Negotiations between two parties are always so complicated. They involve different concessions while trying to achieve the same goal in mind. But the goal might split in two due to the two parties having different priorities and that difference in priority could potentially break a deal that the two parties had. The characters in mind might change over the years, but the entities remain the same. This is something that is currently occurring with the Angels baseball club in Anaheim, Calif., and it has been brewing over the past several years as the Halos considered leaving the city for another one in Southern California, then decided to stay and sign a new lease agreement, which was axed after the mayor who they worked with was involved in a corruption scandal related to the new lease involving a stadium sale deal and resigned, leading the city council to axe the sale of the stadium land to a management company owned by the Angels owner and for the organization to land back on Square One with the old lease deal. That sounds like a lot, but I will summarize it all below and what the current news is regarding the Angels’ future in Anaheim(if that is even a long-term possibility).

The old lease that the Angels signed with the city of Anaheim occurred back in 1996, when the outgoing ownership group led by folk music star Gene Autry was about to pass onto a new era when the Walt Disney Company would own the team. The lease was signed for a maximized timeline of 30+ years with the City Council and the mayor of Anaheim at the time was Tom Daly. Disney only owned the team for roughly six or seven years before selling the team to Arturo “Arte” Moreno, a Mexican-American businessman who had accumulated enough wealth to purchase a Major League Baseball club in 2003. Moreno unfortunately has desecrated the name of Anaheim from the Angels’ name, as they adopted the moniker of their home city in 1997 when Disney took over. Even though the uniform designs in the Disney era were bad in my opinion, the Angels would eventually field a good team(with their current logo) in 2002 that went all the way to win the World Series. In spite of that magic, Disney decided to cash out and sold the team to Moreno, who was looking to continue the success that a Wild Card team had achieved for the first time in baseball history. Mike Scioscia’s management of the team on the field would yield five division titles in the first several years of Arte’s ownership and two appearances in the American League Championship Series. But the success in the AL West division unfortunately dwindled for the Halos, who would draft Mike Trout in the 2009 MLB draft, and things only worsened when the division finally received a fifth team in the Houston Astros. Other problems were rising behind the scenes, including the stadium lease deal and the lack of space around Angel Stadium, which used to have the “of Anaheim” moniker that the team held as well until Moreno was allowed to remove it after the 2015 season.

Early on in his ownership, Moreno wanted to return the team’s moniker to its origins of “Los Angeles”, but the City Council rejected that bid from Arte because one of the original hallmarks of the old lease signed in 1996 was that the Angels had to have Anaheim somewhere in their name. So, Arte simply worked around that by having the team go by the oft-mocked moniker of “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”. Basically moving Anaheim to the back of the name, Moreno got away scot-free with highway robbery because national media outlets and scoreboards on televised game broadcasts that the Halos were playing on could simply use the abbreviation “LAA” for the team. Obviously, the Dodgers had the Los Angeles moniker all to themselves for roughly forty years from the time that the Halos moved to Anaheim in 1966 all the way until Moreno bought the team and implemented the moniker change after the 2004 season. Some fans in the Orange County areas surrounding Anaheim and further south to the coast didn’t like that and would now have to deal with that unfortunate truth when buying tickets online for Angels home games. That has been the case for the past 20 years. And in ballparks away from Southern California where the Angels have been the visiting team, the scoreboards and public address announcers have referred to the team simply as “Los Angeles”, or even more infuriating, “L.A”. So, the change to a moniker name of a city that you don’t even play in but a metro area where you are located can have a big impact.

To his credit, though, Moreno had valid reasoning other than national media appeal to change the Angels’ moniker away from Anaheim. He was trying to negotiate a new regional sports network deal so that the fans unable to attend games at the Big A could have more visual access to the club. Moreno was able to achieve this with Fox Sports West, which was part of a dual-RSN controlled by 20th Century Fox in the SoCal area along with Fox Sports Prime Ticket. All of the major teams in the Los Angeles metro area(there were no NFL teams during those years in L.A) were broadcasted on that network for the better part of three decades. Arte signed a roughly 20-year deal for the local RSN to broadcast all Angels games(besides those exclusively on national TV networks) during the six-month-long regular season. Would that deal had been possible if the Angels didn’t have Los Angeles as a regional moniker? Probably not. Even though the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks play across the street from the Big A and used to be a part of the same dual-RSN as the Angels, clearly the branding name of “Los Angeles” carries more net worth with it. So, I’m not opposed to that part of the Los Angeles name argument, but that logic has outlived its usefulness. With the decline in regional sports networks throughout the country, MLB is looking to put all 30 teams into a single streaming platform that it would control. So, individual RSN lobbying would no longer matter for the Angels. It’s hard to reject “Los Angeles” these days as a branding term, but there’s a massive plurality of Halos fans who would rather have the team go by a different moniker than “L.A”, because unless we’re playing across the county line the moniker is totally invalid and unnecessary in our view. There’s been more bad fruit that has come from Arte Moreno’s ownership other than the regional moniker controversy.

