“Arturo ‘Arte’ Moreno is an American businessman.” That’s the first line of the Angels’ owner’s Wikipedia page, and there’s no better way to describe such a great man. His life is a shining exemplar of what makes America great. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is a college graduate. He is a loving husband and the father of three wonderful children. He paid his dues and diligently worked his way up the ladder of success. And now he is a billionaire and (according to Forbes Magazine, and any right-minded Angels fan) “one of the best-loved owners in Major League Baseball.”
On the other, much more pathetic and decrepit, end of the spectrum, we have a know-nothing duplicitous reprobate who managed to parlay a couple of years of athletic over-achievement on the baseball field into a huge unearned payday. I won’t bother to mention his name; anyone reading this knows the coddled Appalachian incest baby of whom I speak, & even thinking about pushing on those keys in the proper sequence on this keyboard to spell out his name makes me want to throw this computer in the trash where that useless human skidmark belongs.
No one was happier than yours truly when Flaily The Snowman was sent packing back to Texas. With Coke Zero out of the Los Angeles dugout, the Angels can get back to doing what they do best: Playing baseball the right way. And Arte Moreno can get back to doing what he does best: Owning the greatest franchise in all of sport. But there’s still some unfinished business to take care of. More specifically, there are some bills that need to get paid. Some long-overdue reparations, if you will. Pardon the slight hyperbole, but the Angels have been a slave to this behemoth contract to far too long, and we deserve to be compensated for the abuse and degradation suffered while under its thrall.
Remember a few weeks ago, when Rangers slugger Adrian Beltre sent Angels ace-in-training Garrett Richards an invoice for three broken bats? A hilarious stunt, right? Well, now it’s time for the Angels to return the favor. For real. Obviously Arte Moreno’s too much of a class act to even suggest that you-know-who-does-blow give back some of the $80 million the Angels will be paying him over the rest of his contract. It’s a testament to how much Moreno appreciates and values character that he was willing to eat all that money in order to freshen the air. It must’ve been a hard pill to swallow, and it’s one he’d probably prefer to forget he even ingested.
I’m a different kind of animal, though. I’m an elephant; I don’t forget. I ain’t too proud to speak truth to a waste of space. So consider this your invoice, Posh Pigelton. Arte Moreno paid you good money to come through in the clutch, and all you came through with was a flaming bag of your own feces and a bunch of weak-sauce excuses. All that nose candy you did — and do, and will probably continue to do until you find yourself sucking on a sewer grate — probably eradicated what little decency or shame you once possessed. But if you can find it in yourself to do the decent thing — FOR ONCE — then you should give back all that money you didn’t deserve in the first place.
The free meals are over, Toots. Time to pay the bill before you cash in all your chips. Or someone cashes them in for you.
Unlike another longtime Angels blogger (who was recently fired for writing a post that “crossed the boundaries of our community guidelines and standards”), “Bishop Morenobud” was fired from his long-running Angels blog Trout Wars (pka Seeing Jered) (pka We All Chone On) (pka The Glaus Haus) for attacking his editor with a pair of hand-crafted wooden Thundersticks while debating the merits of the Gary Matthews Jr. contract.