Topic: Baseball's Angels

[shemps#1]

For those of you not in the know, the Angels were first called the Los Angeles Angels upon their expansion into Major League Baseball. Gene Autry then moved the team to Anaheim and renamed them the California Angels. A few years ago the city of Anaheim ponied up a huge sum of taxpayer dollars for a new stadium for the ballclub, and in return they signed a deal with the team to rename themselves the Anaheim Angels (at this point they were owned by Disney). Recently the Angels changed ownership, and in an attempt to increase revenue they have changed their name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (keeping Anaheim in the name to try to avoid legal issues). The city of Anaheim has filed a lawsuit; and although the baseball that is actually in LA, the Dodgers, don't like the name change they don't want to get involved. Most recently the city of LA has also filed a suit against the team, not wanting the team to bring back the name they gave up years ago to attempt to pocket extra cash.

So I ask you, members of this website: what name do you think the Angels should use?

[metaldams]

They should be called Boston's Bitch.

[Dunrobin]

Definitely, the team name should be "Anaheim Angels."  They entered into a contract with Anaheim to steal money from the taxpayers, and they should be forced to honor their side of that contract or return the money.

I am feed up with these damned politicians given away our money - they rip me off here in Michigan, too - to wealthy team owners.  If you want a damned stadium, build it yourselves!

They should be called Boston's Bitch.

Jim's gonna love that! 

[shemps#1]

I agree with both of you 100%, lol. We did sweep them in the ALDS, so Boston's Bitches would be fitting.

I also get pissed when these teams ask the taxpayers to foot the bill on brand new state-of-the-art ballparks. Say what you will about Jesse Ventura, but he absolutely refused to use taxpayer money to finance new stadiums for the Twins and Vikings in Minnesota. These teams have all sorts of money to spend on players' salaries, but look for a handout when they want a new ballpark.

Not to mention that building anything nice in Detroit is a waste.

[Pilsner Panther]

People criticize San Francisco for a lot of things (and often, rightly so), but I'll tell you, when we built our ballpark, we got it done right:

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/sf/ballpark/index.jsp

It's a real gem, beautifully situated (literally perched on the edge of the Bay), and the architecture recalls the classic old ballparks like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.

But here's the relevant part of the story: after a number of failed attempts to get publicly-subsidized ballparks built, the Giants' ownership and the administration of then-mayor Frank Jordan (a great mayor who was unfairly thrown out of office in favor of the corrupt Willie Brown), agreed that all the funding for the project would have to be private. At that point, the voters finally passed the measure to build it, and now we've got our park. Most of the funding came from the regional phone company, Pacific Bell, and so it was named Pacific Bell Park.

When Pac Bell was absorbed by SBC (formerly Southern Bell Corporation) recently, the name was changed to the much less appealing (and more impersonal, corporate-sounding) SBC Park, and a lot of Giants fans objected— but we still have the park, no matter what name is on it.

A lot of us would have preferred Willie Mays Park, but nothing's perfect in this world, and at least they put a nice bronze statue of "the Say-Hey Kid" out in front.

Private enterprise really can work a lot better than the usual government boondoggling— but the projected ideas have to be carefully thought out, and presented to the voters in an appealing way.

This time, at least, we got it 100% right here.

 

[Dunrobin]

People criticize San Francisco for a lot of things (and often, rightly so), but I'll tell you, when we built our ballpark, we got it done right:

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/sf/ballpark/index.jsp

It's a real gem, beautifully situated (literally perched on the edge of the Bay), and the architecture recalls the classic old ballparks like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.

But here's the relevant part of the story: after a number of failed attempts to get publicly-subsidized ballparks built, the Giants' ownership and the administration of then-mayor Frank Jordan (a great mayor who was unfairly thrown out of office in favor of the corrupt Willie Brown), agreed that all the funding for the project would have to be private. At that point, the voters finally passed the measure to build it, and now we've got our park. Most of the funding came from the regional phone company, Pacific Bell, and so it was named Pacific Bell Park.

When Pac Bell was absorbed by SBC (formerly Southern Bell Corporation) recently, the name was changed to the much less appealing (and more impersonal, corporate-sounding) SBC Park, and a lot of Giants fans objected— but we still have the park, no matter what name is on it.

A lot of us would have preferred Willie Mays Park, but nothing's perfect in this world, and at least they put a nice bronze statue of "the Say-Hey Kid" out in front.

Private enterprise really can work a lot better than the usual government boondoggling— but the projected ideas have to be carefully thought out, and presented to the voters in an appealing way.

This time, at least, we got it 100% right here.

 

That sounds pretty good, Pils, but I've got a question.  If the stadium was built and is operated privately, what the hell were the voters getting involved for?  I gather they still were giving up something, if just "tax breaks" from the city, and (at a guess) the use of the city's power of eminent domain to force people to sell their property for the use of the stadium owners.

If my conjecture is accurate, then it was still a bum deal, and I'd oppose it, especially if there was any use of eminent domain.  That is one of the most immoral and criminal presumptions of the government; the right to steal other people's property for the use of someone else.

Let's consider this idea for a moment.  I assume that you admit that you do not have any kind of right to take your next-door neighbor's home and property from him for your own use.  Neither may you take it to give to someone else.  If you do that you would rightly be called a criminal.

If you do not have the right to steal your neighbor's property, then how can you delegate such a "right" to the government?  You can't morally, or thus lawfully; only criminals presume the right to steal.  Therefore, no one has the right to use the armed force of the government (for that's what it always boils down to) in order to steal other people's property by forcing them to sell against their wills.  To do so renders both the government and those who so use the government as criminals.  The fact that they get away with it doesn't make them any less criminal.
 
Unfortunately, even if that wasn't the case in San Francisco, this kind of behavior is going on all around the country.  Local governments especially are using and abusing the power of eminent domain at an accelerating rate.  The fact that the people aren't rioting in the streets over such flagerant abuse is a sad commentary on the state of our nation's principles.  Sam Adams (the Patriot, not the beer) would be spinning in his grave if he knew.

 

[Pilsner Panther]

This project was approved a full decade ago, Rob, and I don't remember all the details. I'll have to do some research after the weekend, and I don't know if the S.F. Chronicle's computerized archives go back that far.

What I can tell you is that the ballpark holds the record for sailing through our cumbersome city planning process faster than any other proposal in recent history. As you know from some of my previous posts on related topics, my own writing for the Chronicle, etc., etc., I can give you chapter and verse on how the Planning Department works, and it takes a dog's age (almost literally) to get anything approved under normal circumstances.

However, in this case, the land on which the park now sits contained nothing but abandoned warehouses (left over from S.F.'s glory days as a port, long ago), and a former RV park that was sitting idle. There was also some vacant land there that had once been part of a railroad yard, and that's where they put the parking lot.

So (as best I can recall), no one was physically displaced by the ballpark project, but as I say, I'd have to double-check that. I'm sure that the owners of the old warehouses and the RV park were compensated, but on what terms, I couldn't tell you. In any case, it was an under-used and even blighted area that was crying out for redevelopment, and now a whole new neighborhood (known as South Beach) has grown up around the park. Not only that, but public transit in the area was improved to the point where you can now get there via two kinds of rail, and even by ferryboat.

Which is pretty amazing, given that public transit is usually treated as a "neglected stepchild" in car-happy California.

Overall, this is a tremendous improvement on what was there before, and you can take that from someone who's usually very critical of developers.

As for the ballot measure, anything of that magnitude that involves any city-owned land and any major environmental impact has to go before the voters; that's the way our system works out here, and it's just fine with me.