With Anaheim Firmly Parked, Deal Got Stuck

After 41 years of Disney telling the city of Anaheim to jump and Anaheim asking “How high?” the city finally came up with a different response Wednesday, and it involved someone else going out and taking a flying leap.

Disney to Anaheim, late Tuesday night: “We will buy into the Angels and run the day-to-day operation and even contribute $70 million to the renovation of an obsolete baseball stadium, but we will tell you how to spend that $70 million and we want 12,000 parking spaces to call our own and we do not want to share our parking lot with an NFL team and we do not want any part of this cockamamie Sportstown business . . . and, oh, if it’s not too much, we want the concessions from all non-baseball events held at the stadium too.”

Anaheim to Disney, in a landmark decision: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Nearly a year in the unmaking, the grand Disney plan to save the Angels from themselves has fallen apart, and the race to not tell the public why was fast and furious Wednesday.

At 3 p.m. at the Pond of Anaheim, Disney held a news conference to announce the deal was off, but declined to get into specifics.

At 4 p.m. at Anaheim Stadium, the city of the Anaheim held a news conference to announce the deal was off, but declined to get into specifics, because Disney had declined to get into specifics.

“There were too many gaps we were unable to close,” said Tony Tavares, president of Disney Sports Enterprises.

“There were numerous issues we could not bring closure on,” Anaheim city manager Jim Ruth said.

Tavares: “Our main concern was the quality of the guest experience.”

Ruth: “We felt we were very sensitive to Disney’s concerns about the guest experience. . . . The city of Anaheim has a great national, and international, reputation for the quality of the guest experience.”

Disney and the city were at least on the same page of the codespeak textbook.

Guest experience?

Yes, the guests at Anaheim Stadium over the summers have been treated very, very well. Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, A’s--most of them won two out of three every time they made a guest appearance.

As for the fan experience, which is what Tavares and Ruth actually meant, well, that has been problematic over the years. Stadium? Bland. Team? Worse than that, too often. Concessions? Man does not live on cinnamon rolls alone. Between-innings entertainment? “Y.M.C.A.”--need I say more?

Parking?

Now we’re getting to the crux of the disagreement.

That is where Disney and the city drew the line in the sand.

In the Anaheim Stadium parking lot.

Anaheim wants to use the parking lot for Sportstown, which, if you haven’t seen the drawings, is best described as George Jetson Plans a Sports Complex. Renovated baseball-only Big A here. Brand new football stadium there. Son of CityWalk in the middle. Hotels and train station to the north. Cowboy theme park to the northeast. Orange groves, toy stores and coffee shops all over the place. Monorail, youth sports complex and formal gardens also included. Parking structure squeezed in there somewhere.

Price tag: About a billion dollars.

Disney looks at the schematics for Sportstown and says, “Get real. We don’t deal in fantasy.”

Disney wonders, and rightly so: Where’s the parking? Ruth says a parking structure could handle it. Whether that parking structure had to be as tall as the Tower of Babel, Ruth didn’t say, but he insisted Wednesday, “We could have worked out the parking with time.”

This negotiation was a classic encounter between Disney, the consummate control freak, and Anaheim, a midsized suburb that dreams of being Gotham. “Anaheim is a city of 300,000 that has been very aggressive” in its planning, Tavares said, partly with admiration, partly with amusement.

Ruth sincerely believes Sportstown will happen--”it’s our future, our economic vision of the future.” Disney has its doubts, and preferred to deal with the here and now--or, at least, a single stadium that realistically could be renovated in time for the 1998 season.

Then, when renovated, Disney wanted to control that stadium--from the color scheme of the snack bars to the average steps per guest from dedicated parking space to facility entrance.

As for the baseball team that was to be thrown in with the deal, 1996 could be the beginning and the end of the Wonder Months. Jackie Autry says she can’t afford this team, and that was before Chuck Finley and Jim Abbott were signed to long-term contracts. Tim Salmon, Jim Edmonds and Garret Anderson comprise a young outfield that’s only going to get richer.

If Jackie can’t pay them, and can’t find a buyer, someone else will have to pay. Maybe the Yankees, maybe the Orioles. Contract-dumping season could begin as soon as October.

Disney Sports Enterprises, Inc., meanwhile, sets to thrust its tentacles elsewhere. The NBA--even the Clippers--intrigues The Mouse. Fewer salaries, controlled environment, cartoon uniforms, more stoppages of play for crazed mascots to scare small children--it’s Disney’s kind of place.

Baseball would have been too slow for Disney. Can’t run Goofy out there to juggle florescent resin bags between pitches because the players just won’t get off the field.

Besides, where would he park?