City Owes Angels a Debt of Gratitude

Where’s the love?

My thoughts go back to a Sunday afternoon last October in Anaheim. People wearing red are deliriously happy. Strangers are hugging strangers and not getting arrested for it. Someone known as The Rally Monkey is leaping up and down. Two days later, people line the streets in Anaheim and cheer wildly as ballplayers ride by in motorized chariots.

Strange but true, the Angels have won the World Series. All of our hopes and dreams (at least for those who are Angels fans) have come true.

And now this.

Forget how much the city of Anaheim loves the Angels. Forget the thanks the team got for finally making it to the World Series, not to mention winning it. Forget all the national publicity that came Anaheim’s way because of the Halos’ success.

Forget the bets with other mayors that Mayor Tom Daly won. Forget the parking and concession and ticket revenue the team made for the city.

Only months after the Angels won the Series, Anaheim officials showed their appreciation: They sent the team a bill for $750,000.

It probably came with a note: “Hey, let’s do this again real soon!”

While you were keeping your scorecards during the playoffs, so was the city. But while you were tracking runs, hits and errors, the city was tracking the SWAT team, Fire Department, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, helicopter usage and Porta-Potty rental.

Is this any way to treat a world champion?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

Tim Mead, an Angels vice president, says it’s standard procedure for Series winners to pick up the security tab. Recent winners like the Diamondbacks and Yankees did it, he says, with the rationale being that the games are the teams’ events and they’re responsible for keeping the paying customers safe.

I get it, but not really. Especially with Anaheim, which at its small size ought to thank its lucky stars it gets to splash its name across the jerseys of a Major League Baseball team.

The city should consider it a privilege to pick up the check.

The city didn’t mind forking over tens of millions of dollars a few years ago to help refurbish the old Anaheim Stadium and attach its name to the team, so you’d think paying a measly $750,000 out of a city budget of $1 billion would be the least the city could do to say thanks to Mike Scioscia’s boys.

If a team was playing under a curse for four decades, as the Angels were, shouldn’t its hometown reward them for lifting it? What better way than to throw in a little free security?

More to the point, is it really necessary to charge the Angels $210 for a Porta-Potty rental for Game 1 of the Series?

When the city sends a cop to your house, you don’t get billed later.

Sure, you pay taxes, but so do the Angels. Plus, they just delivered a world championship to the city. What have you done lately?

Mead, who has a long-standing reputation as a consummate gentleman, won’t encourage me, probably because he’s jazzed about spring training, which is about to start in Arizona.

The most outrage I could muster from him was to say the team has “some questions” about the tab but that he’s confident an agreement will be reached.

“This is not a gasping, up-in-arms situation,” he says. “It’s something that is negotiated.”

That’s how you’d expect a gentleman to react.

As for me, I’m no gentleman.

But I am thinking about the ball club. If the team knows that a big bill will show up at season’s end for making the playoffs, I fear they might tank it this season.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.