Robbing Peter to Pay Peter the Great

Matt Welch | November 10, 2004

To demonstrate how commonplace baseball welfare is, just yesterday my own Anaheim Angels made the paper twice by jacking over taxpayers in two cities: Tempe, where they extracted $20 million in city and state tax money to finance a new spring training facility; and their own hometown, which shelled out $30 million for stadium renovation back in 1996 on the condition that "Anaheim" remain the team's name, only to see the new ownership strip the city from its uniforms, and announce intentions to change its affiliation back to the neighboring county of Los Angeles.

As economist Raymond Keating once put it, "Another major downside to government-built and -owned ballparks is that clubs are transformed from owners to renters. It is always easier for a renter to move to get a better deal." Especially if the landlord has self-esteem issues.

Comments

David Moynihan|11.10.04 @ 3:06PM|#

The Orioles haven't won a damned thing since they took "Baltimore" off the uniforms.

|11.10.04 @ 3:19PM|#

As this topic goes forward, I think it's important to remember that the Red Sox won the World Series, and are now the World Champions of Baseball.

Oh, and that A-Rod is a slappy little bitch baby.

|11.10.04 @ 4:28PM|#

I happen to know that Tempe's official city motto is "More baseball, fewer crack houses."

|11.10.04 @ 6:04PM|#

I am from orange county and the Angels have had an indentity crisis ever since Gene Autry moved the team from LA. And ever since Gene died, it's gotton worse (Edison Field?, The big "E"). I think after the World Series win in 2002 brought back some pride to Angels fans. And with changing the name to the "Amaheim Angels" and the stadium to "Angel Stadium" and the new owners approch to aquiring top players and to the fans, that pride has grown. You can see it in the record attendence this year.

Now Arte Moreno is going to alienate the team's fan base by changing the name again to the Los Angeles Angels. The fan base is in orange county and they want a team that is idenifies with orange county, not LA. LA fans are not going to embrace the team. They have the Dodgers.

I don't know why he's doing this. Maybe to increase TV revenues. But what does he care. If he looses the fan base he can just move the team to a city that will fleece its citizens to get a major league team especially now that he has some star players (Vlad Guerrero) and getting more (Pedro Martines). If the fan base starts to fall off in orange county, he will have a very attractive team to move somewhere else.

|11.10.04 @ 9:14PM|#

Matt will appreciate this: I have an actual Los Angeles Angels cap from year one. It has LA on the front and a halo on the blue cap with a red bill. Got it from the boys at Wrigley Field in LA when I was a wee lad and an official 'Junior Angel'. That was in the days of Leon Wagner and Albie Pierson.

I hated when the Angels were the California Angels. I hated when the Angels were the Anaheim Angels, though less so. And Edison Field? There was never such a thing.

I think Arte is mistaken to grab the LA logo again. He hopes to turn the tables and bring the competition to the Dodgers who draw big from Angel territory but I don't know if it will work.

Hell, at least he dropped the price of dogs and beer. But then again, I am still on strike against major league ball so it hasn't helped me too much.

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