Sue the Angels? Court Is No Place to Play Ball

The Angels and the city of Anaheim had an agreement. It was written down, in black and white. Everything was hunky-dory for years, with both sides benefiting from the partnership, and then ...

Blooey.

One side claimed that the other violated the lease and, worse yet, did it to curry favor with Los Angeles. Forget legalisms; one side felt betrayed. To underline the point, it filed a $100-million lawsuit.

Yep, that’s how it was in 1983, when a team called the California Angels (remember them?) played in the Big A (remember it?) in the city of Anaheim (ever heard of it?).

Now in 2005, we have betrayal and the courting of Los Angeles all over again. Angels owner Arte Moreno has renamed his team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The city says it will sue over what it considers a lease violation.

In 1983, however, it was the Angels that sued, claiming the city had wooed the Los Angeles Rams a bit too much in the late 1970s by promising them a chance to develop a commercial project in a corner of the stadium parking lot.

“You can’t sell the same horse twice,” then-owner Gene Autry famously said of the city’s agreement with the Rams.

So, to sum up, the Angels of 20 years ago thought Anaheim pulled a fast one -- solely to reap the rewards of having a Los Angeles sports connection in Orange County.

Irony, anyone?

What followed may pass as a cautionary tale for what’s going on today. The litigation spread over 10 years, soured relations and cost both sides millions of dollars.

At the annual Anaheim Chamber of Commerce luncheon in 1985, Anaheim’s mayor didn’t have a chair at the head table. Then Autry refused to accept the framed proclamation the mayor traditionally read that wished the team luck in the coming season. Equally miffed at the Angels’ intransigence, Anaheim City Manager William O. Talley said of Autry: “He’s a wealthy individual, and the wealthy get used to a certain way of life.”

The legal fight claimed casualties. After listening to daylong testimony at the trial that began in 1985, Autry fell outside the courthouse and broke his hip. It was worse for Talley: When a new City Council majority surfaced in 1987, he was promptly fired.

In 1988, 4 1/2 years after the suit was filed, a judge barred development without the Angels’ approval. In 1994, a state appeals court ruled that a portion of the project could proceed. By the start of the 1995 season, however, the Rams had left Orange County for St. Louis.

What’s to be learned from all this?

Fred Hunter was an Anaheim councilman and two-time mayor who came to office after the dispute started. “Both sides spent this unconscionable amount of money over a trivial issue,” he said, “which should never have gone on that long.”

The only winners, he said, were the lawyers. That isn’t sour grapes -- Hunter is a lawyer.

An Angels fan since 1966, Hunter has some free advice. “Before getting in a [nasty dispute], Mayor Curt Pringle needs to sit down with Arte Moreno and say, ‘Before we get involved in litigation, let’s see if we can work this out.’ ”

Hunter doesn’t mind the “City of Angels” billboards he’s seen in Orange County but says he wouldn’t buy an Angels jersey with “Los Angeles” on it. Moreno is “rubbing 3.5 million Orange Countians the wrong way” by insisting on a Los Angeles moniker, Hunter says.

But Hunter basically buys my previously stated position: Moreno should be allowed to change the name -- as tone-deaf to local fans as it is -- but should make some financial concessions.

Let’s not insult our collective intelligence by thinking Moreno expects anyone to call the team the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” Nor am I convinced that a judge would think that satisfies the terms of the lease to keep Anaheim in the team name.

But is it worth it to Anaheim to be right? I say no, and Hunter suggests as much.

When I ask what he remembers most about the 10-year legal battle that spilled into the 1990s, he replies: “What I remember most is that it never should have happened.”