California Dreamin'

Good day everyone!

My first day here in Southern California is now complete and I am resting comfortably after a very long, but exciting and fun-filled day. Today also marked an important milestone in my baseball roadtrips as I visited my thirtieth different professional park.

I got up semi-early and watched some of the soccer on TV this morning. I must say, I really find it difficult to watch soccer outside of the brief twenty or thirty seconds when a goal is scored or attempted. Maybe it is because I am watching it on television, but it just really isn't that exciting. Sure, it has a large following internationally, but it just doesn't cut for me. Anyways, we watched the USA lose to Ghana.

Once the soccer drone was completed, we drove over the hill to the famously ritzy community of Newport Beach. The setting for the critically acclaimed television teen drama The OC was a very interesting perspective on how California is such a diverse place with many different lifestyles. Overlooking the beach in Newport were the palatial mansions mostly associated with the images of Newport. However, further closer to the water, were more row style houses that resembled the style of development common in downtown San Francisco. These smaller houses abutted the street and lacked the carefully manicured gardens and lawns of the overlooking mansions. This really surprised me. While they were by no means slums, they weren't what I associated with the images I had seen on television and in the media of Orange County.

Newport Beach is divided in two by an small waterway that plays host to dozens and dozens of leisure vessels that plow the waters during the many days where the temperate Mediterranean climate flourishes. On the farther side of the bay is a peninsula that sports many small shops, a small carnival, and two piers that jut out into the Pacific. We walked around the peninsula called Balboa for about thirty minutes seeing the sights, gaping at the crowded beaches, and, yes, gawking at the California women who feel it necessary to bare as much skin as possible.

After our excursion into Newport, we got on the I-5 freeway and proceeded north to Anaheim for the Angels-Rockies game. My first taste of California vehicular traffic came during the transit as we ended up getting caught in a semi-moderate traffic jam on a Saturday afternoon. I guess that is another aspect of California I will have to get used to.

Angel Stadium is located directly off of the I-5 freeway in the middle of acres and acres of sprawling parking lot. While there is a train station for Amtrak on the premises, automobile is the only way to get there. Getting in and out of the stadium required sitting in traffic. It was at this time that I really do appreciate downtown parks that have easy access to public transportation.

I was very surprised at the layout of Angel Stadium. It is hard to believe that at one time, Angel Stadium was a shared venue with football. Back in the late nineties, the Angels (with a lot of assistance from Disney) embarked on an expansive remodel of the park for baseball only. What they have now is a very quaint park that really does a nice job of making a fan-experience fun and enjoyable. It is small enough that there is an intimacy between the fans and the field, but it is large enough to feel like a stereotypical big-league park. If you can get over the waterfall (which was obviously a Disney-inspired design), the park is very attractive to the baseball purists, like myself. I have read in multiple magazines and websites just how hard the Angels organization has worked to create something that is successful. Let me tell all of you, I believe and accept all the hype that is out there.

What really stuck out to me were the fans themselves. Angels fans were some of the nicest people I have ever met at a Major League game. They were so friendly to my guests and myself. I got into many conversations during the game with a lot of them about baseball, baseball roadtrips, school, etc. It was so nice to finally go to a big-league game and not have to deal with drunken idiots or rabid, insanely devoted freaks. Talk about a refreshing change of pace!

The Angels used a four-run first inning courtesy of a Hideki Matsui grand slam to beat the visiting Colorado Rockies 4-2.

Here is the plan for tomorrow, as it is a scheduled off-day for the SoCal "baseball side" of the roadtrip: I will wake up and go to some balloon festival at a park. My hosts want me to come, and since it is a "surprise", I don't know much more about it. After the festival, we will then go to the beach. I plan on relaxing, swimming, having fun, and doing nothing.

I will write to you all tomorrow!

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)