DISNEY TEAMS WITH ANGELS : A Big League Merchandiser Steps Up to the Plate : Marketing: After the success of Mighty Ducks hockey and paraphernalia, the Disney/Angels agreement is being viewed as another potential coup.

When the inevitable “Angels in the Outfield II” hits the Silver Screen, the plot may go something like this:

Giant Hollywood conglomerate buys pitiful major league baseball team from its aging singing-cowboy owner, adds a wacky mascot and winsome cheerleaders to fill the stands and saves America’s Pastime.

For Walt Disney Co., which regularly blurs fantasy and reality, that might not be too far from the truth.

The company’s agreement Thursday to buy a quarter of the California Angels from Gene and Jackie Autry was being viewed as another potential marketing home run for the Burbank entertainment giant that has already scored big with its Mighty Ducks hockey expansion team.

“They will do everything Disney is famous for,” said Harry Ornest, former owner of hockey’s St. Louis Blues and Canadian football’s Toronto Argonauts. “They will immediately hit the kids, and the kids will drag their parents to the games.,”

He predicted “it will do wonders for baseball, in Southern California at least. It will help the Dodgers. It will help the Padres. You will see Disney paraphernalia all over the country.”

But not all movies have a happy ending, as Disney may find. A Disney-controlled Angels is sure to add the kind of razzmatazz that was added to liven up Ducks games, where the company created a kid-friendly environment in a sport known for its unvarnished brutality.

Those things alone won’t necessarily fill the 64,593-seat stadium. It will more likely take a winning record, which the Angels haven’t supplied since 1989. Last season, the team finished 47-68, last place in the American League West.

Still, from a marketing standpoint, the company that invented Disney Dollars couldn’t be coming in at a better time.

Major League baseball has seen its attendance plummet in the wake of the sport’s longest player strike. Other than mascots like The Famous Chicken, the sport hasn’t seen any truly new gimmicks since Bill Veeck sent a midget to bat.

“We plan to create a total entertainment experience for baseball fans just as we have for hockey fans,” Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner said.

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In announcing the Angels deal Thursday, Eisner said he plans to cross-market the baseball team with the Mighty Ducks and Disneyland, all within a couple miles of each other in Anaheim. Disney owns television station KCAL Channel 9, which could carry Angel home games in addition to the Ducks. The Angels games are now carried by Prime Sports and KTLA Channel 5, which was formerly owned by Autry’s Golden West Broadcasting.

Even before it bid on the team, Disney started media mixing the Angels by producing “Angels in the Outfield” last summer, a movie about how the California Angels are literally lifted to victory by real angels. It was one of the company’s few live-action box-office successes.

The Mighty Ducks, the company’s initial venture into major league sports, came after it produced a movie of the same name.

Despite the end of a hockey strike, the Ducks sold out every game last season. Ducks caps, sweaters, goalie masks and other merchandise are the top sellers in the NHL. Sales were helped along by the fact that Ducks wear was sold through a network of hundreds of Disney stores.

Merchandise was just the start. The Disney touch applied to professional hockey has meant an emphasis on entertainment beyond the game itself.

Duck fans watch mascot Wild Wing descend from the rafters before almost every game, sometimes accompanied by a laser show. Disney also has brought on ice dancers--called the Decoys, naturally--to mixed reviews in a sport that hasn’t been partial to NBA-style cheerleaders.

During the game, fans participate in trivia contests while their faces are projected onto the Jumbotron television screen, which also shows vintage cartoons reflecting action on the ice.

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The staid Angels logo isn’t likely to go untouched either, not after Disney’s carefully designed Mighty Duck image of a hell-bent mallard led to its league-leading merchandise sales in its first year.

Disney’s triumph in selling led to an agreement to manage merchandise this season at Dodger Stadium. After the Mighty Ducks and Dodgers, marketing experts are expecting another Disney victory.

“They have tried to put on a superb show and [set] unrealistically high expectations for spectators,” said Roy Adler, a marketing professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu. “If they can do it with baseball, it will be fun again. It will be ‘Disney baseball.’ ”

Times staff writers Robyn Norwood and Eliott Teaford contributed to this article.