Dodgers Revive Popular Shirt Poking Fun at Angels of Anaheim
When Angels owner Arte Moreno announced he was changing his team’s name from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, it sparked a major backlash from fans of both the Angels and Dodgers, and from then-Dodgers owner Frank McCourt as well.
McCourt complained to then-commissioner Bud Selig, who reportedly told McCourt that he could not see how the name change could hurt the Dodgers. In response, McCourt started selling shirts that said “the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles,” and trademarked the phrase. Now, according to Bill Shaikin, the t-shirt and phrase are back.
As the Los Angeles #Angels secure their future in Anaheim, look who's back: the Los Angeles #Dodgers of Los Angeles! https://t.co/uSF6Pr2I0c
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) December 20, 2019
The timing is ironic as it comes off the heels of an expected approval by the Anaheim City Council on a deal to keep the Angels in Orange County through 2050. It also comes just over a week after free agent Anthony Rendon spurned the Dodgers and the “Hollywood lifestyle” for the Angels. But Shaikin assures it’s purely coincidental.
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The reason behind the limited re-release of the shirt is to comply with the federal government’s “use it or lose it” trademark law as to not risk losing said trademark, according to Shaikin.
The Angels have since dropped the “of Anaheim” suffix and go by the “Los Angeles Angels” now, although it’s hard to tell if that’s better or worse than their previous name.
Glad the shirt is back. I guess if you can see Los Angeles from where ever you are, you can be Los Angeles. Kinda disrespectful to the city of Anaheim.
Maybe a name change to Los Angeles South
Moreno has been nothing but disrespectful to the Angels fans in Orange County and it will always be very annoying to see our teams name attached to LA. The Angels May have been formed in LA, but they never had a home there, they were they guy sleeping on the Dodgers couch until we found a home in the OC. After winning it all in 2002 we had so much pride in our team and in one completely disrespectful move Moreno gave away our identity. It’s been nationally embarrassing ever since, and we have been a lost franchise ever since with Moreno making one mistake after another. I’m glad the Dodgers made those shirts, I hope they go much further. Moreno may wish he owned a Los Angeles team but we the fans don’t want that, not at all. Go back to California Angels if moreno hates Anaheim so much, but not Los Angeles, it’s just horrible and nobody likes it.