18. Angels Stadium (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim)
It was a long drive out to the stadium from UCLA (with a stop at the beach in Santa Monica). Since I had time, I didn't take the freeway, and ended up driving through and getting a look at a whole bunch of communities (I'm not clear if they were suburbs of LA or just neighborhoods in LA-- places like El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Long Beach, Lakewood, and Buena Park). Once I got to Anaheim, it proved to be very easy to find the park, and extremely easy to get a parking spot and then my ticket. The shot above is off the plaza in front of the gates.
Here's the view from my assigned seat (I'd eventually move for reasons explained below). I got there early enough to watch some batting practice and enjoy a really good hamburger (I remember when ballpark food was terrible, but that's one of the great changes that's come with all the new parks). The Angels starting line-up was introduced with the intro to "Spirit in the Sky" playing in the background, which I found just terribly cool. When the game started, I was sitting behind a family whose loyalties were clearly split between the Red Sox and Angels (the mom was wearing a Jason Bay jersey, the dad an Angels cap-- the kids seemed split too). Behind me there was a leather-lunged Angels fan whose voice was like a foghorn right in my left ear (and after 6 hours in the archives watching video with headphones, my ears were a little tender to begin with). When the Red Sox got a runner on in the first inning, I was really pulling for them to pull ahead early so that the foghorn might be silenced (and I should mention, he wasn't yelling anything obnoxious, just stuff like "go Angels," but the volume and virtually constant verbal barrage were wearing me out already at that stage of the game). When Jason Bay came up and hit a two-run homer, I thought that would quiet him down (though it meant the mom in front of me was jumping up and down and razzing her husband), but it only encouraged him to holler louder. The Red Sox were up 4-0 at the end of two and Tim Wakefield looked like he was in control, but then in the third, the Angels came back big time, scoring 5 times to take the lead. It was after that comeback that I decided to seek less boisterous company and went for a walk around the concourse.
Here's a shot from just around home plate on the first base side. You can see the signature feature of the ballpark here out in left center-- a rocky waterfall beyond the outfield fence. There weren't any available seats there (or, I wasn't willing to test the resolve of the usher standing by the aisle) so I moved a little further down.
I ended up finding a seat way out beyond the right field foul pole which gave me a great view of the expanse of the outfield, and surprisingly a good view of the infield as well (another nice feature of the newer ballparks is that they rarely have a bad seat). Although I was further away from teh action out here than in my original seat, the folks around me were a lot less irritating, so I stuck around there through the last few innings. Matt Palmer, the Angels pitcher settled down after those first couple of rough innings and ended up throwing a complete game, and set down the last 19 Red Sox he faced, so the home crowd was happy. Not having a rooting interest in either team, I was able to leave feeling pretty good too-- it was an entertaining game, and the stadium itself was both comfortable and interesting. My only regret at the time was that I couldn't make out the name on one of the retired numbers posted in the right field bleechers (I guessed it might be Jim Fregosi, and sonofagun, when I checked later, it turned out I was right!).
One last picture from that evening. On my way out to the car, I spotted a group of people clustered around this display. As some of you may know, a young Angels pitcher named Nick Adenhart was killed in a car accident earlier this season shortly after winning his first major league game. This memorial was apparently compiled by the fans, with all kinds of mementos surrounding Adenhart's picture. It was kind of moving to see that kind of tribute, and put a nice capper on the evening.
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