Dodgers Won’t Let This Become LAA-LAA Land

Once upon an O’Malley, the Dodgers greeted the Angels by sticking out their hand.

This weekend, they will stick out their tongue.

Back in the days of Big D and Big A, the games between the friendly rivals were called “the Freeway Series.”

This weekend, the little boys blue will turn it into “the Sandbox Series.”

The Angels will show up Friday night in Chavez Ravine to discover someone pouting, and something missing.

Their first name.

They’re the Los Angeles Angels everywhere but there.

In a display of immaturity that makes you want to give Frankie and Jamie a timeout, the Dodgers refuse to recognize the league-sanctioned and nationally accepted change.

In newspapers, magazines and television tickers from coast to coast, they’re the Los Angeles Angels.

But in Dodger press releases, they’re the Angels of Anaheim.

On scoreboards large and small, it’s LAA.

On the Dodger out-of-town scoreboard, it’s ANA.

Public address announcers everywhere refer to the Los Angeles Angels.

Eric Smith, the Dodger public address announcer, calls them the Angels of Anaheim.

Talk about a high-decibel “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.”

Even on tickets printed after last winter’s name change, the Dodgers are publicly whining.

Ask the many fans who were recently given new seats after the renovation fiasco. Their tickets for this weekend read, “Angels of Anaheim.”

Animals have marked their territories with more grace.

“All this fighting over two lousy letters? You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Steve Brener, former longtime Dodger public relations boss who runs Brener Zwikel and Associates, a prominent sports-publicity firm. “The Dodgers should worry about the Dodgers and let the Angels worry about the Angels.”

Oh, but it gets worse.

The Dodgers are actually marketing their raspberries, selling caps and T-shirts that read, “Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles.”

Twenty-five bucks per jeer.

“If every other team is recognizing the Angels as Los Angeles, then the Dodgers should do the same thing,” Brener said. “They should call them by their right name.”

Dodger radio announcers also refer to them as the Anaheim Angels, but they say they have not been ordered to do so, they are only making things less complicated, and I will not argue with Vin Scully.

“I’m certainly not trying to make a declaration of any sort,” Scully said. “I have a simple mind, and it’s easier to say ‘Anaheim.’ Besides, I’m not going to say, ‘At the end of the third, it’s Los Angeles 1, Los Angeles 1.’ ”

Fair enough. But for the rest of the team, trying this hard to keep the Angels out of Los Angeles is like handing them the town keys.

Instead of shrugging off the name change, the Dodgers have been suckered by it.

Instead of remembering that their franchise is still stronger than anything Angel owner Arte Moreno can muster, they have played right into his hands.

Some would say that not only is Moreno responsible for all those new Angel billboards in town, that he also inspired those of the Dodgers.

“This Is L.A. Baseball,” they say, and the TV spots repeat it.

The Dodgers say this was an ad campaign designed long before the Angel name change.

“Months and months before the name change,” said Marty Greenspun, Dodger chief operating officer.

The more skeptical among us -- actually, everyone I know -- have a hard time believing that.

And why be so petty?

“Our position is that there is only one major league team in Los Angeles,” Greenspun said. “And that’s the Los Angeles Dodgers.”

The Angels have been busy thinking about other things.

“What our focus is, and has been, is the focus of team performance and continued enhancement of the fan experience at our ballpark,” said Vice President Tim Mead, whose team downplays “Los Angeles” in its own park. “We have not, and will not, lose sight of that objective.”

You say the Dodgers are just trying to be traditional?

Well, there is a flag flying above the most traditional house in baseball that reads, “Los Angeles Angels,” and if it’s good enough for Yankee Stadium ...

You say the name change is still in litigation and the Dodgers are just being cautious?

Well, baseball certainly believes it’s a done deal, using LAA on all of its official schedules.

“Since we announced our name change, we’ve seen a variety of references,” Mead said. “The bottom line in any reference is that we’re still the Angels, we are still Angels baseball.”

And that brand of baseball apparently has the Dodgers scared silly.

The McCourts could learn a lesson from the Busses, who yawned when the Clippers decided to ignore Orange County overtures and moved down the hall from the Lakers.

Yes, McCourt paid more than $400 million for the right to the Los Angeles market, more than twice as much as Moreno paid for the Angels. But baseball rules allow Moreno to share the market, so McCourt has no gripe.

Meanwhile, McCourt is quietly spending more money in an attempt to legally prevent the name change. The effort is clearly not going to work. Moreno found a loophole -- game over -- so why doesn’t McCourt use the bucks on a pitcher?

What Frankie has forgotten in this childish fuss is the team that didn’t change its name.

Yeah, his team, the one with the six World Series championships, with Jackie Robinson’s strength and Sandy Koufax’s perfection and Tom Lasorda’s persona and Kirk Gibson’s homer and Vin Scully’s voice.

The team that still draws some of baseball’s largest crowds to one of baseball’s last remaining shrines, no matter how many championships are won down the road.

They’re the Dodgers, for Pee Wee’s sake.

They oughta act like it.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.