Display by Angels, City Hall is All-Star caliber

The Angels were for sale, and two of the bidders dropped by to check out the stadium, on the same day. Frank McCourt arrived in the morning, and he had not left by the time Arte Moreno showed up that afternoon.

For a few years there, the folks within Anaheim City Hall surely wished McCourt would have bought the Angels.

He bought the Dodgers, of course. He moved his family to Los Angeles, immersed himself in civic life and cultivated relationships with local politicians.

Moreno bought the Angels, but he did not move to Orange County or cozy up to City Hall. He did slap a Los Angeles label on his team. Anaheim sued and, three years later, the lawyers are still fighting.

But you wouldn’t know that from Wednesday’s news conference at Angel Stadium, in which Moreno and Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle sat side by side as Commissioner Bud Selig officially awarded the 2010 All-Star game to the Angels.

The smiles appeared genuine all around, and for the first time you got the sense that Moreno really wants to plant his big red flag in Anaheim for good rather than threaten to play the get-out-of-town card.

Forgive and forget? He won’t forget the lawsuit -- and the $8 million he spent to win in Superior Court, with no reimbursement from the city -- but he might forgive. He did not set out to alienate Anaheim, just to run his business as he saw fit.

“I tried not to make it an emotional thing,” Moreno said after the news conference. “Sometimes change is hard to take.

“Obviously, I’m very proud of where we are, and I’m very proud of where we play baseball, or I wouldn’t be grinding as hard as I have been to showcase our stadium and our fans and the community where we play.”

After Anaheim filed suit, Moreno said the city was “trying to run me out of town” and warned that “somewhere along the line, you have to think about whether you’re gone.” The team can opt out of its stadium lease in 2016.

“Hopefully, everything works out,” Moreno said Wednesday. “Our goal is to stay here for a long time.”

The elected officials of Anaheim would not get re-elected if they did not defend the Anaheim Angels name -- and the city’s $20-million investment in it -- but the worst fears of City Hall have not come true.

Moreno has not sold Los Angeles Angels T-shirts or L.A. caps, despite court permission to do so. The Angels’ charitable focus remains on Orange County, and Moreno quietly donated $1 million to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Anaheim.

And, as the Angels pack their stadium, the city cashes in. In the three years since the city filed suit, the Angels have shared nearly $7 million in ticket and parking revenue with Anaheim.

“That’s a tribute to him and his management team,” City Manager Dave Morgan said, “and the location and the facility.”

The city and team bid jointly for the All-Star game, which will bring fans into hotels, restaurants and shops in Anaheim. The game was played in San Francisco last season, with an economic impact on the city estimated by Giants President Larry Baer at $50 million.

“The economic impact was definitely much greater for the city than for the team,” Baer said.

The Angels can have the greatest impact on Anaheim by sticking around beyond 2016. All the good vibrations emanating from Wednesday’s news conference could disappear if an appellate court overturns the Angels’ name change later this year, and in any case negotiations for a new or renovated ballpark are never easy.

“We’ve heard from Mr. Moreno and [Angels President] Dennis Kuhl that they love the location and they want to stay here,” Morgan said. “Events like this create the opportunity to build the relationship. That can only be beneficial.”

Selig called the Angels “a model for all our other franchises,” without objection from City Hall. No one fights to keep a loser in town.

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bill.shaikin@latimes.com