened on the

field. On the other two, we see massive, unchanging ads. I found it

disconcerting to be stared down the entire game by “Adelphia” -- with

whom we’ve had a few problems -- in huge block letters standing alone

against a stark white backdrop. Perhaps Moreno has plans to put

baseball-related information at least part-time into these spaces --

or at least change the ads once in awhile. We can only hope.

Then there is the matter of the running statistical information

essential to following the game that has always been displayed above

and behind both first and third bases. It is still there, sort of. It

quit working in the third inning, apparently a computer glitch, but I

saw enough to suggest that some changes have taken place that are

decidedly not improvements.

Once again, the emphasis is on the ads, which are superimposed on

the game information space and keep cutting in and out. And while I

had no problem reading the ads, the game stats appeared so small I

was never able to make them out. Because I can’t see the main

scoreboard in right field from my 20-game seat, I was never sure of

the ball and strike count on the batters, the inning we were in, or

even the score last Sunday.

These are technical matters, of course, that can be fixed. I’m a

little less certain that adjustments in the advertising philosophy

behind them will be seen as needing fixing. But from the beginning,

the main thrust of Moreno’s efforts has been the well-being of the

fans who come to see the Angels play. If advertising policies

conflict with that thrust, I’m sure he’ll take a hard look at them.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine last Sunday, he

told reporter Bill Shaikin: “It’s Marketing 101. It’s the same basic

thing, whether you’re going to dinner or you’re going to buy a pair

of shoes or whatever. If you don’t get good service, you’re not

coming back.”

Maybe choking on the ads that I am force-fed at Regal Theaters has

over-sensitized my advertising irritation plateau. After all, I’ve

made my living most of my life for publications that depended on

advertising revenue. So, I suppose that if a huge “Adelphia” staring

at me from left field is the price I have to pay for Vladimir

Guerrero, I can live with that. I won’t be able to ignore it, but I

can live with it.

As I write this while I await the Angels’ opener in Seattle, I’m

feeling some guilt that I’ve been nit-picking a benefactor instead of

celebrating the occasion I’ve waited for every Spring since I was a

small boy in Indiana: an all-new, freshly minted, ever hopeful

baseball season. Who cares if even the cup holders in front of the

seats have ads on them as long as Bartolo Colon is pitching shutouts

and Vladimir Guerrero is hitting home runs.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.