The Insider will end 2013 with some Tell & Show—first telling the Angels how to put their best foot forward in case the services of Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka go on the market next month. Don’t forget to remind him of the many big-name brands from Japan that keep their U.S. headquarters in OC, a lineup that runs from Mazda and Mitsubishi to Richoh, Yamaha, Toyo and Toshiba. Plenty of Japanese culture and business here for a star hurler a long way from home. And there’s one more big Japanese brand that should erase any doubts about OC’s viability in the mind of Tanaka, who went 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA last season for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The baseball team has the same owner as Rakuten.com Shopping, an e-commerce outfit with Aliso Viejo headquarters for its U.S. operations, which got started with the parent company’s $250 million purchase of Buy.com two years ago. See Kari Hamanaka’s report on Rakuten.com on page 1 …
Did any city ever make less noise than Cypress after landing a big-league sports franchise? It’s not a team, per se—but it is 20 days a year at the Los Alamitos Race Course for the Sport of Kings, as thoroughbred racing is known. Don’t sell the pending arrival short—there’s plenty of dough, excitement, touches of class and tinges of intrigue that come with the thoroughbreds, which will get a newly lengthened oval in North OC. The racing dates will be split over two short meets in July and December, and the folks at Los Al are talking about going after a couple of big stakes races to add some star power. Chris Casacchia has more on Los Al’s new look on page 1… Now comes the show part, starting with hockey: Show me better-matched natural rivals in all of sports than the Ducks and Kings this year …
Show me a better hockey market than Southern California when it come to on-ice talent, for that matter …
There’s more to life than sports—so show me a better vacation album than “Italy and Beyond,” which combines elegant photography and thoughtful prose to give readers some sense of the joy Gibson Dunn Partner Robert Palmer got on a recent Mediterranean romp … Show me a better Nativity scene than the 10th annual live show staged by the Placentia Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at its building in Brea …
Show me a better name plate than the Travelers logo and umbrella recently affixed to one of the high-rises at Park Place … Show me a busier restaurant than the Norm’s on Katella off Tustin in Orange …
Show me a busier college president than Chapman U’s Jim Doti, who recently finished the California International Marathon in Sacramento despite frigid temperatures, with a time of 4:07:17, good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon in his age group … Show me a better teammate than Bobby Dorman, who’s leaving the Business Journal after 18 years for the national sales manager’s post with event production specialist MiMedia in Irvine …
Happy Holidays to all—see you in 2014.
