After five hours of closing statements, four weeks of testimony and 13 months of litigation, a jury will decide whether the Angels broke a stadium lease with the city of Anaheim by changing the club's name.
During most of the Orange County Superior Court trial, only about a dozen people viewed the proceedings. But the courtroom was nearly full Wednesday, and the crowd included Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, who leaves for spring training in Tempe, Ariz., next week.
Whether the name of Scioscia's team will continue to read Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim or revert to Anaheim Angels is now for the jury and Judge Peter Polos to decide.
In his closing, Anaheim attorney Andy Guilford acknowledged that Angel owner Arte Moreno was "technically compliant" with the stadium lease when he changed the team's name to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. But Guilford said hypothetical names such as "Angels of Bush League Anaheim" and "Phoenix Angels Formerly of Anaheim" also technically comply with the lease clause that requires the team to "include the name Anaheim therein."
He said those "silly, oxymoronic, bizarre" names don't meet the state's covenant of good faith and fair dealing law, which the jury is being asked to consider by Polos. Guilford argued that the actual name, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, is even worse than the hypothetical ones "because it promotes a city that's trying to get convention business from Anaheim."
Guilford said Larry Murphy, a Walt Disney Co. executive, was the only negotiator for either side who had testified that more than one geographic area was being considered for the name during lease talks between the city and Disney -- the team's former owner -- in 1996. Guilford said the jury shouldn't consider Murphy's testimony because he wasn't a "neutral" witness and because he did not convey his thought about two geographic references in the name to anyone on the city's side.
Angel attorney Todd Theodora argued that Murphy's evidence was key because he was Disney's lead negotiator and because he was credible.
"He said he did not want to be here [testifying], and he said he liked the city," Theodora said.
If there was so much confusion over Murphy's testimony, Theodora wondered why the city didn't call Murphy's boss, former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner, to clarify the company's position.
