ONE ON ONE WITH MICHAEL EISNER

Why wait? When you run the company that runs the Angels, you need not wait for opening night to inspect your virtually new ballpark.

So, on Sunday, Michael Eisner drove to Anaheim and marveled at Disney’s newest entertainment palace, Edison Field. With healthy spoonfuls of imagination and cash, Eisner believes his company rebuilt the aging Anaheim Stadium into a ballpark second to none.

“It looks like a new stadium,” he said. “It is as good as--if not the best of--any baseball stadium in the country.

“It really is fantastic and different. This will be an attraction in its own right.”

Baseball’s most enduring attraction, the New York Yankees, provides the opposition tonight, as the Disney chairman and his Angels celebrate the joint grand opening of Edison Field and the 1998 season.

Eisner grew up watching the Yankees, and those Yankees reflect his aspirations for the Angels. These Yankees do not.

Those Yankees played in an era of hometown heroes, not disposable mercenaries. Teams cannot expect to develop a strong and renewable fan base without investing in a core of identifiable players, Eisner said, and so he reserves his harshest criticism not for players blinded by dollar signs but for a system that allowed Florida Marlin owner Wayne Huizenga to assemble and then dismantle a World Series championship team within one year.

“I think it was pathetic that you could buy your way into a pennant and then sell your players off like cattle,” Eisner said.

“When Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle played for the Yankees, that’s where they played their entire career. The loyalty of your players and your fans goes hand in hand.”

Disney inherited--and Eisner endorsed--the youth movement designed by General Manager Bill Bavasi and demanded by majority owners Gene and Jackie Autry. The Angels drafted, signed and developed six players in tonight’s lineup, a number that could increase to nine by the ’99 opener with catcher Todd Greene and prospects in third baseman Troy Glaus and second baseman Justin Baughman.

The Angels invested too, signing eight home-grown players--outfielders Garret Anderson, Jim Edmonds and Tim Salmon, infielders Gary DiSarcina and Darin Erstad and pitchers Chuck Finley, Mike James and Troy Percival--to long-term contracts worth a guaranteed $73 million.

These Yankees, awash in cash from the most lucrative cable contract in the sport, will pay about that much to their players this season alone. The Angels will open the season with a player payroll of $40 million, a club record but a modest figure for a team that must beat the Yankees--and similarly well-heeled opponents--to receive its first World Series invitation.

“We’re going to have competitive teams, just like we have competitive movies and competitive television shows,” Eisner said. “You’re not always competitive by how much you pay.”

But what if opponents determine how competitive you are by how much they pay? In 1997, the teams in the National League championship series, the Marlins and the Atlanta Braves, fielded the two most expensive teams in the league. The American League opponents, the Cleveland Indians and Baltimore Orioles, fielded two of the three most expensive teams in the league. In 1996, the championship series in each league featured its two best-paid teams.

“I hope it’s an anomaly,” Eisner said. “I hope it doesn’t come down to the biggest wallet gets the best team.

“I think that would be the end of baseball. Consumers would totally tune out. You no longer have anything left of the sport when it’s driven totally and solely by economics.”

In the absence of reform, however, baseball forces upon Disney an unappealing choice. Whereas the Mighty Ducks make money, the Angels reportedly lost $27 million in the first two seasons under Disney management.

The company committed more than $200 million to buy the Angels and renovate their stadium, so selling the franchise and cutting losses is not an option. Would Eisner prefer to lose lots of money and compete evenly with the Yankees or lose a little money and merely compete within the thriftier division that is the American League West?

“If it comes to that, it’s unfortunate,” he said. “We’ll be a part of the league for as far into the future as I can see. We’ll be competitive. What that means as far as economics, I don’t know.

“It’s going to be very hard to justify our sports teams on the economics. We’re justifying the fact we believe in indoor and outdoor entertainment. We believe in the community of Anaheim. We have a strong and profitable base in Anaheim. We’re committed to sports in Anaheim. On that basis, we can rationalize ownership of the Angels and Ducks.”

Disney can afford a modest loss on the Angels. In addition to joint marketing with Disneyland and with the Ducks, the Angels provide Disney a ballpark forum for advertising its movies, television shows and retail products. For instance, Disney promoted last summer’s “Hercules” on a rotating ad panel behind home plate, beamed by television cameras into millions of homes across America.

Still, Anaheim Sports President Tony Tavares said, “You’re not going to find $20 million or $30 million a year in synergy benefits.”

Soccer could offer Disney another means to reach children and families. Although the NFL restricts corporate ownership, and although Clipper owner Donald Sterling resists Disney’s NBA overtures--”We’ve beaten the Sterling discussions to death,” Tavares said in November--a pro soccer team intrigues the company.

Besides signing a six-year contract to televise Major League Soccer games on Disney-owned ABC and ESPN, the company agreed to co-sponsor this year’s MLS All-Star game in Orlando, Fla. Tavares and MLS Commissioner Doug Logan have discussed exhibition games at Edison Field and, assuming they draw well, putting an MLS expansion team in Anaheim.

“I suspect, at some point, soccer will come to Edison Field,” Eisner said.

The Yankees come to Edison Field tonight. Eisner is coming too. As an executive, he’s thrilled with the new ballpark. As a fan, he’s worried about the team.

“We’ll see,” he said. “If our pitching rotation holds up, it won’t matter what the stadium looks like. If our pitching rotation doesn’t hold up, well, it probably won’t matter what the stadium looks like.”