Uneasy Lies the Kingdom

Pigs are taxiing down the runway. Hell is open for figure skating.

I am writing the following words, and I am serious about each one:

Disney has been good for the Angels and Ducks.

Disney has been good for baseball and hockey.

Disney should not sell either team, for its sake or ours.

Whew. Five paragraphs. I have never before gone so deep into a story about Disney sports without fixing it with a set of mouse ears, or attacking it with dancing brooms, or feeding it to a large hairy mammal cursed with the voice of Robby Benson.

But on Monday, a funny thing happened.

I awoke, saw the news that Disney was considering selling the Angels, then later heard the Ducks would be part of the deal.

Like a man finally blessed with a chance to get rid of irritating neighbors, I celebrated, then paused.

Well, uh, wait a minute here.

Before somebody else we don’t know or trust comes in, shouldn’t we take a closer look?

At this moment, what exactly is Disney doing wrong?

It is an odd question about the owners of a last-place baseball team and mediocre hockey team, perhaps, but we should answer it anyway.

We know what Disney has done wrongly in the past. We’ve enjoyed two years of belly laughs over what it has done wrongly.

Disney baseball has been silly and cheap.

Cheerleaders. Dugout bands. Good-bye, Chili Davis. Hello, Eddie Murray and Cecil Fielder. Anybody seen an ace starting pitcher?

Disney hockey has been reckless and dumb.

The Ducks fired Ron Wilson, allowed holdout Paul Kariya to miss half a season, then had the nerve to raise ticket prices while attendance began falling like that silly quacker from the ceiling.

Watching Disney learn to play sports has been like, one imagines, watching Snow White eat ribs.

But in six years, Disney has learned.

From either a sense of business or embarrassment, the company has admitted its errors and sought to understand.

And--continually casting Emilio Estevez as a young hockey coach notwithstanding--Disney finally gets it.

Its baseball marketing mistakes have evolved into a gorgeous, comfortable stadium where the only cheerleaders are the little boys playing in the wide aisles.

Despite the atrocities occurring nightly on the diamond, Edison Field feels like summer and smells like baseball, and that is more than you can say these days about that boom box in Chavez Ravine.

“That ballpark is just tremendous,” said John Moores, owner of the San Diego Padres. “I have been to newer ones that weren’t as nice. Disney gets very high marks for it.”

Disney’s budget mistakes have also been fixed. The Angels have the league’s 12th-highest payroll among 30 teams, and showed their willingness to spend for a championship when they dropped $80 million on Mo Vaughn.

Whether he was the right player is not a question for Disney, but for the men it has entrusted to make those calls.

“Disney has been good for baseball, good for their community, and it would be very sad if they bowed out now,” Moores said Monday.

Hockey? Different sport, same learning curve.

One coach after Ron Wilson, the Ducks finally have a decent replacement in Craig Hartsburg. One day before Kariya’s contract expired this summer, they re-signed him. And finally, they have acquired a standout defensemen, Oleg Tverdovsky.

We wanted Disney to start signing big checks. It has.

We wanted Disney to start treating baseball with dignity, and hockey with competitiveness. It has.

Disney needs to make changes in the Angels’ front office next winter, and history has shown that it probably will.

And now Disney is going to walk away?

Considering the history of the Angels, I guess that makes sense.

Somebody there is always wilting under pressure.

They were one win from a World Series in 1982 and couldn’t do it. They were one pitch from a World Series in 1986 and couldn’t do it.

They blew an 11-game lead in August of 1995, a 3 1/2-game lead in September last year.

It should only figure, then, that amid one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history, it would be the owners who run out on them.

Unless Disney wanted to changed that history, of course.

Unless the authors of some of the most heartwarming comeback tales wanted to star in one of their own.

Instead of viewing their recent frustration as a melted Fudgesicle in the middle of a Main Street Parade, the Disney people could see it as an opportunity.

Instead of worrying about being humiliated in their community, they could see as a chance to further cement their place here.

Now that Disney knows what it is doing, to flee would be a far worse mistake than those the company made when it didn’t have a clue.

That, and it would just be bad business.

“For Disney to sell now would make no sense,” said David Carter, principal of the Sports Business Group consulting firm. “As a marketing vehicle alone, the Angels are worth a lot more money then they put in.”

Not to mention, the publicity nightmare of abandoning the only two major professional sports teams next to your first theme park.

“Do you think they are going to like another entertainment company going in there and buying the team?” Carter asked. “Being in Anaheim is too perfect of a fit for Disney to sell.”

So Disney should not. It must not. It cannot.

Unless, of course, it needs the money to pay a franchise fee to the NFL.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.