As anyone on my email chains already knows... my boss has decided to dedicate his day to mowing his lawn and picking his Father-in-Law up from the airport so I have found motivation to continue my baseball stadium reviews.

So we left off after my last adventure with a dutch kid to Anaheim stadium, I took a few days off from baseball and then on Wednesday morning I set off from Anaheim to attempt a long public transit adventure across the vast expanse of LA sprawl to the baseball holy land that lay in Chavez Ravine.

I decided to check with the locals on the easiest way to Dodger Stadium and luckily none of them had the heart to tell me the truth... there is no such thing as an easy way to Dodger Stadium. So after meeting a lot of crazy locals and riding two buses and two trains and walking about 1.5 miles in a total of two and a half hours I had finally made it... to Chinatown.

On a map of LA Chinatown is the closest neighborhood to Dodger Stadium only about a mile or so to walk it, but after walking through crazy pet stores, bootleg clothing and karaoke DVDs I found no one that could tell be the best approach to walking that one mile. I decided to take a break and have a Tsing-Tao in the Golden Dragon where I caught the first 5 innings of Sox-Yanks with the owner who's grasp of the English language consisted of "Chang-Ming Wang" and "very good." Suffice to say I had four beers and very little conversation before just calling in a favor of Mel to talk be through the hike with the use of Google Maps.

The only approach to the stadium that was not on a freeway was to slide down the side of Chavez Ravine through the backyard of some vacant lots. This was scary and apparently (as I learned afterwards) totally covered in poison ivy/oak/sumac (which I now have the worst case in the history of man kind.) But after the slide/tumble down the cliff (the one behind the stadium with the green in the poster.) I hike through the traffic and numerous parking lots to the front gate of Dodger Stadium with 15 minutes left before first pitch!

The stadium is super huge and gorgeous. If you sit in the upper deck of come in through the front gate the entrance is awe-inspiring. Your enter the stadium from the very top deck behind home plate to take in the field, the two scoreboards (old LED board and new HD video screen) with the lovely green foothills behind the single deck of bleachers in the outfield. The left field hills feature letters in a HOLLYWOOD sign-esque style, which say "THINK BLUE" in large Dodger blue letters that are well lit and provide a cool signature besides the amazing baseball that has taken place on the field and the well publicized traffic.

The one down side to the large stadium is that on a weekday night game against the Brewers, it can feel really empty. The crowd was a respectable 37,000 but in a stadium that holds 55+ it sure shows when there are 20,000 empty seats!

Overall the stadium has a great vibe and knowledgeable fans that love their team and have this wonderfully understated hatred of the Giants and all things associated with the Giants. As the man seated next to me, listening to the Giants game on am radio stated, "Oh its okay I don't hate Giants fans, they'll all burn in hell anyways." Totally calm and totally serious! It was a highlight.

As for the Dodger dogs... they are pretty good but seem to be living off their catchy name. They are long and made by Farmer John but kinda skinny and not juicy enough for a ballpark dog. The food and beverage and tickets are on the higher end... I made the big mistake of not sitting in the all you can eat bleacher seats for 40 bucks!! But there were Tecate 24s for 10.50, dogs for 5.75 and my seat in the second row of the top deck behind home plate was 28 bucks. But NEVER NEVER walk there!

Labels: ball park, baseball, brewers, dodgers, large beers, posion ivy, public transit, stadium reviews

[Editor's Note: Cleaned up because Quinn can't write]


Hello all,

I am in L.A. well actually the OC on business for the week but I am thinking of it as more of a baseball roadtrip, which rocks. Anyways I attended the Angels-Dodgers Crosstown Rival Weekend game on Saturday evening at Anaheim Stadium and I was pretty impressed with the park and the atmosphere.

Anaheim Stadium or the Big A, as its know because of the large red steel structure outside the right field wall. The structure no longer houses a score board nor faces the field due to the renovations on the stadium from when it housed the LA Rams. The Manager claims earthquake stability reasons?!? But it's still a cool defining feature of a stadium that is homey for its size.

