Angels in the Outfield

BY KEVIN KERNAN

The American League needs help.

The AL West really needs help.

Only three players in the entire American League are hitting over .300 even with all those position players going to the mound and lobbing baseballs over the plate in blowouts, and two of those are on the Small Market Rays: Chandler Simpson and Yandy Diaz.

Most of all, the Los Angeles Angels need help. They truly need some Angels in the Outfield.

They have appeared in exactly one postseason series since 2010 — and in that 2014 series, they were swept by the Royals 3-0. That is Mike Trout’s one and only playoff appearance.

That is why I will be rooting for new Angels owner Stan Kroenke to turn around that moribund franchise and hope the Angels will have the same amount of success as Kroenke’s Los Angeles Rams.

Get Anaheim back in the name of the Angels. And not the California Angels, either, Anaheim fits because that is where they play. While they are at it and since teams have so many different uniforms these days, make the caps the Kroenke Angels wear have a little white stitched halo on top just like they did from 1961-1970. Maybe that can at least be an alternative ballcap.

The Angels need a new ballpark, too. Make that 152-acre site in Orange County SoFi South. SoFi Stadium is a work of art and Kroenke and family are big in the real estate business. They know how to get things done and they know all about having an anchor tenant. Stan’s wife is Ann Walton Kroenke of Walmart fame and billions. So, they know all about building around an anchor tenant.

If Kroenke & Co. can find baseball’s version of Rams coach Sean McVay and Rams GM Les Snead to run the Angels that would be a win-win, too.

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment also leans heavily on Stan and Ann’s son Josh in all their sports endeavors, including the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, the Los Angeles Rams and other teams. Josh went to Missouri on a basketball scholarship.

If Kroenke & Co. can find baseball’s version of Rams coach Sean McVay and Rams GM Les Snead to run the Angels that would be a win-win, too. I’m here for it because as I wrote earlier for BallNine, baseball better wake up and start hiring more managers like Pat Murphy, who actually manages the game and people.

Permission for a professional aside here: When I first started in this journalism business in 1977 with the now deceased Hudson Dispatch as an assistant sports editor, I also was assigned to cover the New York Giants and traveled with the team to all their away games as well so I really got to know everyone in the organization, including owner Wellington Mara. The Giants were a family affair. The coach that 1977 season and the next was a fella named John McVay. Yes, he was the coach standing on the sidelines at Giants Stadium on November 19, 1978, the infamous game against the Eagles when The Fumble occurred, also known by Philly fans as the Miracle of the Meadowlands. That was something to see live.

John McVay would be Sean McVay’s grandfather.

Flash forward to the 1994 season when I was covering the San Diego Chargers – who now happen to play in Sofi Stadium – and when the 49ers ran roughshod over the Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX in Miami, 49-26, the vice president and director of football operations for those 49ers was that former Giants coach John McVay.

John McVay and Bill Walsh built a football dynasty in San Francisco.

Amazing the ties that forever bind in sports.

Another big player in the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment world is Kevin Demoff, who happens to be the son of former NFL super-agent Marvin Demoff. Demoff was the agent for Bobby Beathard, GM of the Chargers, too, during my tenure there. Beathard and I had a great relationship, and he deeply trusted Marvin Demoff. If you have never seen it, I highly recommend the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary “Elway to Marino’’ which chronicles the legendary first round of the 1983 draft, a documentary that relies heavily on the meticulous notes Marvin Demoff kept of that draft as Demoff represented both future Hall of Fame quarterbacks John Elway and Dan Marino. Bobby Beathard also is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

More ties that bind in the sports game.

And all that makes it even more interesting that Kroenke Sports & Entertainment seem to be a family invested in sports — their own family and second and third generations of sports families in different positions of power, and I think that is a good sign for the future success of the Angels. There is a winning track record here. Stan Kroenke likes to win.

Now the people in St. Louis may disagree because Kroenke stole away with the Rams, but there is no doubt the Rams are in a much better place now in LA than they were in St. Louis and so is Stan Kroenke, who is now the richest owner in baseball.

Stan Kroenke, 79, grew up in Missouri. In fact, he was born in 1947 and was named after Stan Musial, the 24-time All-Star and seven-time batting champion. Yes, Stan the Man.

The Cardinals were all the rage back then and they won the World Series in 1942, 1944 and 1946, kind of similar to what the San Francisco Giants did much, much later.

Stan Musial had a season for the ages in 1946, batting .365 with a .434 on-base percentage, a .587 slug and a 1.021 OPS. He had 228 hits that season, 50 doubles, 20 triples and 16 home runs over 702 plate appearances and get this — struck out only 31 times. He scored 124 runs and drove in 103 as he won the second of three MVP awards.

Oh, did I mention this was a comeback season? He missed the 1945 season because he was serving in the Navy. When Stan Kroenke was one, Stan the Man won his third MVP in 1948 with another remarkable year, hitting 39 home runs while batting .376 with 131 RBIs. He struck out only 34 times that season. He finished one home run short of winning the Triple Crown.

Permission for another professional aside. In all my years going to St. Louis for games, especially postseason games, it was always a treat to get on the media elevator with Stan the Man standing there in the back, happily giving out autographed Hall of Fame postcards of himself. And there were even a few precious times in the ballpark when Stan would break out the harmonica to play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.’’

What a treasure of a man.

So, considering that Cardinals baseball connection with Stan the Man Musial, I have to believe that Stan Kroenke is looking at this purchase of the Angels as much more than a real estate deal, although the real estate possibilities here are off the charts and help explain the $4 billion price tag for the Angels. Maybe it is not, but either way it is so much better than having Arte Moreno owning the Angels.

No need to go through all of Arte’s issues as he ran the Angels into the ground in baseball-crazed Orange County and the waste of two super talents in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani (Before Dodgers). Many years ago, I first knew Arte had issues when he took the best press box in baseball, located low and close to the field directly behind home plate (you had to be aware of foul balls at all times) and moved the press box way down the right-field line and up into the rafters. There were times though where I could still get a squeezed in seat in one of the radio booths.

The Angels’ culture deteriorated under Moreno. When word came out earlier this week of the sale, I texted with a former Angels coach (there are quite a few former Angels coaches) telling him that Arte was selling to Kroenke and his two-word response spoke for many who worked for Moreno: “Great news!’’

There is much work to be done, though, building a competent front office, hiring the right manager like a Mike Scioscia, who won the Angels first and only World Series in 2002, and filling the roster with talent, including drafting the right players. Six times the Angels have won the AL West.

Now the AL West is a complete joke. Going into play Wednesday night, the Astros were in first place with a 70-69 record, the Angels were dead last at 53-86 on their way to their first 100-loss season in their history, an expansion team that started in 1961 as the Los Angeles Angels. That team finished 70-91and played its games at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, the field made famous in the 1960 TV series Home Run Derby.

That field was built back in 1925 by the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., owner of the Cubs and widely considered the wealthiest owner in Major League Baseball at the time.

The first tenants of that Wrigley Field were a PCL team, the Los Angeles Angels, a farm team to the Chicago Cubs. The last minor league game there was played in 1957 and featured star slugger and PCL legend Steve Bilko, who also played for the 1961 expansion Angels, who did okay for themselves finishing eighth in a 10-team American League. They also had a pretty good 20-year-old pitcher in Dean Chance, who would eventually become a 20-game winner.

In many ways, under Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the Angels are starting from scratch again and just like those 1925 Angels, they have the richest owner in baseball. The good news is they are in the AL West, where it does not take much to succeed.