"The boss was calling. John Carpino, the Angels' president, picked up.

Arte Moreno's question: What would you think about us signing Albert Pujols?

This was a few days before Thanksgiving. Carpino caught his breath, then asked Moreno for a couple of hours to run the numbers. The Angels never had signed a guy for $100 million. Pujols would cost more than twice as much.

"No," Moreno said. "What do you think our fans would think?"

That's a no-brainer. The Angels were in it to win it.

"I'm a marketing guy," Moreno said Saturday, after the Angels unwrapped Pujols before a crowd estimated at 4,200 at Angel Stadium. "I just thought, 'What does it mean to our fans to bring a player of this caliber here?'

"That's when all of a sudden, all of your objectivity and budgets and everything go out the window, and you start saying, 'Can you really get this player?' "

Moreno has owned the Angels for nine seasons, most of them pretty good. Yet he never had won a bidding war for a free agent, and his team never has won a World Series. If one leads to the other, why not?

This is not about hurting the feelings of other owners, some of whom feel betrayed because Moreno reportedly criticized baseball's free spenders during the collective bargaining negotiations.

Let's be serious. If Moreno didn't spend $254 million on Pujols, would that keep the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox from spending in the future, and from beating the Angels in October?

"Basically, we have no debt on the team," Moreno said. "Our revenue streams are good. We can afford to make this deal.""