Allow me to handicap these two fist fights for the fans. The Rangers are Manny Pacquiao and the Angels are indeed last week's Juan Marquez. Night night sleepy Ranger. The Dodgers are Mike Tyson and the Angels are Buster Douglas.  Ah, excuse me Mr. Dodger Blue but you've got some canvas stuck in your teeth.  Do you need some help up?

Lets get one thing straight, Arte Moreno and his fat cat counterparts over at Guggenheim Hedgefunds are having Major League Baseballs' version of a pissing contest. Mr. Moreno just took the lead.  Josh Hamilton is an Angel? Are you kidding me?

We'll get back to the Lonestar state to measure their bumps and bruises in a moment, but for now lets stick to Southern Cali and clear up any confusion.  This isn't just a battle for market share in Los Angeles.  It's an all out turf war between two financial behemoths that's net result is the greatest baseball players in the world making their way out to the west coast. It's fantasyland for baseball enthusiasts and the closest thing to the old "Wild Wild West" that players and their agents could have ever dreamed of.

The Guggenheim group and their Magic man roll with the deepest pockets in the game right now and certainly had to believe before Thursday's heist that they'd slipped a knife between Arte's ribs.  Hauling away Zack Greinke in a limo and heading about 35 miles up the 5 freeway had to have the suits popping corks, clinking glasses, and sticking their Armani covered chests out.  They'd staked their claim to supremacy in the Southland and dropped over $200 million on starting pitchers Greinke and Ryu to do it.  Their massive chip stack was just supposed to fold Arte right out of the game.  But it didn't.

Note to Magic and the hedge fund crew: You're dealing with a lone wolf that's so competitive that, for all we know, he's only all by his lonesome because he ate the rest of his pack. You may have thought you had him cornered off way down there in Anaheim, but make no mistake: he's still out stalking your sheep.  His paws have never left your doorstep and this time he dropped his latest kill right on your front porch.  Game friggin ON!

Both these MLB heavyweight teams are backed by massively lucrative television deals that seem to provide an endless flow of revenue.  And boy oh boy do these boys know how to spend it.  Kemp.  Pujols.  Greinke.  Hamilton.  Gonzalez.  Weaver.  Ryu.  Wilson.  Crawford.  Ethier.  That's just a little 1.3 billion dollar taste of the player purchases these two teams have made in the past year.

Back in Texas, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Daniels are trying to put the pieces back together.  They've lost 1/3 of their lineup and the free agent market is drying up quickly. The trade market seems to be their best option now but that means weakening their farm system to strengthen their big league club.  That's something they'd hate to do, and Alpha Arte is grinning like a cat watching them squirm.

This is for real.  Arte and the Angels are in a two front war and like a true superpower, they're holding their own just fine on both fronts. 

Please follow Drew Mumford Jr. on twitter @jrjantreshunt.

On September 22, Arte Moreno and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim publically announced the returns of General Manager Jerry Dipoto and Manager Mike Scioscia for the 2013 MLB season.  The timing of the announcement seemed strange then, and feels even stranger now.  For most Scioscia supporters the announcement undoubtedly should have come sooner.  For others it now seems perhaps the announcement should have never come at all.

Without question the 2012 Angels season has to be seen as a disappointment.  Falling short of the Texas Rangers in the AL West standings was something most casual fans could understand or at least stomach.   Staring up at the bargain bin Oakland A’s seems nothing short of tragic.  With a payroll north of $150 million dollars, multiple All-star selections and a roster chalk full of household names how could this team spend the postseason fishing instead of playing baseball?  Thinking about that can boggle the mind, accelerate the heart rate and cause temporary emotional chaos, which of course can be the only reason Mike Scioscia is returning to the Angels dugout in 2013.

It’s called “The Show” for a reason.  Dramatic peaks and valleys seem to be the norm for this year’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  They’re up, they’re down, they’re back up again and here we sit on the edge of our seats gritting our teeth begging them not to sink back down into another valley.  If the previous trends of this season continue, believe it or not, the Angels find themselves in a perfect late season position to play their finest baseball of the year at the time it matters most.

Quick, somebody throw them a rope.  They’re sliding down the mountainside heading backwards on a climb that was supposed to have a late-October summit.  They’re scarily slipping down to April’s base camp where the top of the mountain seems so distant it can’t even be seen through those stormy clouds.