I had to work until 4:45 and the game had an odd 6:05 start time which was never explained. Anyways I arrived at the gate around 5:35 with no tickets with a Dutch kid who was 23 and never been to America or a ball game. Now everything I had heard or read about Angels' game said "no tickets, no problem" but of course this was Angels/Dodgers and it was sold out. California has strict no scalping rules, so we wandered backwards from the main gate that has a great entrance (more later) into a parking lot that was surrounded by concrete walls which had loads of smoke rising from it and a constant stream of people coming from the gate. The other side of the wall contained a packed lot of coolers, grills, and rowdy 20 somethings tailgating up a storm. It was sweet! The Dutchman was amazed and impressed. There was a hot dog stand complete with hot dog guy in and Angels jersey that said "hot dog guy" across the shoulders. Tickets were scant but at the back corner after many "no's" and plentiful offers of beers to ease the pain we found a pair of tickets in left field along the third base line. They were front row of the upper deck and not a bad find for 20 bucks a pop.

Back to the stadium. The home plate entrance to the Big A is great, with two giant Angels' caps (New Era size 639 and a half) that bracket the front walkway which features a baseball diamond laid out in bricks which feature light up bases and pitcher's rubber as well as bricks at each positions (including the right handed batter's box for the DH) listing the starting player for each Opening Day from 1964 to 2007. Pretty cool. The inside is nice for a stadium with a capacity of 44,280. The interior of Anaheim Stadium was increased to 68,000 for the LA rams for like 6 years and then re-done in 1998 by the new cookie cutter "throwback" park architects KOH. The park looks good with sight lines to the San Fernando mountains and quite the display (on days when it isn't too smoggy) in center field. The fake rocks combined with waterfalls and a Corona Beach ad would be pretty cool if the rocks were A) real and B) they gave away passes to sit in the giant Corona Beach chairs every game. The large score board in right field is tall with grand stands above it reminiscent of PNC Park but just digital scores and no pitching info. The sight lines from most seats in the front few upper deck rows were good and seemed to be nice from all seats below there.

As for the crowd: they really brought it for this series! The Dodgers' fans showed up in full force and my accompanying Dutchman's first comment upon taking our seats was: "They let the reds and blues sit together? They would never ever allow that in futbal!" The game proved a perfect arena for some good natured yelling. [Editor's Note: COMANAYEEAAAHAAA!] It was a back-and-forth 3-2 game until the Angels blew it open in the bottom of the 7th with four hard earned runs. Hendericks pitched pretty well for the Dodgers and young Jared Weaver turned in an 8-inning gem for the Halos.

The Dodgers' fans made themselves known but Angels' fans fought back. There seemed to be strong contention added to the rivalry since the Angels' name change and neither side seemed to agree with the decision, as neither side wanted any association with the other. Though in true LA style the choosing sides was described to me as solely based on colors.

Me: "So is the Angels-Dodgers' rivalry a North/South or East/West thing?"
Guy Who Sold Me Tickets: "It's an East/West thing."
Guy's Friend: "No, it's a North/South thing."
Guy Who Sold Me Tickets: "Really it's all about color red or blue, just like everything in LA."
Me: "gangs?"
Guy Who Sold Me Tickets: "No just everything..."

So, I have no idea what the hell that meant.

Anyways the Dutchman's review of the game: "I liked the second half better." I have no idea what constitutes the second half of a game but the hollering did increase three-fold as the game went on and sweep possibilities were raised. The stadium was very nice and the crowd really cranked it up a notch. I was pretty impressed by a park which was a NFL field of 68,000 at one point. I would say it could make the top half of the MLB and top of the stadiums in baseball.

A few other points: [Editor's Note: Quinn's Audition for Zagat's]

Beer and food was not too impressive, but not cheap. The featured foods are California Pizza Kitchen and Panda Express. All the beer on tap I could find in the uppers was Bud Select @ 6.50 for 16 oz (boo), Corona bombers (22s) were available for 12 bucks and Bud and Bud Light aluminum bottles at 6.75. An all beef dog was 4 bucks and nachos were 6.

Tickets sound like they are available for all non-Dodgers and pennant race games at the door with reasonable gate prices for all tickets including field level. Around 29 bucks for baseline past the dugout and 12 bucks for uppers and bleachers. The Big A seems to have a great tail gate scene in the aforementioned concrete walled homeplate lot and behind center field where the over sized parking is.


Next: Chavez Ravine and some Dodger Dogs. See ya soon.

Labels: angels, ballparks, baseball, dutch men, love, reviews, roadtrip