April 27, 2015

Modern Arte

Halos Heaven wonders if Arte Moreno should sell the Angels.

As a lifelong fan, if you had described Arte to me in 2001 it would have been an unimaginable dream. The honeymoon was long and lovely. I can’t quite put my finger on when it all started to fall apart… but maybe it began with dumping Rex Hudler, or not re-signing Vladimir Guerrero, or adopting Buttercup – a feelgood song of failure – as the team’s theme song… so sometime after the 2009 season… not a specific date or incident, as it did not all just happen at once, but the past few years have seen a shift in what Arte represents. He has gone from a lovable visionary to a corporate crank in about six years.

If he sold now, Moreno would walk away with a big pay day. Moreno always struck me as George Steinbrenner light. He wanted to win, and didn’t mind shooting his mouth off to get there. Unlike The Boss, however, Moreno inherited a franchise in good shape, and just needed to maintain the direction. Angels attendance is down this year, so maybe he finally rubbed fans the wrong way.

4 thoughts on “Modern Arte

  1. rbj

    Steinbrenner was a classic bully. You always had to acknowledge that he was in charge. He did lighten up later in life. But once you acknowledged that he was in charge, he could be quite forgiving. He did give chances to Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden. Moreno, it seems, would have kicked all three to the curb.

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  2. David Pinto Post author

    rbj » There’s something strange going with the Moreno/Hamilton situation. I keep getting the feeling there is some piece of information of which we are unaware that is causing the Angels (Moreno) to treat Hamilton like this. The simplest explanation is that the Angels want to get rid of an unproductive player, but they could have done the proposed trade with Texas while still supporting Josh. (And spun it as, “Southern CA is not the best place for a recovering addict.”) It almost makes me believe there was some private, verbal agreement that was broken.

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  3. rbj

    If a drug addict promises and swears he’s never going to use again, do not believe it. It is a day to day proposition, I do not expect Josh to never have a drink again. I am a bit skeptical of the disease theory of addiction, but am willing to go with it for now as I don’t have a better answer. There have been heavy drinkers who have learned to moderate their usage.

    now, it could be Arte is employing tough love with Josh and trying to warn him his career is in jeopardy, but it seems off the mark if so.

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  4. WeWanttheFunk

    Yeah. Arte is “employing tough love” all the way to the bank.

    He’s choked b/c he’s $80M worth of wrong. If Hamilton decided to retire to deal with his demons, Moreno & the organization would be his supportive attentive best friend. The Texas deal is going to get done b/c it’ll give them a chance to cut their losses.

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