The Register reports that an “expert” testifying for the Angels contends that attendance jumped 45 percent after the Halos won the 2002 World Series, which is meant to bolster the argument in favor of letting the team keep calling itself the LOS ANGELES Angels of Anaheim, Cucamonga and the Lower Mississippi. Um, okay, but was it not the ANAHEIM Angels who won that series? Or was it all just a dream? And could you not find similar correlations between former sucky teams who'd just won a World Series seeing their attendance spike in the following years? Now, this is just a hunch, but this backward-ballcap-wearing sportswatch (free with a 10-year subscription to SI), would reckon that the Halos experienced their biggest attendance years the seasons they won the World Series and/or were in contention until the bitter-and-defeated end, like last year–the most attendanceriffic ever! For an example of this phenomenon in reverse, see the Los Angeles Rams of Anaheim, Muscoy and Upper Wichita Falls. Which gives us this golden opportunity: FUCK GEORGIA FRONTIERE!!! (But not in front of us, dude, that's sick-making!)
Where were we? Oh, yes. Angels! Mind you, we support our team, our beer-price-reducing owner–you know, the Mexican fellow–and could give a shit whether they call themselves Los Angeles, Anaheim or Etiwanda if it means bringing home more trophies and opportunities for celebratory parade hooliganism down Main Street at Ratland, USA. Like the slick gangster to the north says: just win, baby. But, come on, at least be honest about pulling one over on us.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.