Pinch Me
Comment
by Rick Reiff
THE DEVIL’S ORDERED OVERCOATS. John Wayne Airport is cleared for pig landings.
The moon has turned periwinkle blue.
Los Angeles is part of the Greater Orange County Metropolitan Area.
Nice guys finish first.
And yes, Virginia, the Angels are champions of the baseball world.
Boo Who?
IT’S HARD TO COMPETE WITH A GHOST, ESPECIALLY A BELOVED ONE. It’s even harder when you’re Michael Eisner and you’re among Angels fans who are convinced that you don’t get baseball, you never got it, and you never will.
So when the Angels were presented with the World Series championship trophy in front of 45,000 delirious fans and a worldwide television audience, Eisner predictably was booed.
The fans cheered heartily at the mention of Gene Autry, the legendary bronzed nice guy who loved and suffered with his Angels to the end. And they cheered Autry’s widow Jackie. The fans cheered general manager Bill Stoneman and manager Mike Scioscia and the players, of course. They cheered everybody on the victory stand except hapless baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Eisner.
No question, Eisner’s Walt Disney Company has committed errors in running the Angels, from the long siege of Tony Tavares to the botched attempts to market baseball like a third gate at Disneyland. Disney finally captured magic with the Angels by leaving the operations to the baseball people. The marketing hits of this past season,the new red uniforms with the retro halo logo, the thunder sticks and the Rally Monkey,emanated from the bottom up. Disney’s “imagineering” ideas, such as the periwinkle uniforms with the wing emblem, Mickey Mouse characters on the scoreboard, and mascots Scoop and Clutch,lie with Tavares on the rockpile of discarded memories.
Then, too, the Angels’ playoff run coincided with Disney’s publicized effort to sell the team, which Eisner suggests has become a corporate liability. Unlike Autry, a rich man who symbolized the frustration of every Angel’s fan, Eisner is a rich man who symbolizes a corporate culture in public disrepute. And by wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt on the victory stand, Eisner engaged in the sort of cross-promotion that baseball purists abhor.
So I understand why the fans booed Eisner, but I don’t agree with them. Because, bottom line, Eisner and Disney deserve much of the credit for the Angels’ championship.
For one thing, they saved the team. The fans seem to have forgotten that by the mid-’90s the baseball business had grown too big for an ailing Gene Autry, who was going to sell the team to somebody. Disney stepped forward to keep the team in Anaheim when others would have moved it. (Chapman University President Jim Doti recounts this episode in the adjoining Viewpoint.)
Disney also spent about $90 million to turn nondescript Anaheim Stadium into first-rate Edison Field, an extraordinary private commitment amid a national wave of taxpayer-subsidized stadium projects. And Disney agreed to change the team’s name from California to Anaheim, an image boost for the city and for Orange County, whose significance is only now being fully grasped.
Further, Disney has spent enough on the team. The company has provided smart front-office people (many inherited by Disney and others recruited) with adequate resources to build a farm system that produced critical fresh talent for the major league roster throughout the championship season. Disney also has paid for free agents and other veterans, albeit with mixed results. The Angels struck out when they signed Mo Vaughn three years ago but got hits in the last off-season with the acquisitions of Aaron Sele, Kevin Appier and Brad Fullmer. The Angels’ total payroll is in the middle of the major league pack, and higher than those of Oakland and Minnesota, two main rivals for the league title.
Disney did interfere in a critical baseball decision this past winter, but it was to preserve payroll, not to cut it. The fans who are cheering the Angels’ splendid inspirational leader, Darin Erstad, ought to reserve a few claps for Paul Pressler, the then-Disney honcho who vetoed the trade of Erstad to the Chicago White Sox for three nobodies. Erstad is now signed through 2006.
I’m not suggesting Disney has acted altruistically. Maybe the company bought the Angels and renovated the ballpark because it wanted other major attractions near its expanding theme park. Maybe it sought corporate “synergies” that didn’t develop. Maybe Disney has continued to invest in the Angels because it thinks it makes the team more saleable.
But who cares? Whether an owner is driven by profits, writeoffs, ego or love of the game, aren’t the results what ultimately matter? The Yankees are the Yankees because they win, not because George Steinbrenner is a saint. Gene Autry, bless him, tried and tried and never quite made it. Disney has.
On the victory stand, in front of the world, Jackie Autry still referred to the new champions by their old California Angels name. Eisner, brushing off the boos, compensated for Jackie and then some. He lauded Orange County.
That comment finally got Eisner a few cheers from the Angels fans. He deserves a few more.
, Rick Reiff
