Angelic Baseball

My uncle Coddy picked me up at the airport. As I climbed into the car, I asked him how far it was to Angels Stadium.

“At least an hour. Get comfortable.”

An hour sounded fine to me. We drove south across LA. Coddy told me about his hip surgery and a songwriter’s convention he’d recently gone to. He played me a few of his new songs. We talked about my boys…

I guess here I have to stop and mention that Coddy has been a role model to me for my entire life. I remember as a teen trying to emulate his warmth and open affection. In my early 20s I lived with him for 6 months and got to see him in action as a Hall-of-Fame dad. So lemme tall ya’, I was damn happy to be headed to a ballgame with him.

As we pulled into the stadium, Coddy spoke to the parking attendant:

“I don’t have a handicapped sticker, but I just had hip replacement surgery a month ago. Is there somewhere you could recommend for me to park?”

Coddy waved his cane through the window and soon we were headed for prime parking.

It was a short walk from the car to the giant Angels batting helmets that sit at the front gates of the park. Once inside, we made our way around towards our seats – good seats. I started plotting where we would get dinner and was pretty disappointed by the selection: Jack in the Box, Panda Express. Pretty unimaginative stuff; it was like the food court at a new mall.

We found a food counter near our seat.

“I’ll have a hot dog, a beer, and peanuts, please,” Coddy said.

“Huh – I’d actually like the exact same thing,” I added. It struck me that we’d ordered the same food. Then I looked at Coddy and something else struck me. See if you can tell what it was from the photos:

We were wearing the exact same clothes. I took that to be a very good sign.

We got to our seats and settled in to the game. Angels-Mariners. Now, at a new ballpark, you have to get oriented. You have to see where they display the score, the balls and strikes, the batter and pitcher stats. And here is my second observation from Angels Stadium (my first being that the food selection was lame) – the scoreboard situation blows. Check this out:

That scoreboard has 3 times more advertising space than information. It was really hard to follow what was going in. They should take that whole board, make the entire thing a screen and rotate advertising through it. That way the ads would be right where I’m already trained to look for my information. The way it is now, the ads are just in my way. Asinine.

It also quickly occurred to me that the seating in Angels stadium is built poorly. We had terrific seats, just along the first-base side near the foul pole. But the entire section has the seats set up so if you sit straight you are facing here:

When you want to look over here:

So you sit the entire time turned at a 45-degree angle. But in all honesty, I wouldn’t call that a design flaw. Why? Because the fans seemed to have no interest in watching the game at all. I found it baffling.

If you go to the bathroom at a Phillies game, Yankees game, Pirates game…you can tell what’s happening in the game just by listening to the crowd. You can hear them cheer for a hit or moan for an error. Close your eyes and any good baseball crowd will tell you what’s going on.

Not so with the Angels and these assclown fans. They’re all yappin’ with each other, talking on their phones, texting. Hell, most of the crowd never even showed up until the 4^th inning.

It was still 0-0 in the 5^th and the Mariners got men on base with one out. Big trouble for the home team. But CJ Wilson managed to pitch his way out of it. The inning ended with a weak Popfly that squashed the Mariner threat. There was barely a cheer from the home crowd.

In the 7^th, the Angels’ newly-signed high-priced outfielder, Josh Hamilton, struck out for the second time in the game. He’s hitting .212 and is massively underperforming. Where the hell were the boos?

I wouldn’t have thought it would have affected me so much, but I genuinely found it disorienting to try and watch a baseball game when no one else around me was. I felt like I was watching TV in the middle of a party.

“This is a good game that only you and I seem to be watching,” Coddy said, leaning over.

He was right, it was terrific game. Both pitchers kept working out of high-tension innings with men on base.

Only one run scored in the entire game, and that was all Mike Trout. Trout is stocky, short, and non-descript. He doesn’t look powerful or fast – but last year he hit 30 home runs and stole 49 bases. Not to mention he’s dynamite in the field. He won rookie of the year last year and should have won MVP. He is one of those players that I love to watch. It feels like the air is suddenly different every time he gets up to bat. He’s like super hot chick walking around a party – you’re always aware of him.

In the 6th inning, Trout hit a single to the outfield, but he hauled ASS from the first step and turned it into a double. Next batter flied out and Trout moved to 3^rd base. From there, he took such a huge lead off 3^rd that he was practically halfway home with each pitch, then he’d run like hell back to the base when the catcher caught it. Sure enough, a pitch got by the catcher and Trout was crossing home plate before the pitcher could even get there to try and make the tag. Baseball geeks love players that “manufacture runs” and this was a textbook case of that. Not to mention, it turned out to be the ballgame – the Angels won 1-0.

With the game over, Coddy and I crunched our way out over our peanut shells, out through the concourse, and made the short walk to our car. It was a perfect night – clear and cool. Our handicapped parking had an exit that took us right onto the freeway. A flawless, hip-surgery-induced exit strategy.

“Next time you come out, you gotta bring your boys,” Coddy said. “We could even try to hit an Angels game and a Dodgers game if the schedules work out.”

“Hell yes!” I replied, glad to have yet another reason why Coddy is an outstanding role model.

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Afterward: Fangraphs.com (which is an awesome website for hardcore baseball dorks) actually wrote an article about Mike Trout’s “hustle double”. There’s even video of it: check it out:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mike-trout-and-yasiel-puig-a-hustle-double-comparison/