Let’s tell you a Hollywood tale about a woman that works with severely handicapped children at Betsy Ross School. This woman, being something of a pro with the needle and thread herself, spends her nights and weekends during the summer keeping the local baseball team from falling apart with her magic mending skills.

(We recommend the whole photo gallery; we hope Sam Zell counts each picture as a thousand words)

Eventually, all the teams in the league come to her for their special needs: commemorative patches, difficult mending jobs, a quick uniform re-design on the road. When the team wins the World Series, she gets a ring for her troubles.

That’s a story that can only happen in L.A., right? According to Arte Moreno, that’s true enough. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim employ just such a woman. Meet Erica Ford.
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Arte Moreno has worked very hard to expand his fan base in southern California. (The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: The “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Los Angeles” of professional baseball.) He sends Angels TV commercials and billboards deep into L.A. County and has no plans to cede ground to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Moreno also has no compunctions about targeting skilled Latin players. Vladimir Guerrero, Kelvim Escobar, and Bartolo Colón are just a few of the Spanish-speaking stars to join the franchise since Moreno’s arrival. If he wants to extend the marketing reach of the Angels well past the border, though, he might consider signing the best Mexicans to ever play the game.

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THE OKLAHOMAN tallies up the news that Oklahoma City voters have approved an arena tax, clearing one more hurdle that will help the Sooner State land the Seattle Supersonics.

Over 62% of the votes were in favor of extending a current 1-cent sales tax that was to expire at the end of the year. The new proposal would continue the tax into 2010, and is expect to raise more than $121 million for improvements to the Ford Center.

The Sonics appear one step closer to pulling out of the Pacific Northwest for the Great Plains. Even their website acknowledges the inevitable. Read more…