The Angels joined the American League as an expansion franchise in 1961 under original owner, singing cowboy and broadcaster Gene Autry, playing their first seasons in Los Angeles before moving a few miles south to Anaheim in 1966. For most of the Autry era the club was a competitive but often snakebitten team, reaching the playoffs only a handful of times and losing a heartbreaking 1986 AL Championship Series despite being one strike from the World Series. Several Hall of Fame-caliber players, including pitcher Nolan Ryan, infielder Rod Carew, and outfielder Reggie Jackson, had notable stretches of their careers with the Angels without being primarily remembered as Angels.

Ownership passed to the Walt Disney Company in the mid-1990s before businessman Arte Moreno purchased the team in 2003, becoming the first Latino principal owner of a major U.S. professional sports franchise. Under Moreno, the Angels won the franchise's only World Series championship in 2002 over the San Francisco Giants, then added nine AL West division titles across the 2000s and 2010s behind stars such as Vladimir Guerrero, the only player inducted into the Hall of Fame primarily as an Angel, and later Mike Trout. Despite consistently strong individual talent, the team has not returned to the postseason regularly since the late 2000s, and Moreno has remained the club's principal owner into 2026 after reports of a potential sale did not result in a change of control.