Now That the Game’s Over, Let’s All Play Nice

Remember when the Angels just had to get Mo Vaughn? They were so sure, they signed him to a six-year, $80-million contract after the 1998 season.

Angel fans remember the rest. Vaughn tumbled into the dugout his first game and sprained an ankle. Despite decent stats his first two years, neither the Angels nor Vaughn was happy with the other. Then he sat out the entire third year of his contract with a blown elbow. After the 2001 season and halfway through his contract, the Angels traded him.

The next year, they won the World Series.

In baseball, what you want is not always what you need.

The Anaheim City Council should adopt that as the town mantra.

The city needs one -- and maybe some self-esteem therapy -- after an Orange County jury kicked it in the shins Thursday and said Angel owner Arte Moreno could keep calling his team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The city had sued and raised the prospect of Moreno paying it millions of dollars in damages for minimizing Anaheim’s presence in the team name and marketing.

Now what for Anaheim? Bereft of the national prominence that it insisted “Anaheim Angels” gave it, does the city wither and die? Try to bring back the indoor lacrosse team?

I’d advise against that.

In losing, the city may have won.

Good baseball owners don’t come around every day. Hitting Moreno up for millions of dollars in damages wouldn’t have been the way to keep him happy.

Had Moreno been forced to pay, the bite may well have come from future team payrolls. He would have told everyone it was Anaheim’s fault. Or, who knows, he may have grown so disenchanted that he either sold the team or started counting the days when the lease would let him move it.

Anaheim officials need only ask themselves how popular their town would be in Orange County if the Angels ever left because of them. Or what having no baseball team would do to their tourist business.

“I didn’t bring this suit on,” Moreno told reporters after the verdict. “I was sued. This took me away from my family for a long time.”

That doesn’t sound like a happy owner. I don’t blame him, but surely he understands that Anaheim felt insulted and was, in effect, defending its honor. Moreno has plenty of pride himself, and that should help him understand why Anaheim did what it did.

He now can stay the course that has propelled the Angels into the high-rent district of major-league baseball. Spending money doesn’t guarantee success (see Mo Vaughn), but Moreno has established himself in only three years as a natural.

Except for this name thing, that is. I’ve sided with the hometown chorus that says it’s an idiotic name for an Orange County team, but parted with it in saying that Moreno had a right to rename his team. I still say he pulled a fast one on Anaheim, but the jury ruled it wasn’t illegal.

Here’s a thought for Moreno. Would it kill you to mention Anaheim every so often, in at least some aspect of your marketing program? The city isn’t a four-letter word, and identifying Anaheim does nothing to detract from the “Angels” brand you want to push.

Most Orange County residents can live with having Los Angeles attached to a local team, but I hope Moreno learned something during the trial about civic identity and why it matters.

The good news is that Moreno seems every bit the intuitive man. He’s courted fans with a magic touch. He needs to tap into that and make an adjustment or two to appease Orange County fans who don’t like being thought of as part of Los Angeles, no matter what demographers say.

In about the time it takes to play a 10-inning game at the stadium, the jury gave Moreno a huge win.

For both sides, it’s now time to play ball.

With each other.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.