{"id":642377,"date":"2026-03-25T10:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/642377\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:31:11","slug":"in-anaheim-and-sacramento-a-two-front-challenge-to-the-angels-los-angeles-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/642377\/","title":{"rendered":"In Anaheim and Sacramento, a two-front challenge to the Angels’ Los Angeles name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two decades after owner Arte Moreno<\/a> decided the Angels<\/a> should play under the Los Angeles name, elected officials representing Anaheim are pursuing two paths toward getting their hometown back into the team name.<\/p>\n

Assemblyman Avelino Valencia, whose district includes Angel Stadium, has introduced state legislation that could require any sale or new lease of the stadium property be conditioned upon the team reverting to the Anaheim Angels name.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken has asked the city attorney to explore whether the Angels have violated their current lease by dropping the Anaheim name from legal documents.<\/p>\n

Valencia\u2019s bill \u2014 dubbed the \u201cHome Run for Anaheim Act\u201d \u2014 aims to mandate what the city of Anaheim could not negotiate in its ill-fated deal with Moreno<\/a> in 2019: If a team owner wants to develop the parking lots around the city stadium, the team should carry the city\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Read more: Angels, with longest playoff drought in MLB, turn to first-time manager Kurt Suzuki<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Angels have been supported by the city and its residents for 60 years,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cI think it\u2019s rightfully owed to the residents that, if the team wants to play in Anaheim and be in partnership with Anaheim when it comes to future developments of that stadium and surrounding property, then the name should also resemble that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Angels spokeswoman Marie Garvey said the team had no comment.<\/p>\n

The Angels\u2019 current stadium lease extends through 2032<\/a>, with the team holding options to extend the lease through 2038.<\/p>\n

The city and team had agreed on a deal in which the Angels would remain in Anaheim through 2050<\/a>, with the team buying the 150-acre stadium property for $150 million in cash (and $170 million in city development credits), renovating or replacing the stadium, and building a ballpark village atop the parking lots.<\/p>\n

The state objected, however. The Surplus Land Act requires public property up for sale must first be made available for affordable housing, and the city negotiated only with the Angels. The city agreed to a $96-million settlement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Anaheim City Council ultimately killed the deal<\/a> three years later, after an FBI investigation uncovered \u2014 and former mayor Harry Sidhu acknowledged in a plea agreement<\/a> \u2014 that Sidhu provided confidential information to a team consultant \u201cso that the Angels could buy Angel Stadium on terms beneficial to the Angels\u201d and that he \u201cexpected a $1,000,000 campaign contribution from the Angels.\u201d The government has not alleged any wrongdoing by the Angels.<\/p>\n

Valencia\u2019s bill was developed in consultation with city leaders and publicly endorsed by Aitken and former Mayors Tom Daly and Tom Tait.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, if the city can obtain an exemption from the Surplus Land Act, the team could not buy or lease Angel Stadium unless \u201cmaterials refer to that team as the Anaheim Angels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would only apply to Anaheim, and its provisions would not take effect \u201cif the city of Anaheim is able to come to an agreement with the Major League Baseball team known as the Los Angeles Angels about their affiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Valencia said the city could make a case for an exemption because he believed the Surplus Land Act was designed for smaller properties like school sites and municipal office buildings. He said the community should have the primary say in how such land should be used, even if that might mean less housing on the Angel Stadium site.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely need more housing because it\u2019s so dang expensive to live, but the amount of housing [in Anaheim] that has gone up in the last 10, 15 years, I think, mitigates some of that,\u201d Valencia said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think folks in Anaheim think that Anaheim is doing their fair share of developing housing. I don\u2019t want to muddy the concept by saying Anaheim is saying, \u2018We don\u2019t need any more housing. We have been so proactive in that space. But I think people are going to be thrilled that we want to make the Angels have Anaheim back in the name.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2005, after city officials declined Moreno\u2019s request to change the team name from Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels, the owner adopted the \u201cLos Angeles Angels of Anaheim\u201d name<\/a>. The city sued and lost, with a jury finding that the Angels had not violated a stadium lease requirement that the team name \u201cinclude the name Anaheim therein.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Read more: Shaikin: Angels should match Zach Neto’s loyalty and give him a long-term deal<\/a><\/p>\n

When the city sued the Angels and asked for an injunction to stop the name change pending trial, Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Polos denied the request<\/a>. He did, however, warn the Angels he would grant the injunction if the team dropped the \u201cof Anaheim\u201d and simply called themselves the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n

In 2006, after the city had lost its lawsuit, Polos ruled the team could market itself by whatever name it wished<\/a>. By 2016, the team called itself the Los Angeles Angels<\/a>. In state records, the legal entity is Angels Baseball LP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to official designations, and to how they\u2019re registered, I want us to look into how Anaheim is being used by the team in any official filings,\u201d Aitken said, \u201cand what their requirements are to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

When Aitken asked City Atty. Robert Fabela to investigate, Fabela said the matter would be discussed in closed session as a \u201cpotential litigation item.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two decades after owner Arte Moreno decided the Angels should play under the Los Angeles name, elected officials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2390],"tags":[2198,10105,27618,291,38297,11478,18715,5,54,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-642377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-angels","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-angels","10":"tag-anaheim-city-council","11":"tag-angels","12":"tag-angels-stadium","13":"tag-arte-moreno","14":"tag-ashleigh-aitken","15":"tag-baseball","16":"tag-houston-astros","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-angels","19":"tag-laangels","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-angels","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-losangelesangels","24":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116289363177098669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}