Besides all the different front office changes and free agency busts, Moreno has also had to deal with an off-field tragedy that led to the death of an active Angels player on the roster who had been on the team for several years. Tyler Skaggs’ overdose death by fentanyl inhalation was blamed on a former communications staffer within the organization for supplying painkilling drugs to Skaggs, who was taking them in order to fend off the wear-and-tear he was feeling on a daily basis as a starting pitcher in the big leagues. Unfortunately, those painkilling drugs came in the form of dealers sneaking them into the stadium to exchange them with Skaggs and the crooked Eric Kay, who would be sentenced to 22 years in prison for Skaggs’ overdose in a Texas hotel on July 1, 2019. The Skaggs family is still seeking justice against the Angels organization for not properly addressing their deceased loved one’s painkiller drug addiction before it was too late. That trial has still not been held in a district court in Orange County yet, but when it is there will be some solemn testimonies coming. Before the tragedy of Tyler Skaggs, Angels fans in Orange County were worrying that they would have to endure a tragic event in losing their team to Los Angeles County as Arte Moreno was considering using an early opt-out date in the original stadium lease, which was dated around 2020, or the conclusion of the 2010s decade. Because of the city of Anaheim’s unwillingness to work on a new lease deal under mayor Tom Tait, who disapproved of another odd condition of the lease deal, Arte Moreno had representatives of the team scouting out potential alternatives options for building a new ballpark in Southern California. Sites in cities such as Tustin and Irvine were floated for an interior Orange County option, but the most serious location that emerged was in Long Beach, Calif., where there was an open space that used to host a carnival to build a new waterfront ballpark. The city of Long Beach looked to court the Angels, who use the Long Beach Airport to fly to different locations for road games out of Southern California. So, the location made sense from a proximity to the airport location, but where the ballpark would actually be built was in a crammed location near the Long Beach Aquarium and the Long Beach Convention Center. There are very few locations in Southern California to build a ballpark on a significant amount of acreage and where the Angels are located in Anaheim makes it harder to find a new site.

The organization appeared to make a new commitment to Anaheim when they agreed to a new lease agreement that would keep the Angels in town through the middle of the 21st century. That’s right, the year 2050. There were even bigger plans in motion for the Angels to officially purchase the land surrounding the stadium and to develop it as they saw fit, making them a part of the Platinum Triangle Project that had been gaining steam in the years leading up to the new lease deal. There were images that were coming out of renderings of a potential new ballpark district that would be constructed on the vacant stadium parking lot, with real estate, restaurants and “affordable housing” being a part of the structures proposed to be built. The Angels would also have another stadium renovation in the cards, having red seats replace the aged-out green seats from the Edison Field days and a better batter’s eye with the removal of the rock waterfall in center field. Moreno signed this deal with then-mayor Harry Sidhu, who was elected in the 2018 mayoral election as a Republican candidate. Sidhu was also giving Moreno’s management company, SRB Management LLC, the stadium land acreage for development. So, this was a big deal and in spite of the inconvenience of the potential construction for the coming years around the stadium, it would be worthwhile knowing that the Angels would be staying in town. Documents still had to be signed authorizing the sale of the stadium to its namesake in the Angels and that would be further delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. If that delay hadn’t happened, there was a chance that the stadium sale would be signed and approved by the city council in quicker time. Instead, there would be a wicked twist of events that put the prospects of the Angels being in Anaheim long-term on hold.

On the night of May 24, 2022, news would come out that Mayor Sidhu was under investigation in a corruption scandal launched by the FBI regarding financial crimes committed by Sidhu. That included the stadium sale deal to the Angels and that Sidhu wanted a massive financial contribution from Arte Moreno in order to help him be re-elected as mayor in the next mayoral election in Anaheim. Being unaware of this occurrence, the Anaheim City Council along with the mayor pro-tempore voted to kill the stadium sale deal to Moreno’s management company. After that occurred, the Angels inadvertently went on a franchise-long 14-game losing streak and Joe Maddon was fired as manager 12 losses into the streak. The stadium sale was deemed null and void, with the Halos no longer set to gain control of the land surrounding the stadium. They were back on the old lease, which was set to expire in 2029 but could be stretched out with three additional three-year extensions all the way out to 2038. Before any new negotiations could take place, a new mayor had to be elected first by the voters of Anaheim.

