The Los Angeles Angels

The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the city of Anaheim, California, part of Orange County and the Los Angeles metropolitan area. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The Angels have played home games at Angel Stadium since 1966. The current MLB franchise was established as one of the league's first two expansion teams in 1961 by Gene Autry, the team's first owner. Autry was a famous singing cowboy actor in a series of films in the 1930s to 1950s, and later was the subject of the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. The "Angels" name was taken by Autry in tribute to the previous original Los Angeles Angels, a Minor League franchise in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), which played in South Central Los Angeles from 1903 to 1957. He bought the rights to the Angels name from Walter O'Malley, the then-Los Angeles Dodgers owner, who acquired the PCL franchise from Philip K. Wrigley, also the owner of the parent Chicago Cubs at the time, as part of the Dodgers' move to Southern California.