Los Angeles Angels

The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team has played its home games at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.

The franchise was founded in Los Angeles in 1961 by Gene Autry as one of MLB’s first two expansion teams and the first to originate in California. Deriving its name from an earlier Los Angeles Angels franchise that played in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), the team was based in Los Angeles until moving to Anaheim in 1966. Due to the move, the franchise was known as the California Angels from 1965 to 1996 and the Anaheim Angels from 1997 to 2004. “Los Angeles” was added back to the name in 2005, but because of a lease agreement with Anaheim that required the city to also be in the name, the franchise was known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim until 2015. The current Los Angeles Angels name came into use the following season.

The Angels won the World Series in 2002, their first and only championship appearance to date. They are one of three MLB franchises to win their sole appearance in the World Series. This was followed by an era in which the Angels made six playoff berths within a decade. The 2010s and 2020s have seen star players Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani enter the fold, and the two have combined to win the Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award four times. However, the Angels have had eight straight seasons since 2014 where they failed to reach the postseason, with their seven consecutive losing seasons (2016-present) being tied with the 1971-77 teams for most ever in franchise history.