The 2022 mayoral election in Anaheim saw Ashleigh Aitken win the election and she became the first female mayor in the city’s history in early 2023. Aitken, a Democrat, had grown up going to Angels games at the Big A and she had previously been a personal injury lawyer in the SoCal area. For the first couple years of her time as mayor, Aitken was relatively silent with the Angels in terms of new negotiations and anything ballpark-related, other than inviting a group of mascara-wearing weirdos called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to the Angels’ LGBTQ+ Pride Night early on in her term. But Aitken finally broke her silence before the home opener for the Angels this year and she wrote a long letter to Arte Moreno regarding their ownership and specific negotiation points for future talks about a potential long-term future playing in a ballpark in Anaheim. Aitken mentioned items such as further investments in the Anaheim city community(even though the Angels have a good community relationship with schools, hospitals and recreational baseball organizations in the wider area), allowing city auditors to access Angel Stadium for inspections(a controversial part of the lease that has not been upheld by both sides) and other negotiating topics as well. But the one thing that Mayor Aitken really emphasized at the end of her laundry list of items for the Angels organization to comply with is returning the city name of Anaheim to the team’s name. That is a huge point there. No mayor of Anaheim has been so forceful to the Angels ownership in terms of a name change ever before. Previous mayors of Anaheim were okay with the Angels going by their statewide moniker of California back in the 70s, 80s and early 90s because they played their home games at a ballpark that had the city’s name on it(the Big A was known as Anaheim Stadium for its first 30 years). And obviously the city of Anaheim owns the land and property where Angel Stadium stands. But under Arte Moreno, the Angels organization has been acting more like they own the stadium and not the other way around. There is literally a plaque embedded onto the walls of the home plate gate at the Big A that commemorates the renovation of the stadium in the late 90s and that the city of Anaheim owns the ballpark. But the Angels have seemed to ignore that during the years of Moreno’s ownership. And the city’s politicians have not done their duty in budging Moreno or any Angels representatives to continue to uphold the terms of the stadium lease deal in good faith. But Ashleigh Aitken is changing all of that, for better or worse, along with a few suspicious city council members and in-state politicians in the Anaheim area.

State Senator Tom Umberg from Santa Ana is worried that Angel Stadium is unable to handle the more adverse climate conditions that we live in currently due it being a ballpark made in the 1960s, when the climate was supposedly different. Umberg was a young boy when the Big A was built, so he can speak with experience backing his arguments. But still, his argument is referring to the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area as a point of concern. Those fires did not come within even a single mile of any major sports venue in the west L.A or Altadena areas. The only sporting venues that were affected were high school gyms that burned down. I would much rather Umberg have concern for the outdated drainage system underneath the playing field at the Big A whenever there’s a massive rainstorm or some other high precipitation event during the baseball season, which is very rare due to the dry Mediterranean climate that we endure in the summer months in SoCal. But in terms of the actual structure of the stadium, I understand that it is old and outdated for this period of time. Some upgrades have been made to the scoreboards and suites, but little has been done to improve the general seating at the Big A. We still have all the old Edison logos embezzled on the green seats throughout the upper and lower decks, terrace level seating, club level and outfield seats. And for the day games that occur during the summer, nobody in their right mind would sit in the sun-exposed seats without having sunscreen on and a sufficient amount of water bottles and other drinks to keep themselves hydrated. Thankfully, in the summer months, there are not as many big crowds for hot day games and the ushers are not as strict when it comes to enforcing fans sitting in the seats that they purchased for a game, so they can move into the shade if there’s enough room. Still the sun is an issue, especially when it is setting over the seats in the right field pavilion and when it shines through the hole on the third-base side of the terrace level in the faces of those sitting in the first base seats. So, there are climate and weather-like issues in seats at the Big A, depending on where you sit for a game at a specified time of day or during the year.

Returning to the issue of the Anaheim name change, Ashleigh Aitken makes a fair point. The Anaheim Ducks play across the 57 freeway at the Honda Center and that arena is pushing the city limits that Anaheim has with Orange, Calif. Angel Stadium is literally the biggest property stake that the city of Anaheim has dominion over. Disneyland is a couple of miles west and the Walt Disney Company has a majority ownership stake in it obviously. Anaheim is literally fighting for the right to control the land that it leases to the Angels. Very few structures have been built on the property of Angel Stadium, other than a couple of condominium complexes on the Orangewood Street side. The National Grove Theater of Anaheim sits on the Katella Avenue side right in front of the stadium parking lot entrance. Those parking lot entry points to pay $20 for general parking and preferred parking specials are a real hindrance point to potential construction along with state zoning laws. But construction could have been occurring right now around the Big A and parking spaces would have to be sacrificed for it. The last great tailgate spot in Southern California for a sporting event would be eliminated. So, there’s a bright side in keeping that nostalgia around for the tailgaters, which there are plenty. But all of that could go away anyhow if the Angels are unwilling to work with Anaheim and keep themselves in town. Either way, it’s an endgame situation for the tailgating community. They’ll enjoy it for as long as they are able to.

