Great Article on the Angels Owner

[Chisoxfn]

The Angels' affable owner is a competitive, complex man. Moreno is lavish in spending to build his team but conservative in his politics.

 

Angels owner Arte Moreno, arms folded, doesn’t wilt under the Arizona sun or in the media spotlight.

 

TEMPE, Ariz.They are on his turf now.

 

The Angels are his team, and they are playing in his neighborhood. And the only thing that could make Arte Moreno happier is to be sitting in the stands, sipping a cold brew and watching Vladimir Guerrero make a baseball look like a golf ball as it disappears some 410 feet away, over the left-center field fence.

 

"You know how much I love baseball?" the Angels 57-year-old owner says. "On my honeymoon, we drove the coast, stopping in San Diego to see the Padres play Montreal, going up to see a game at Dodger Stadium and then we went to San Francisco and thought about going to another game."

 

His blonde wife, Carole, nods and laughs.

 

"The Giants were playing Montreal," she says, "and we'd already seen the Expos. That's when I told him I think we've had enough."

 

That's the thing about Arte. He can't seem to get enough baseball. Or enough winning.

 

He is a man with a large appetite, and an even larger bankroll. So he antes up some $146 million to pay his new free-agent signees and sits here in the blistering, 92-degree desert sun, just a few miles from his sprawling, 8,700-square foot Phoenix home, and smiles contentedly.

 

"Growing up, my dad was a huge baseball fan," he says. "My brothers and I all played every day in the Tucson streets. To us, it never seemed hot, so I'm used to this weather. Now, when it gets down to 50 degrees, I need an electric blanket at night."

 

The Angels and Mr. Guerrero are generating more than enough heat to keep him warm this spring. And in future springs, it could get even warmer. Moreno plans either to build a state-of-the art spring training site on property he owns in nearby Goodyear or greatly expand the present facility in Tempe.

 

"I'm excited, but I'm very excited all the time," he says. "I get excited just coming to a spring training game."

 

Don't let his affable, easy-going disposition fool you. Moreno is a more complex man than he lets on.

 

It was in the late 1960s, when so many people Moreno's age were protesting the war in Vietnam, taking to the streets and waving signs and screaming that they didn't believe in the cause.

 

Moreno wasn't one of them. He was drafted into the Army and never considered heading for Canada or burning his draft card. He was attached to the First Marines in Da Nang.

 

"We were outside Hill 55 and we were right in the middle of it," he says, quietly. "I spent some time up near the DMZ.

 

"I had a brother who was a highly decorated vet. He was a combat medic. Me, I think the highest I made it up to was an E-4 corporal."

 

He says it still pains him to talk about it because that he saw some of his buddies shot and others killed in combat.

 

"It's something you don't want to retrace," he says. "I always feel it's a private thing. If we're just sitting somewhere by ourselves and having a beer, sure, I'll talk about it. Otherwise, I won't.

 

"But I'm always very proud of anyone who served our country."

 

Although he openly boasts of his Mexican-American heritage, Moreno's politics differ from most of his fellow Latinos. Let's just say John Kerry shouldn't wait around expecting the Angels owner to make any large contribution to his campaign.

 

"I was born and raised a conservative Republican," Moreno says. "My dad was a big-time (Barry) Goldwater backer. I was brought up to feel that when you've been asked to serve, you do serve."

 

So it should come as no surprise that Moreno is a staunch backer of that other former baseball owner, President Bush. A few weeks ago, Moreno had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix with the president, Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo, Diamondbacks executive Joe Garagiola Jr. and the team's manager, Bob Brenly.

 

"Yeah, the president wanted to talk baseball and to ask about our signing of Guerrero," Arte says. "He's a real fan. We're involved now in a fund-raiser for him. We've come to know him a little bit. He's been very gracious to us."

 

Carole Moreno sounds like an even bigger supporter.

 

"He's very well read," she says of the president whose media reputation suggests the opposite.

 

The Morenos were impressed by Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit to the troops in Iraq.

 

"We thought that was very emotional," Arte says, "to spend his holiday with the troops like that."

 

Suffice to say the committee to re-elect the president can count on one very rich donor in Arizona to give more than his share.

 

The one thing that separates Arte Moreno from the previous Angels owners is that he is not, in any way, intimidated by the Dodgers.

 

"Who?" he asks, smiling, when you mention the name of Southern California's other baseball team.

 

"We proved last year we both can draw three million people," he says. "I want the Dodgers to be successful, and I want the Angels to be successful. In a perfect scenario, every year the Dodgers would be playing the Angels in the World Series."

 

Do not be misled, however. It is almost as if he relishes the competition.

 

Whenever you mention the Orange County fan base, he corrects you.

 

"You mean the Southern California fan base," he says. "It's no secret we're trying to reach out further into the L.A. area. We're being invited to a lot of events now in Los Angeles."

 

This is an owner who intends to be very visible. So local realtors, be on the alert. He has his home in Phoenix, another house in La Jolla and soon there will be a third.

 

"This year we'll start looking for a house in Southern California," he says. "I love the Newport Beach area."

 

Then he pauses and grins.

 

"But I love Los Angeles, too."

 

For all his interest elsewhere, Moreno remains entrenched in Arizona. He has lived here 12 years, once owned a small piece of the Diamondbacks and still owns 5 percent of the Suns, although as a University of Arizona grad and booster, he much prefers college basketball.

 

"So do I," says Carole, who is a University of Kansas alum.

 

His best friend is his partner, Bill Levine, a New Yorker who raves about Arte almost as much as he raves about living in the desert.

 

"He is totally down to earth," Levine says of Moreno. "He is the same guy now as he was when he had nothing."

 

Levine owns 10 percent of the Angels and more than a small debt to his affluent friend. When Levine's wife died of cancer three years ago, Arte and Carole donated $1 million to a Scottsdale Jewish Community Center in her honor.

 

"That was unbelievable," Levine says. "It was totally unsolicited."

 

"I've always felt if you have a dollar to donate, you should be grateful and do it," Moreno says. "I see an elderly lady put coins in a basket at church and it makes me feel great."

 

The funny thing about Moreno is that his appearance would never lead you to believe he and his partner turned a relatively small billboard company into a business he eventually sold for a reported $8.3 billion. That's right, with a "b".

 

He wears a bright red Angels sport shirt to the park, arriving in his relatively modest 2001 Mercedes. There is no long limo, no huge cigars, no harried employee tending to his every wish. In Anaheim, he often takes the train to the ballpark. In Arizona, he and his wife prefer sitting in the sun-soaked stands, instead of in the cooler owners' box.

 

"Believe it or not, when I bought that car it was the first new car I'd ever owned," he says. "I tend to drive a car four or five years before getting another one."

 

His lifestyle, except for the home that apparently could pass for a mansion, is relatively unpretentious.

 

"My most favorite thing in life," he says, "outside of my family, is to get together with friends and have a cool beer. At the ballgame, if I can."

 

Now you know why one of the first things he did upon taking over the Angels was lower beer prices.

 

Clearly, this is a man who loves his suds. Almost as much as he loves his baseball.

[UofIChiSox]

Can we get this guy to buy our team?

[YASNY]

Can we get this guy to buy our team?

That's exactly what I was thinking.