APPARENTLY, THEY CAN DO NO WRONG.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

TEMPE, Ariz. - In the Angels players' lounge across the hall from the locker room at Tempe Diablo Stadium, on a high shelf next to cartons of cocoa mix and sugar substitute, a boom box pumped out a tune as the athletes sipped their coffee and reporters circled Monday morning.

In any other clubhouse, the pre-workout mood music would be pulse-speeding salsa, screeching heavy metal or a thudding rap.

But this was the home of the Angels, and the song was Josh Groban's melodious ``You Raise Me Up.''

What, somebody forgot to bring the Osmond Brothers record?

The traditional optimism-of-spring-training column angle doesn't quite work in the perpetually sunny world of the Angels. They're optimistic year-round. Every season is spring for these guys.

No dirt sticks to Team Teflon, not the Jose Guillen flap last September, not the departures of three beloved players before Christmas and not the affront to Anaheim in the owner's bid to make the club's nominal home Los Angeles.

This month, ESPN Magazine came out with its annual ranking of the major pro sports franchises, based mostly on fan voting via the Internet. Hockey teams were excluded in this lockout year. That left 90 baseball, football and basketball teams.

The Angels came in at No. 5 overall and No. 1 among the baseball entries. Only the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots polled better. Guess who was the only franchise in the top 14 that hasn't won a playoff game in the past two seasons.

``Was that survey taken before or after the controversy over the name change?'' Angels manager Mike Scioscia said, his lips curling up at the corners.

After, apparently.

At the Angels' pre-spring-training fan fest a few weekends back, thousands lined up in the rain in Anaheim, and the clear majority of the ones I talked with said they were pleased with the ``Los Angeles'' gambit as long as it will boost merchandise revenue and allow owner Arte Moreno to buy better players.

Imagine the public reaction if the Dodgers' owner changed the team's name to make money or let go of David Eckstein, Troy Percival and Troy Glaus in the same offseason, or saw his left fielder explode angrily over a substitution during a pennant drive.

Around the Angels, it's all good.

Fans profess faith in the owner's marketing judgment. The roster changes look like improvements. Jose Guillen has been packed off to Washington.

The only excuses for issues in Tempe are the delayed arrival of Cuban signing Kendry Morales and the failure of negotiations with top draft pick Jered Weaver.

The lineup and pitching rotation are all but set, and optimism abounds that an American League West title will happen without the final-week desperation of 2004.

If you're 20 years old, this might all sound perfectly normal. If you've been around Greater Los Angeles-Anaheim for a while, it's unbelievable how much changed when the Angels won their first World Series in 2002.

For four decades under Gene Autry's and then Disney's ownership, the Angels were audio-animatronic versions of the star-crossed Red Sox and Cubs. The Angels and Red Sox were even intertwined in the lore of baseball anxiety, California's Jack Hamilton throwing the pitch that ruined Tony Conigliaro's career, Boston's Dave Henderson hitting the home run that denied Autry his World Series. There was no Angels Nation, but there was a sickly Angels Culture.

Oh-two changed the chemistry.

``Things were changing (before '02),'' Angels general manager Bill Stoneman said Monday. ``But with Mike (Scioscia) and the coaches and what was happening in the clubhouse came success on the field, and the fans noticed.

``It's nice to be recognized for what you're doing,'' Stoneman said of the magazine's rankings. ``We must be doing something right.''

Internet voters ranked the Angels down at No. 31 among all baseball, football and basketball franchises in the category of ``honesty (and) loyalty to players and city.'' They more than made up for that low mark by putting the Angels at No. 2 for championship potential (behind the Patriots) and No. 2 for affordability (behind the Expos, whose prices are going up in Washington).

The Yankees checked in at No. 17 overall, the Red Sox at No. 46, the Dodgers (outpolled by the Angels in every category) at No. 52.

The Lakers were No. 49.

Last fall, after the Red Sox swept the Angels, conquered the Yankees and went on to win the World Series for the first time since 1918, Boston fans wondered if they'd miss their accustomed sad-sack identity.

The Angels and their fans are here to tell Bostonians they won't miss the bad old days one bit.