MLB 2021

[bosrs1]

7 hours ago, DEAD! said:

et's just say the Angels red and Dodger blue are quite appropriate....

Do the people of Anaheim have some sort of inferiority complex? Did they have any issues when the LA Rams and California Angels played there?

Anaheim is a weird one for me. I much prefer that the Ducks and Angels use "Anaheim", yet, I also tend to lean toward having a a moniker in which people can say, I am going to (destination) and the general public understands. 

I classify Anaheim as a suburb much like Arlington is to Dallas. Just a plot of land in which there is not much to distinguish or separate that the metro center. 

You could at least say San Francisco and Oakland has that separationn or even Brooklyn has some kind of distinction. 

 

Honestly knowing neighboring Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, I always figured it was the politics (or something worse). And yes Anaheim is a suburb of LA. They may whine about it and deny it, but they're part of the Greater LA area, and any city not Los Angeles proper in that region is a suburb. Just like your example of Arlington, or Fort Lauderdale in South Florida. They're all part of larger city's metro. Having an airport, amusement park or sports team doesn't elevate them to equal status. The only exceptions would be the recognized bi-polar regions like Minneapolis/St. Paul, or the SF Bay Area. 

[Marlins93]

Anaheim is arguably the most obscure city to be featured in the name of a big four sports team. Maybe a case can be made for Green Bay but that doesn't feel so odd to me given the franchise's longevity. Columbus feels a little low tier but at least it's a state capital. 

 

I'm basing this mostly on perception (not population or anything like that), so this is admittedly highly subjective.

[DEAD!]

4 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

Anaheim is arguably the most obscure city to be featured in the name of a big four sports team. Maybe a case can be made for Green Bay but that doesn't feel so odd to me given the franchise's longevity. Columbus feels a little low tier but at least it's a state capital. 

 

I'm basing this mostly on perception (not population or anything like that), so this is admittedly highly subjective.

 Green Bay may be small, but at least it is a distinct market. No one ever thinks Green Bay as some suburb of Milwaukee. 

Sacramento seems to be more random of a market to put a major pro team than Green Bay.

[Old School Fool]

41 minutes ago, DEAD! said:

 Green Bay may be small, but at least it is a distinct market. No one ever thinks Green Bay as some suburb of Milwaukee. 

Sacramento seems to be more random of a market to put a major pro team than Green Bay.

 

Sacramento is the capital of California so it's far from random.

[DarthBrett]

ANA shouldn't be something new or unrecognizable to sports fans, either. It was used on every major sports ticker and local sports stations for 8 straight seasons when the Angels were known as the 'Anaheim Angels'.  

 

I agree, Green Bay might be just as obscure or as unknown to most as Anaheim is; especially for people on the west coast. Not sure a lot of people really know where Green Bay actually is that are not from that region. I also may be biased since I was born and raised here in southern California and grew up going to Disneyland annually, but Anaheim is very well known if you are from around here. But I think the reverse is true for people from the mid-west and east coast in regards to Green Bay.

 

I would say the others are Columbus, Buffalo and maybe even Jacksonville to a much lesser extent. Also, when Hartford still had a hockey team I would say them for sure. Throw in Winnipeg and Ottawa too for any non-Canadians, as I doubt a lot of people in the U.S. even know where those cities are located that are not hockey fans or ex-patriots from Canada. I'd throw Oklahoma City into that group of more obscure or not-so-well-known cities that have major sports teams, too. Obviously the name lets people know what state it is located in, but not sure how many people know where in the state the city even is located or what the city is known for other than being a capital, where a horrible terrorist event in the 1990s took place and the basketball team. 

 

I would be curious to know how people on the west coast and people in the mid-west and east coast view these cities in terms of how inconspicuous they are. I think it definitely depends on where you are from and grew up. 

[Sec19Row53]

Green Bay is absolutely an outlier and only works because it's been around so damn long. Seriously, you aren't going there unless you know someone or it is Packer related.

 

To that point, Anaheim, Sacramento and Columbus all have reasons to be known. Had they been where an NFL team were created in 1919, we wouldn't have these discussions about them.

[DEAD!]

1 hour ago, Old School Fool said:

 

Sacramento is the capital of California so it's far from random.

Now that I think about, it Jacksonville feels more random... 

[Marlins93]

3 hours ago, DarthBrett said:

ANA shouldn't be something new or unrecognizable to sports fans, either. It was used on every major sports ticker and local sports stations for 8 straight seasons when the Angels were known as the 'Anaheim Angels'.   

 

My point was that it felt bizarre back when they adopted that name back in 1997. "Anaheim Angels" always kind of stood out to me as odd. Even more once they became the LA Angels of Anaheim. That's not because they had been known as the California Angels for so long; more so because Anaheim didn't feel like a city worthy of marketing in such a way. To me at least.

