Angels Not Exactly Safe At Home

According to the terms of the historic Disney-Anaheim accord reached on Wednesday, the local baseball team will be known as the “Anaheim Angels” from the end of the 1996 season through the year 2016.

After that, who knows?

It could almost be anything.

The Orlando Angels.

The Carolina Angels.

The St. Louis Angels.

It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before.

On page 17 of the “Memorandum of Understanding” approved by the Anaheim City Council Wednesday, there is an eye-opening bit of text, 16 pages after the document trumpets a 33-year lease agreement between the City and the Tenant.

The text can be found next to the bold-faced subtitle “Termination Fee.”

It begins:

“Tenant will have the right and option to terminate the Lease at any time without cause within 120 days following the 20th anniversary of the Lease.”

How does that grab you, Ram fans?

Disney will control and operate the Angels for the next 33 years in Anaheim, unless, without cause, Disney decides to move them after 20.

“This agreement gives Disney a 20-year walk,” said Bob Zemel, one of the two Anaheim city councilmen who voted against the measure. “Just talk to a Los Angeles Rams fan about the release clause that was added to the team’s [lease] contract. Their team would still be here without that walk clause.”

From Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly’s perspective, however, 20 years are a lot better than six, which is when the Autrys’ lease with the city was due to expire.

And, he has Disney’s word that the team will not be moved out of Anaheim.

“There’s nothing holding Mickey Mouse to Anaheim [contractually], but I don’t see him going anywhere,” Disney Sports president Tony Tavares said. “ . . . We look forward to playing 33 years here and beyond. Mike Eisner has no intention of moving this team from Anaheim. Ever.”

A reassuring sentiment, no doubt, for Daly.

Of course, three weeks ago, Tavares said Disney’s deal to buy into the Angels was absolutely “dead,” so Anaheim might want to keep those last 120 days of 2016 circled on the calendar, just in case.

But why insist on an out clause at all?

If Disney is willing to invest $70 million in the renovation of an Anaheim baseball stadium, why put the spade to a 20-year off-ramp that leads out of Anaheim?

Call it Sportstown insurance.

Disney believes it needed some protection against the lunatic NFL uber alles fringe--and don’t we all?

“Twenty years is a significant amount of time,” Tavares said. “We don’t know what Sportstown is going to look like and we don’t know when the NFL will relocate to Anaheim. With those kinds of uncertainties, we need an escape valve.”

Daly is a fervent believer in Sportstown, he wants Anaheim to have pro football in the worst way--didn’t we already have it from 1990-1994?--but he claimed to understand Disney’s concerns about “seeing who and what moves in next door.” Daly shrugged. “That’s the fun of it,” he suggested.

Sportstown is what scared Disney away last month, and the blueprint had to undergo considerable shrinkage before Disney could be lured back to the negotiating table.

Sportstown Before: A wildly ambitious project that was supposed to squeeze three hotels, a football stadium, a massive retail/entertainment corridor, a cowboy theme park, a youth sports complex and a bit of parking into 167 prime acres around Anaheim Stadium.

Sportstown Now: Forty acres. Without a mule.

Anaheim’s pie in the sky is now just a slice. Forty acres of playground--with 20 earmarked for a football stadium. That doesn’t leave much for Orange County’s answer to City Walk. Unless they plan to stack designer coffee shops on top of sports memorabilia stores on top of gourmet hamburger stands, there’s barely room for a City Curb.

“To save Sportstown,” Daly said, “parts of it had to go . . . From the beginning, Sportstown was designed to be a flexible project. It is a creative vision for the use of the property. But it is not a final design.”

The Angels greeted the news of Wednesday’s agreement with a sigh of relief so strong it should have blown the Milwaukee Brewers off the diamond. Even current Angel President Richard Brown applauded it for the record, even if his personal contract just got fitted with an out clause Disney can, and probably will, exercise within days.

“We’re all very, very excited,” Brown tried to convince reporters. “The premier marketing organization in the world now owns the team, and this ensures the Angels will remain here for the next 30 years.”

Give or take a decade.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” Brown insisted.

Except, of course, for Brown.

“This is all out of my control now,” Brown reasoned. “In any baseball organization, the two most vulnerable people are the general manager and the president. When a new owner comes in, they generally want to bring in their own people. That’s the business. You accept that going in. Your only expectation is that you hope you’re treated fairly.”

Brown alluded to the multiyear contracts Angels Jim Edmonds, J.T. Snow and Troy Percival had signed earlier in the day, contracts that will be paid, largely, with Disney money.

“I came here to pay tribute to these three players--and maybe get a loan,” he quipped. “Whether I’m going to need a loan is something that remains to be seen.”

Most likely, Brown will be remembered as the last acting president of the California Angels. Tavares will be the first acting president of the Anaheim Angels.

“After being known as ‘California’ for the last 30 years, this team is now going to be called, ‘Anaheim,’ ” Daly enthused. “That’s a huge achievement.”

Enjoy it then, Anaheim.

You’re paying $30 million for the privilege.

It’s all yours. For the next 20 years, anyway.