Council set to take anti-L.A. Angels stance

Deirdre Newman

City leaders are going to bat for their neighbor to the northeast to

help protect Anaheim’s claim to its baseball team.

Tonight, the council is expected to adopt a resolution supporting

the name Anaheim Angels instead of switching to the Los Angeles

Angels as owner Arte Moreno is considering.

“We’re not the stepchild of L.A.,” Mayor Tod Ridgeway said. “We’re

our own place. Orange County needs to maintain that identity.”

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle asked all Orange County cities to adopt

a resolution opposing renaming the baseball team. He intends to

provide all the resolutions adopted to Moreno and believes it could

make a difference, City Manager Homer Bludau wrote in a staff report.

Bludau said he supports the resolution because he thinks the team

represents the region, not just Anaheim.

“They belong to all of Orange County,” said Bludau, the proud

owner of a Rally Monkey, three Angel caps and an Angel T-shirt.

Ridgeway has already received phone calls and e-mails supporting

the resolution, even before it officially comes before the council,

he said.

“I’m just shocked,” Ridgeway said. “There’s rather strong opinion

about the attempt by Moreno.”

That attempt is based on the lucrative television revenue Moreno

could score with a Los Angeles-named team, Ridgeway said.

Anaheim also has the support of the Orange County congressional

delegation. In a letter to the media, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and

Chris Cox expressed their opposition to renaming the team. The letter

references a 1996 agreement that includes the name of the team as the

Anaheim Angels.

The city councils of Anaheim and Los Angeles have both passed

resolutions opposing the name change.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers government. She may be reached at (714)

966-4623 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.