 

I think that Jacksonville, Sacramento, Buffalo, etc. have much more cachet from marketing and recognizability standpoints than Anaheim does. My understanding is that they adopted that name mostly because the city put up a lot of money for the stadium renovations. I'm also sure that Disney didn't mind much because it probably helped promote their theme park.

[HighCheese]

Probably nothing but figured I'd post. 

Dick's is selling these as "on field" socks

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/stance-mens-los-angeles-dodgers-on-field-socks-21st1mmlblddgrsctlada/21st1mmlblddgrsctlada

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/stance-mens-los-angeles-on-field-crew-socks-21st1mmlblddgrsctlad/21st1mmlblddgrsctlad?recid=Family_PageElement_family1_rr_1_3497_&rrec=true

 

the only reason why I'm intrigued is because a dodgers fan group(pantone 294) mentioned a few months ago that the Dodgers city connect jerseys would say "Los Dodgers". Could this be a leak? Full disclosure, they said the jerseys would be black so this could just be fashion socks but thought it was interesting 

 

edit: here is Pantone 294 tweet. 

 

[GhostOfNormMacdonald]

If the only change to the city connect is adding a "Los", then the Dodgers will have the best uniform out of this program

[Quillz]

10 hours ago, DEAD! said:

Sacramento seems to be more random of a market to put a major pro team than Green Bay.

But... It's the state capital, and a distinct market not connected to anywhere else in California. It has totally different politics from the Bay Area, and is more than 100 miles away. If Green Bay works, Sacramento certainly does.

If we are considering population, then Fresno would be even larger than Sacramento, and could also work as its own thing. But no one would ever think of Fresno before Sacramento.

[BBTV]

8 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

 

My point was that it felt bizarre back when they adopted that name back in 1997. "Anaheim Angels" always kind of stood out to me as odd. Even more once they became the LA Angels of Anaheim. That's not because they had been known as the California Angels for so long; more so because Anaheim didn't feel like a city worthy of marketing in such a way. To me at least.

 

I think that Jacksonville, Sacramento, Buffalo, etc. have much more cachet from marketing and recognizability standpoints than Anaheim does. My understanding is that they adopted that name mostly because the city put up a lot of money for the stadium renovations. I'm also sure that Disney didn't mind much because it probably helped promote their theme park.

 

I think as average Americans, we tend to look to sports teams to judge a city's importance.  I mean no disrespect at all to Cincinnati, but (depending on where you grew up), if they didn't already have the Reds and Bengals, would the average American have any reason to have ever heard of it?  Even post-steel-era Pittsburgh - there's obviously some historical significance there, but would a kid growing up in California have ever heard of it?  Would either be looked at as prime expansion cities if they didn't already have teams?  Jacksonville is another one - I'm fairly certain I would never in my life hear of Jacksonville if they didn't get the Jaguars.  Even Oklahoma City - if not for the bombing, there's no reason for anyone on the east coast to have ever had OKC mentioned in a class growing up or to know anything about it.  Sacramento is usually known because it's a capital city and lots of kids learn those, but as far as where it is actually located, I'd probably not have known that if not for the Kings.)

 

My point is not to disrespect any of those places (eh, maybe Jacksonville), but just to emphasize the importance that having pro sports has to a lot of the smaller cities, and why places like Cincinnati need to bend over backwards just to keep them.   It keeps them relevant to average Joe, which is a shame, because almost all of those places have other great things about them that just don't get the same exposure as their lousy sports teams do.

 

For many places in the country, it's the only reason a lot of us recognize where these places are (which is a good thing in a way, since collecting baseball cards as a little kid helped me learn geography, as I used to plot cards from each teams on the floor relative to where they appear on a map.)  Hell - watching hockey helped me learn Canadian geography, and when I took "Geography of the US and Canada", I felt like I had a bit of a leg up.

[Michael Bolton]

I am in my 30's with a college degree, a reasonable job, and I consider myself decently educated -- and I just learned Sacramento is the capital of California in a freaking sports logos thread.

 

I'm not proud of this.

[bosrs1]

6 minutes ago, Michael Bolton said:

I am in my 30's with a college degree, a reasonable job, and I consider myself decently educated -- and I just learned Sacramento is the capital of California in a freaking sports logos thread.

 

I'm not proud of this.

 

Glad this was informative. Out of curiosity, what did you think was California’s capital?

[bosrs1]

10 hours ago, Marlins93 said:

 

My point was that it felt bizarre back when they adopted that name back in 1997. "Anaheim Angels" always kind of stood out to me as odd. Even more once they became the LA Angels of Anaheim. That's not because they had been known as the California Angels for so long; more so because Anaheim didn't feel like a city worthy of marketing in such a way. To me at least.

 

I think that Jacksonville, Sacramento, Buffalo, etc. have much more cachet from marketing and recognizability standpoints than Anaheim does. My understanding is that they adopted that name mostly because the city put up a lot of money for the stadium renovations. I'm also sure that Disney didn't mind much because it probably helped promote their theme park.