As for my perspective, I like that Mayor Aitken is pushing for a return to the name of Anaheim in the Angels name. They won the 2002 World Series as the Anaheim Angels, so it makes sense from a good fortune point of view. But unfortunately, I don’t think Arte is going to bring Anaheim back. And I don’t think they should. I believe that a more representative and geographically-accurate moniker should be a part of the Halos regional name. Something that might sound a little minor league, but it would be a real confidence booster for the fans and a marker of independence away from the long-reaching tentacles of the term Los Angeles. The name of my favorite ballclub should be the Orange County Angels. I know, it seems a little bit odd. And there are a load of Orange Counties in states throughout the nation. But our Orange County in Southern California is probably the most notable one of them all. We have many different landmark locations such as Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and others. We have some amazing beaches as well and great shopping centers for people to gather around. Along with the iconic Surf City USA in Huntington Beach, we have a better view of Santa Catalina Island and the San Gabriel Mountains, which are both mostly property of L.A County. We can look to the west and the Pacific Ocean beyond and to the north to see the mountains that divide us from the desert. Orange County is indeed a very nice place to live, depending on which town and community you choose to settle in. And we have TV shows and movies with our name based in it. We have The Real Housewives of Orange County and The OC as shows. Also we have Gwen Stefani as a proud Orange County native along with other celebrities as well who make their fame not far up the road in Tinseltown.

The Orange County namesake also has a real baseball-oriented basis in it, too. There are so many great high school baseball programs within the county and some fantastic collegiate baseball programs such as the Cal State Fullerton Titans. And there are players on active major league rosters who grew up in OC throughout the entire nation. Almost every team has one SoCal native on its roster and that doesn’t just involve the players. So, there’s a legit argument to be made about Orange County being the moniker for the Angels. At least in my view, that should be a perfect compromise in the naming dilemma that Ashleigh Aitken has brought to the forefront of discussions with the Angels. Anaheim won’t garner as much national attention in my opinion as Orange County would. People who don’t have a geographic sense of mind with their map apps or live in states with counties that have the name Orange in them could potentially be confused, then potentially understand that the Orange County in southern California is the most-populated county of Orange in the United States and has a large plurality of the population in the Los Angeles area. The Angels could also create new alternative logos with OC signage in them(blue and orange coloring, the current logo emblazoned on an orange, etc.) and potentially create a new Nike City Connect uniform with a cultural theme endemic to Orange County and Anaheim specifically. That would be fireworks that the Halos have a show for every Saturday night home game(the perfect time to wear them) and at Disneyland a couple of miles away, where they occur almost every night at around 9:30 p.m. So, that’s just my idea for an OC rebrand for the Halos. But I know that Arte Moreno will never go for it and it would be unlikely that a new owner in the future would embrace Anaheim in the team’s name. Unless there’s no better option for building a new ballpark in the Los Angeles area(across the county line), the Angels are stuck in their location where three freeways meet and an OC Vibe project is breaking ground to bring an entertainment district to Anaheim in the future. God forbid that the Angels leave SoCal behind and relocate to a city seeking an expansion team. That is the last thing anyone would want to happen. Even though the Dodgers are a historically better team with a load of fans, the Angels are the cheapest option for a professional sporting event in the greater Los Angeles area. As long as that remains the case, they’re not going anywhere.

As for the two subjects in this story, Mayor Aitken’s time will only run two four-year terms maximum and she faces a re-election cycle in front of her in 2026. Arte Moreno is 78 years old and will soon be an octogenarian as long as his health remains well in tact. Arte hasn’t been seen at the Big A as much ever since he proposed selling the team in 2022, and decided to stand pat in not selling the team when he pulled them off the market in early 2023. Many people thought that the Angels were truly up for sale after the stadium sale deal fell through due to Harry Sidhu’s corruption scandal and there were plenty of West Coast billionaires lining up to potentially buy the Angels, but Moreno is holding onto the team until he’s in a wooden casket more than likely. Or there’s the potential for a PR fallout when it comes to the Tyler Skaggs wrongful death case facing the organization in the face and that is finally set to begin later this year. If the Angels have to fork up a boatload of money due to the organization’s inability to give Skaggs proper help to get off the painkillers he was taking, that might be a scandal large enough that might finally force Moreno to sell the team for real. But for now, the Angels and Anaheim are stuck in the mud and until something changes, the tension between the two over the old stadium lease and the condition of the Big A will remain a topic of discussion among local media outlets. I hope this ends with a fair deal and a brighter future for the Halos in my native Orange County.