The baseball reporters that will swarm Angel Stadium in April for Josh Hamilton‘s debut won’t be sitting behind home plate during the 2013 MLB season.

The club announced Thursday that they are in the process of converting the press box into a luxury seating area, meaning the baseball scribes will now be situated down the right-field line.

“It really boils down to building revenue streams and finding as many ways as possible to grow,” Tim Mead, Angels vice president of communications told the Los Angeles Times. “In talking to other teams, the seating behind home plate is a prime area to do things.”

That’s one way of paying for Hamilton and Albert Pujols, I guess.

Los Angeles lost a legend on Thursday as David Courtney, the voice of the Los Angeles Kings, Clippers and Angels, died at the age of 56.

Outside of his work with the local sports teams, Courtney provided sports and traffic reports for 710 ESPN-KSPN, AM 830 KLAA and 99.9 FM. The cause of death is unknown but his last tweet on Wednesday stated that he was awaiting an angiogram at the hospital.

Below is a statement from Los Angeles Kings executive Luc Robitaille:

David was tremendously passionate about the Kings, our fans and the game of hockey. His time with the Kings dates back to the mid 1970s both in our PR office as our public relations director and also with work he did in our video department before he took over full-time Public Announcing duties at the Forum and STAPLES Center. In the arena he was an institution – he was the voice of the Kings – and his work added so much to the live, in-game experience for our fans as it did for the Clippers and Angels as well. Next season would have been David’ 35th year with our franchise, and on behalf of the entire Kings organization and AEG we are incredibly saddened by this news and we send our deepest condolences to his wife Janet and the rest of the Courtney family.

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The ugly side of Twitter reared its head on Tuesday night when Los Angeles Angels pitcher Jerome Williams was the recipient of a racist tweet from the handle jgraae007:

“@jgraae007: @pinkpuka57 way to lose the game u fucked up tooth Ni**er”

Instead of getting mad, Williams and his followers got even. They were able to look up his Facebook page and found out where he worked in Florida.

@pinkpuka57 he is from leesberg fl and owns landscaping biz 352-874-3170 he has a FB page what a idiot sick em boys @LaTroyHawkins32

— Scott Brown (@Sec202RowD) June 13, 2012

“I went through so much stuff like that when I was growing up, it doesn’t bother me any more,” Williams told Mark Saxon of ESPNLA.com before Wednesday night’s game against the Dodgers. “It did kind of tick me off, but like I said, when I was younger I used to lash out, wanting to fight every time. Now, knowing what’s going on, I won’t lash out, just be the bigger man and walk away.”

Go big or go home.

That could have been the motto for The Orange County Register‘s “news mob” on Opening Day at Angels Stadium last Friday.

LA Observed obtained the final numbers from OC Register editor Keith Sharon:

+ 91 reporters, editors, photographers, graphic artists, designers, videographers, bloggers and miscellaneous Register and Freedom employees.

+ 56 stories (5 of them with multiple live updates.)

+ 845 photographs either taken live or posted by the Register on April 6.

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How excited is The Orange County Register about the Los Angeles Angels season opener next Friday?

The newspaper will have more than 100 writers, editors, bloggers, photographers, videographers, graphic artists, designers, advertising representatives and marketing staff members providing coverage surrounding Albert Pujols‘ first regular season game with the Angels on April 6 against the Kansas City Royals.

No pressure, Albert.

LA Observed has the memo from Angels editor Keith Sharon:

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Welcome to Los Angeles, Albert Pujols.

The Los Angeles Angels made their free agent acquisition the center of their 2012 marketing campaign, featuring Pujols on 20 billboards with the tagline, “El Hombre.”

One problem — “El Hombre” translates to “The Man,” which is the nickname of former St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan Musial.

Dating back to his time with the Cardinals, Pujols didn’t want to be associated with the nickname, out of respect to his relationship with Musial. He voiced his concerns about the billboard campaign last week while addressing the media at Spring Training.

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The Los Angeles Angels are reportedly working on a new broadcast deal with Fox Sports, according to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times:

“In a court filing this week on behalf of Major League Baseball, Los Angeles sports media consultant Ed Desser said the Dodgers would be unlikely to succeed in launching a cable channel of their own, in part because they would not have “any other significant sports team” to join them. He noted that the Lakers are launching two channels of their own, the Pac-12 Conference is launching another for UCLA and USC, and the Kings and Clippers are bound to Fox.

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Even though the two local teams were out of playoff contention, Wednesday night was a thrilling night in Major League Baseball.

The Los Angeles Times does an excellent job summing up yesterday’s action and emotions on C1 this morning.

Better luck next year, Dodgers and Angels.