Anaheim Angels Baseball Team

Long Beach State right-hander Jered Weaver, the Angels' first-round pick in Monday's draft, threw 137 pitches in Friday's NCAA super-regional game against Arizona. They were not doing cartwheels about it in the Angel front office. "That's pretty much at a limit, I would think," General Manager Bill Stoneman said. "That's a lot of pitches." The Angels, like many teams that draft highly touted college pitchers who are still involved in the playoffs, are in a difficult position.

The success of the Angels, who are returning to the playoffs for the first time in 16 years, and the consummation of a new labor agreement, ensuring there will be no work stoppage for four years and possibly easing baseball's competitive and revenue disparities, seem to have revived the long-dormant efforts of the Walt Disney Co. to sell the team.

Commissioner Bud Selig said Wednesday he had ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding outfielder Raul Mondesi's departure from the Pittsburgh Pirates and subsequent acquisition by the Angels. "Our people are taking a look at the whole situation and how it unfolded," Selig said. "It needs to be looked at, and it is."

The San Francisco Giants facing off against the Anaheim Angels in the World Series, made possible by a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night, will be about so much more than sports. For the fourth time in history, an all-California series will offer the opportunity to dissect the Golden State and line up its parts along lines both mythical and real.

Doing what they had to in an impressive demolition of the American League's flotsam and jetsam (with apologies to the Chicago White Sox), the sizzling Angels have now embarked on a more difficult phase of the schedule. The current series with the Minnesota Twins, ending today, is part of it.

Back in 1986, when he was just an up-and-coming businessman, Arturo Moreno would park himself at the turnstile on busy nights at the ball field, tearing tickets for fans of the Class A Salt Lake City Trappers. On a $150,000 lark, Moreno and 17 other investors pooled their cash and bought a baseball team. It was a no-name team with no-name players, but the owners dived in, shedding suits to don shorts and flip-flops, shag balls in the outfield and take pitches during batting practice.

Anaheim Stadium will look a lot different to fans this season, as the two-year renovation project to rebuild the stadium for baseball-only use moves along. Here's a look at the Angels' upcoming season. BASICS Stadium address: 2000 State College Blvd., Anaheim, 92803 Phone number: (714) 634-2000 Seating: 45,000 (when completed in 1998) 1996 total attendance: 1,820,532 1996 average per date: 22,476 1996 largest home crowd: 45,979 Largest regular-season crowd: 63,132 (July 4, 1983 vs.

Real estate developer Frank H. McCourt Jr., who failed in a bid to buy the Boston Red Sox in 2001, is interested in pursuing ownership of the Angels. Although theater impresarios James and Robert Nederlander are believed to remain at the forefront of bidding for the defending World Series champions, sources with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday that McCourt has expressed his interest to a top baseball official and is expected to meet soon with Commissioner Bud Selig.

The father who was there only occasionally is going to the All-Star game with the son who yearned for family and learned from that youthful void to be more loving and attentive with his own children. Garret Anderson, the Angels' left fielder, isn't taking his three young children on the red-eye to Milwaukee tonight, but he's taking his wife, Teresa, and the mother who raised him, Leita Smith. He is also taking the father he was named for but has seen only intermittently.