LOS ANGELES ANGELS OF ANAHEIM

What can you say about a baseball franchise that was owned by a singing cowboy for thirty-five years and the world's most popular mouse for another seven, except that it had to be interesting, even when it was dull?

Gene Autry was one of Hollywood's wealthiest stars when he bought the new American League franchise about to be planted in California. It started a thirty-five year love affair between Autry and his Angels.

The Halos played their first game in 1961, beating Baltimore 7-2. They wound up 70-91, a winning percentage of .435, the best ever recorded by a first-year team.

In their second season, the Angels actually contended into September before fading. A perfect, made-for-Hollywood personality burst onto the Angels baseball scene that summer — Bo Belinsky, a highly touted prospect who threw a no-hitter in May and then began dating virtually every starlet in Hollywood. His pitching never panned out as well as his social life, as he got more headlines that any other pitcher who went 10-11 in his first season. Arm trouble turned him into a journeyman pitcher and he finished his career at 28-51.

Two years later, it was Dean Chance who shot across the sky. Only 5-5 at the All Star break, he finished the season 20-9 with a league leading two-hundred seventy-eight strikeouts, eleven shutouts and a 1.65 ERA which won him the Cy Young Award.

The Angels stayed fairly respectable through the rest of the 1960's, and in 1970 they produced their one-and-only batting champion in Alex Johnson, an outfielder they acquired the year before from the Reds. Johnson was moody, given to fits of pique and anger and was another great source of headlines for the press. He was gone to Cleveland a year later.

The Angels traded their franchise player, Jim Fregosi to the Mets for Nolan Ryan in 1972. Ryan became the premier pitcher in the league, tossing two no-hitters in 1973 (when he also struck out 383 batters) and one each in 1974 and 1975.

Despite the individual achievements of players like Chance, Johnson and Ryan, Gene Autry's post-season trophy case had in it nothing but "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" until 1979. That year, a veteran group of Angels finally put the team over the top in the American League Western Division led by Don Baylor's MVP season (.296, thirty-six home runs and a league leading one-hundred thirty-nine runs batted in). Veterans like Rod Carew (.318), Bobby Grich (.294, thirty home runs, one-hundred one runs batted in) and Dan Ford (.290, tweny-one home runs, one-hundred ones runs batted in) contributed much along the way. The Angels lost the American League Championship Series to Baltimore.

After a few off seasons, Autry's boys were "Back in the Saddle Again" in 1982, with many of the same veterans now joined by Reggie Jackson (.275, 39 HR, 101 RBI). California defeated Milwaukee in the first two games of the best-of-five American League Championship Series only to lose the next three in a row.

Jackson was with the Angels when he clubbed his five-hundredth home run in 1984, but the Angles did not have the horses to compete that season. In 1985, under Gene Mauch, they faded in September, but rebounded to win the Division again in 1986. Wally Joyner drove in one-hundred runs and hit .290, but no other regular hit better than .267. That was good enough for a pitching staff with Mike Witt, Kirk McCaskill, John Candelaria and Don Sutton all winning in double digits.

The best-of-seven American League Championship Series started well for the Angels, as they won three of the first four against the Red Sox. They took a 5-2 lead into the ninth inning of Game Five, and had two outs when Don Baylor (ironically) hit a two-run homer to make it 5-4, and then with another man aboard, Dave Henderson hit a two-run shot off of Angel relief ace Donnie Moore to give Boston 6-5 lead. Although the Angels managed to tie in their half of the ninth, they lost in extra innings and the next two games as well. Some years later, a still-despondent Moore committed suicide.

The Angels remained in a downward spiral after that. The only two seasons in which they contended were 1989 and 1995 and in both seasons they blew comfortable August leads. In 1995 they wound up losing a one-game playoff to Seattle to decide the division winner.

Autry sold his interest in the Angels to the Walt Disney Company. Disney promptly spruced up the ballpark, changed the logo, added some new promotions, but most importantly, let the baseball people, led by manager Mike Scoscia build up the team with solid talent and strong young pitching arms.

Solid players like Troy Glaus (.250, thirty home runs, one-hundred eleven runs batted in) and Garrett Anderson (.306, twenty-nine home runs, one-hundred twenty-three runs batted in) helped the Angels take the wild card in 2002. They then torpedoed the Yankees and the Twins in the American League playoffs, and then they beat the San Francisco Giants in seven games for their only World Championship to date. They pulled a miracle of their own, rebounding from a 5-0 deficit after six innings of Game Six, when the Giants were eight outs from winning the championship. Long time Angel players, fans and employees found the championship bittersweet as Gene Autry had not lived to see it. He had died four years earlier.

Disney World sold the team to an advertising executive named Arturo Moreno, who became the first Hispanic owner of a Major League baseball team. Today there is an ongoing dispute as to what to call the Angels. They were originally called the Los Angeles Angels. Then they became the California Angels.

Now the question is, are they the Anaheim Angels, the Los Angeles Angels or the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Lawsuits are pending, but one thing is for sure … between Disney's promotions, a larger-than-life owner in Gene Autry, Bo Belinsky, Dean Chance, Alex Johnson, Nolan Ryan and his no-hitters, Reggie Jackson, the monumental losses and the incredible comebacks, the one thing you cannot call the Angels is dull.