Los Angeles Angels

The Los Angeles Angels were founded in 1961 as one of the American League's first expansion teams, and their history has been defined by a perpetual identity crisis -- are they a Los Angeles team, an Anaheim team, or something in between? The franchise has cycled through names (Angels, California Angels, Anaheim Angels, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and back to Los Angeles Angels) with a frequency that mirrors its restless search for a permanent place in the Southern California sports hierarchy.

The franchise's finest hour came in 2002, when the wild-card Angels -- led by a scrappy, no-name roster and the Rally Monkey phenomenon -- stunned the San Francisco Giants to win their first and only World Series. That championship, clinched in a dramatic Game 6 comeback, proved that the Angels could captivate a market long dominated by the Dodgers. The Arte Moreno ownership era brought star power in the form of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, two of the most talented players in baseball history, yet the franchise failed to reach the postseason during most of their primes -- a failure that ranks among the most confounding in modern sports.

Angel Stadium, the fourth-oldest active ballpark in the majors, sits in Anaheim surrounded by parking lots and the glow of Disneyland, a setting that is more suburban than urban. The Big A, the iconic halo-topped scoreboard structure in the parking lot, remains the franchise's most recognizable symbol. The Angels' fan base is loyal but has long played second fiddle to the Dodgers in the battle for Southern California's baseball heart. The franchise's challenge has always been the same: how to build a winning tradition in a market that demands championships and offers little patience for rebuilds.