I used to root against the Washington Redskins, to the extent that I paid attention to the NFL at all, but then I realized that putting up with the D.C. media's assumption that every person in the metropolitan area is depressed about a Redskins loss is even worse than putting up with the D.C. media's assumption that every person in the metropolitan area is elated about a Redskins win. And then I married into a family in which the words "the game" are assumed to mean "the Washington Redskins game on the Sunday most appropriate to the tense of the current sentence."
Anyway, the game was on the TV, and just as I was about to compose a 140-character-or-less rant about the announcer's reference to "a longtime veteran," I heard a reference to "the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim."
The who of what? This isn't a new development, I learned; apparently they failed to alert me at the time.
You may know how I feel about the "Oh, OK" answer to logo-rrhea. The team's owners are welcome to use the tortured construction as a marketing ploy, or to satisfy the terms of a legal agreement, or just to piss off people like me, but media outlets run by grown-ups will follow the normal conventions and refer to the [One and Only One Location] [Nickname(s)]. And, much to my relief, they apparently do.
Keep this in mind if you start hearing about the New York Giants of East Rutherford. Or the New York Jets of East Rutherford. Or the Buffalo Bills of Orchard Park. Or the Dallas Cowboys of Arlington. Or the Detroit Pistons of Auburn Hills. Or the Phoenix Coyotes of Glendale. Or the Washington Redskins of Landover. (Or is it Largo? Raljon?)
4 comments:
The Angels actually want to become simply "the Los Angeles Angels," but they have a contractual obligation to the City of Anaheim that requires them to have the word "Anaheim" in their official name. There has, believe it or not, been litigation over this. Hence the silly official name, appropriately mocked by some Dodgers fans wearing T-shirts that read "The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles."
Anecdotal: almost every time I hear someone in sports mention the team in question, they either duck the issue by calling them "the Angels" or they say "the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" with full sarcasm.
I have also seen people complain that saying "the Los Angeles ..." is redundant because "los" is spanish for "the". I fear, however, that that sort of bilingual battle is always a loser.
Well, "Los" goes with "Angeles," not with "Angels," so "Angels" still needs its own "the."
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