Piranhas Are Latest Team to Call The Pond Home : Arena Football: Anaheim franchise selects its name and logo for 1996 season, which starts in May.

With the Rams enjoying smoother sailing in St. Louis, pro football in Orange County went fishing for a new identity Tuesday at The Pond.

Former Ram All-Pro Rich Saul waved a plastic piranha at a crowd of local dignitaries--including former Rams Vince Ferragamo and Mike Lansford and Anaheim City Manager James Ruth--as the city’s new Arena Football team unveiled its name and logo.

The Anaheim Piranhas.

“The Piranhas are in The Pond,” said Saul, the team’s vice president of operations. Saul also entertained the crowd by stripping off his sport coat, tie and dress shirt to reveal a Piranhas T-shirt.

The Piranhas are Orange County’s first entry in Arena Football, a 15-team league that plays on 50-yard fields in basketball and hockey arenas. They begin their 14-game season in May at The Pond.

Team officials billed the nickname--which beat five other finalists in a vote of fans--as a marketing bonanza and a symbol of aggressive football.

But the name drew a chuckle from Mike Shaw, curator of fishes at Sea World. Although piranha have sharp teeth and strong jaws, they have “an exaggerated reputation” as menacing aggressors, he said.

“That [name] might not fit well with your football team,” he said, laughing. “Most people have had no trouble swimming in the same water as piranha. They can take a good bite out of you, but they rarely attack.”

The logo was introduced at a ceremony that included all the Arenaball trimmings: Indoor fireworks, a team highlight film on the scoreboard, and a few dozen junior high school students waving signs of support for the different logos.

Piranhas received more than 4,000 of the 12,000 votes, easily outdistancing second-place Commandos, which relied heavily on votes from Camp Pendleton. Other finalists were the Beach Dogs, Crush, TigerSharks and Americans.

Many team officials liked “Piranhas” because of its marketing potential. They issued a press release with an encyclopedia’s description of South American, freshwater fish, which measures up to a foot long: “It attacks in overwhelming schools making it a dangerous and feared fish.”

“Piranhas gives us an aggressive and powerful identity,” team president Roy Englebrecht said.

Shaw said piranha are considered dangerous but are not aggressive. They dine mainly on plants and other marine life, and although they rarely attack humans, they are banned in California.

In September, a county investment group paid more than $1 million for the Las Vegas Sting, which was plagued by low attendance and lost more than $1 million in each of the past two seasons.

Anaheim officials changed the Sting’s name to give it a new image. The team will replace its purple uniforms with the new Piranha colors--green, red and black.

The new name also guaranteed Anaheim an instant rival in Arenaball’s Western Division. The expansion franchise in Minneapolis was recently named the “Fighting Pike.”

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Englebrecht said season ticket prices will remain intact for the Piranhas’ first three seasons, which he says is unprecedented in professional sports. Tickets will be priced from $39.50 to $7. The average price will be $19.47, about six dollars less than the league average.