Current
Season
Team
History
All-Time Leaders Batting
Pitching
League Championship Titles: 1923,
1924, 1928, 1933, 1937, 1939, 1940
Ballpark: Wrigley Field
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Wrigley Field Opened:
1925 Capacity: 22,457
Avalon Boulevard and 42nd Place, Los
Angeles, California |
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Factors
AVG overall 1.017
LHB 1.017, RHB 1.017
Doubles 1.077
Triples .639
HR overall 2.059
LHB 2.085, RHB 2.045
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Distances/wall heights
Left Field line 340 ft./15 ft.
Left Field 342 ft./15 ft.
Left-Center Field 345 ft./15 ft.
Center Field 412 ft./12 ft.
Right-Center Field 345 ft./12 ft.
Right Field 341 ft./9 ft.
Right Field line 339 ft./9 ft. |
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In the Redux
In addition to their seven Pacific Coast League
championships, the Angels own two World
Championships, winning the World Series in 1937
and 1940. The Angels also made a postseason
appearance in 1936.
Real-life history
Early professional leagues in California formed
in or around San Francisco, and Los Angeles’
distance from the Bay Area tended to leave the
city unrepresented. Angelenos finally got a team
in the Class-B California League in 1892; the team
was known as the Seraphs, a name that would not
stick as an official monicker but would often be
resurrected by sportswriters as an informal
nickname (as would “Halos”, eventually). The
following season the Los Angeles entry was known
as the Angels, and Southern California has rarely
been without a team by that name since.
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1926 Los Angeles Angels, PCL Champions |
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The Angels were charter members of the six-team
PCL in 1903, and immediately asserted dominance,
winning pennants in 1903, 1905, 1907, and 1908. A
more modest stretch followed but they were back on
top in 1916 and 1918.
In 1921 they were purchased by William Wrigley,
Jr., who also owned the Chicago Cubs. For many
years the Angels were the only team in the PCL
with a major league affiliation, and the
association enabled them to field strong teams
which won pennants in 1921, 1926, 1933, 1934,
1938, 1943, 1944, 1947, and 1956. The 1934 team is
often heralded as the greatest in minor league
history, rolling to a 137-50 record and defeating
a team of PCL all-stars in a postseason series.
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Mr. Met appears on an Angels’ program a
decade before he made it to The Show. |
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Wrigley also built them a ballpark. Wrigley
Field, which opened in 1925, held more than 22,000
spectators at a time when few minor league
facilities held half that many. It was the first
park to utilize that name; Cubs Park in Chicago
was renamed Wrigley Field in 1927.
The team and the stadium were purchased by
Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley in 1957 in
preparation of his team’s move West in 1958, a
transfer which would ultimately displace both the
Angels and the Hollywood Stars. The Angels played
one season in Los Angeles as a Dodgers’ affiliate
before O’Malley moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles
and the Angels to Spokane, where they were
rechristened the Indians. The franchise has
remained in the PCL, moving to different locations
in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest several
times over the years. The team is currently an
affiliate of the San Diego Padres and has played
as the El Paso Chihuahuas since 2014.
Los Angeles was a two-team PCL city for decades
and would not be a one-team major league city for
long. In 1961 the American League awarded a Los
Angeles franchise to Gene Autry, “The Singing
Cowboy” of radio, television, and motion picture
fame. Autry, a former minority owner of the
Hollywood Stars, named his new team after his old
team’s crosstown rival, the Los Angeles Angels.
Los Angeles Angels Uniform History
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1921-1926 Home
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1927-1928 Home
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1929-1934 Home
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1935-1936 Home
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1937-1938 Home
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1921-1926 Away
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1927-1928 Away
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1929-1934 Away
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1935-1936 Away
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1937-1938 Away
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1939-1941 Home
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1942-1943 Home
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1944-1949 Home
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1950-1954 Home
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1955-1957 Home
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1939-1941 Away
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1942-1943 Away
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1944-1949 Away
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1950-1954 Away
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1955-1957 Away
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