 

It went part and parcel with Orange County trying to assert some level of import and separation from LA around that time (the ‘90’s). Don’t know if Disney was driving it or as owners of the Angels at the time were just participating in it, but they weren’t the only ones.

 

The directional highway signs on Interstate 5 for example, for decades northbound said “Los Angeles” when going northbound and “San Diego” when going southbound. But in the ‘90’s they covered the ones north and south of Santa Ana with “Santa Ana”. As if Santa Ana is somehow notable? Which makes for an interesting drive as all the guide signs in San Diego County still say “Los Angeles” and then switch to “Santa Ana” until you hit Santa Ana and then they switch back to “Los Angeles”.  

 

It’s why Anaheim fought so hard to keep Anaheim in the name when Artie rebranded giving us the ridiculous “of Anaheim” name. Same with what was then Edison International Field of Anaheim.

[WSU151]

3 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

It went part and parcel with Orange County trying to assert some level of import and separation from LA around that time (the ‘90’s). Don’t know if Disney was driving it or as owners of the Angels at the time were just participating in it, but they weren’t the only ones.

 

The directional highway signs on Interstate 5 for example, for decades northbound said “Los Angeles” when going northbound and “San Diego” when going southbound. But in the ‘90’s they covered the ones north and south of Santa Ana with “Santa Ana”. As if Santa Ana is somehow notable? Which makes for an interesting drive as all the guide signs in San Diego County still say “Los Angeles” and then switch to “Santa Ana” until you hit Santa Ana and then they switch back to “Los Angeles”.  

 

It’s why Anaheim fought so hard to keep Anaheim in the name when Artie rebranded giving us the ridiculous “of Anaheim” name. Same with what was then Edison International Field of Anaheim.

 

Santa Ana/Irvine is where John Wayne Airport (SNA) is located, so it might have had something to do with that. 

[Digby]

My East Coast perspective is that “Anaheim” became a thing because of Disney trying to make it so, first with the Mighty Ducks and then when they rebranded the Angels. It was only through their involvement that I learned that Disneyland was there too and then it made sense to my younger brain that Disney was trying to make that whole city their thing. Never would have heard of the place otherwise if not for the sports teams.

 

(even now as an adult, having traveled to SoCal a decent amount I think, I’m not sure if I’ve ever stepped foot in Anaheim even when I’ve been elsewhere in Orange County?)

 

As an exercise in sports naming, I guess it depends on what the goal is. I can imagine why the city itself, or when it was an institutional owner like Disney, you’d want Anaheim itself to get that cachet, or you’d want to be the locals’ team. I can also imagine why you’d want to be LA or California to be more widely relevant, because no one outside that time zone knows where Anaheim is. The next question is, what are the Angels trying to accomplish anyway?

[Michael Bolton]

16 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

 

Glad this was informative. Out of curiosity, what did you think was California’s capital?

 

I guess it's not something I've ever really actively thought about. My first reaction would probably be LA, or maybe San Diego. Never would've even considered Sacramento.

[Digby]

1 minute ago, Michael Bolton said:

 

I guess it's not something I've ever really actively thought about. My first reaction would probably be LA, or maybe San Diego. Never would've even considered Sacramento.

how many state capitals aren’t their state’s biggest or most important city? Gotta be more than half. Probably something worth unpacking there. For every Boston or Atlanta or Denver there’s also a Sacramento or a Salem. Always blows my mind that Albany has so much sway in New York City.

[Gothamite]

On 7/6/2021 at 12:53 PM, Ridleylash said:

It wasn't to right a wrong, all it amounted to was Arte wanting all of the money instead of most of it. The Anaheim Angels name has more substantive things for the franchise attached to it than either other name does, even as much as Arte wants to try and bury it; and since you're not winning a fight against the Dodgers for popularity in LA, you may as well just embrace the local region so you have something besides "the Dodgers' cheaper little brother" as a marketing ploy.

 

Who ever said it was to right a wrong?

 

Moreno was unapologetic; he changed the name back because advertisers wouldn't pay as much to partner with an "Anaheim" team as they would for a "Los Angeles" team.  Simply changing the name, publicly claiming the larger market, meant more income for the team.   And let's also be clear - the Angels didn't adopt "Anaheim" out of any altruism or civic pride either.  They were paid to.

 

10 minutes ago, Digby said:

As an exercise in sports naming, I guess it depends on what the goal is. I can imagine why the city itself, or when it was an institutional owner like Disney, you’d want Anaheim itself to get that cachet, or you’d want to be the locals’ team. I can also imagine why you’d want to be LA or California to be more widely relevant, because no one outside that time zone knows where Anaheim is. The next question is, what are the Angels trying to accomplish anyway?

 

Money.  Pure and simple.  Anaheim paid them to promote the city, but they had lousy lawyers and Arte was able to spend half the length of the naming rights contract with "Los Angeles" tacked on before it expired and he was able to follow the cash.

 

Sometimes it's better to be the  second team in a big market than the only team in a smaller one.  The Angels learned that lesson.