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Thursday, June 19, 2008Ball Park Review: Angels Stadium (Anaheim, CA) The other night, Mikah, my sister and I went to Angels Stadium in Anaheim, CA. This is the home stadium of the stupidly named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This was the second stadium of the trip. As you can see from the first picture...they really like giant sized models of baseball items. You can read my other reviews of my Ball Park tour here. Parking/Access If you are not aware already, going anywhere in Los Angeles takes forever. We left my sisters apartment around 5pm. The game started at 7:05 and the trip out to Anaheim (assuming no traffic) is about 45 minutes. We arrived at our parking spot at about 6:45. We crawled down "The 5" pretty much the entire way. It was awful. However, once we arrived, we pulled right into a lot next to the stadium and paid $8. That's a good deal. Much better than San Francisco's $30 parking. Leaving the stadium was theoretically going to be much better, but they were doing work on the highway. Therefore our return trip took about 1.5 hours. Yeah!!!! Food Once again, I got 2 hot dogs ($3) and Mikah got 1 pretzel ($5). The hot dogs were 25% cheaper than San Fran but the pretzel was 33% more. Both tasted about the same. There weren't as many different places to get food here, but they had all the standards. View Here you can see the view from our seat. The stadium was pretty big, although not full. The view from my seat was of the highway and the Amtrak station...which is classy. They also have a neat rock water fall thing in center field.   Jumbotron They actually had two Jumbotrons here, which was nice. The main one was in right field, with a smaller one in left. This allows almost everyone to see one. Excellent idea. Neither was up to par with the San Francisco one...but I suspect I will not find one that is.  Misc The most obvious random thing about Angel Stadium is the presence of the Rally Monkey. For those who don't know, back in 2002 during a late season game, they showed a monkey with an Angels uniform on jumping up and down...calling it the Rally Monkey. It worked. So they did it again a few days later. It worked again. They continued to use it all the way to the World Series, which they eventually won. I assume all due to the Rally Monkey. Well...now the Rally Monkey is the most important thing at an Angels game. They have in between inning videos starring the rally monkey. In one, the monkey sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" with Queen. In the other, the monkey starred as the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. But unlike 2002...the monkey had no effect on this game. The team spirit wasn't all that high, certainly not as high as San Fran. A lot like a Reds game actually...except more people go to the games in Anaheim. This game was played pretty poorly by both teams, but especially the Angels. Their base running alone made me think I was watching a C-ball game. Or the Reds. It was really that atrocious. The Mets actually played a pretty good game until they had to go to their bullpen, who almost blew the 5 run lead they had. But that's what the Mets bullpen does, so I guess it was business as usual. In the end, the Mets won the game 9-6.   Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Ball Park Tour, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Sunday, June 15, 2008Ball Park Review: AT&T Park (San Francisco, CA) Last night we went to AT&T Park, which is where the San Francisco Giants play. The Giants were my second favorite team for a long time because Will Clark played over there. So I have a bit of a soft spot for them. You can read my other reviews of my Ball Park tour here. Parking/Access We were able to get to the park pretty easily, but we didn't look up places to park first. So we ended up following the herd and paying $30 to park. Which is totally outrageous. I am sure there were cheaper places to park a little further away from the stadium, but we didn't know where those were. Oops. Food I got two hot dogs ($4) and Mikah got two pretzels ($3.75) over the span of the game. That seems a bit expensive for the hot dogs, but the pretzels seem reasonable. There were a TON of different types of food you could get there, ranging from their famous Garlic Fries (which i opted out of, due to the desire to not get sick and the desire for Mikah to continue to talk to me for the rest of the night), Soup, Seafood, Pulled Pork, etc... They also had churro vendors, which looked good. View Here you can see the view from our seat. I don't think there is a bad seat in that place. Everything seemed to be directed at the field. A couple spots have no access to the Jumbrotron, but that is to be expected. Additionally to the view of the field, our seats on the third base side afforded us a fantastic view of the Bay (picture shown taken from a different angle, but I promise it's the same Bay).   JumboTron The Jumbotron is awesome. It is enormous and crystal clear. FAAAAAARRR better than the one in Cincinnati.  Misc The most significant other thing of note about the game is the fact that it is freezing there. I knew it got chilly, but the wind that whips off the water and through the stadium is terrible. It got so bad that we even filled out those credit card things to get free blankets (which are nice by the way!) Giants fans display their loyalty more that Reds fans do. There were very few people in the park that didn't have on a Giants or A's shirt/hat. Since the A's were "in town", the place was packed and had a lot of energy. I think there were more A's fans than Giants fans though. The game itself was pretty well played considering how bad both teams are. Both starting pitchers pitched very well, but the Giants lost 4-0. It was a fun time and I got to cross another stadium off the list. That said, the next time I come to a Giants game I hope it's in August and in the day time. Or anytime where I don't have to sign up for a credit card application to stay warm! Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Ball Park Tour, San Francisco, San Francisco Giants Thursday, June 5, 2008NBA Finals - Game 1I am watching the end of game one of the NBA finals. It looks like the Celtics are going to win. I hate the Celtics. In fact, I hate all of Boston sports. Totally insufferable. For Example: tonight Paul Pierce twisted his knee. They CARRIED him off the court. They then put him in a WHEELCHAIR (accompanied by about 33 people) to the locker room. About 3 minutes later he came back out of the locker room and is now on the same level as Michael the Archangel. Reminded me more of Mateen "IT'S BROOOOOOKE" Cleaves than Willis Reed. (note: I don't blame Piece for this...apparently he wanted to walk off under his own power) I'm sure there will be stats to prove me otherwise, but I think there have been 254 fouls called on the Lakers, vs 3 against the Celtics. I hate Boston. Subscribe to the DIA FeedLabels: Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA
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