Angels Stadium of Anaheim is a great place to watch baseball if you ignore the locals. We drove straight through the parking lot, ignoring the lot attendants who wanted us to park in the south lot, and drove right up next to the train station where AJ was waiting. We walked right through Gate 1, and down to our seats in field box 105. The crowd was late arriving, but full of obnoxious Giants fans. They took over the stadium and seemed giddy with the power of their numbers. They shouted down the docile Angels fans, popped their beach balls, and made life miserable for everyone. They were so cowardly too. I actually heard them saying things like, "Can you believe this? We could never get away with this stuff at Dodger Stadium." How right they are. We keep them in their place in Los Angeles, but this was Orange County where folks don't like to be confrontational. What a bunch of pussies. They never suspected either AJ or myself in our clever disguises. I had on an Angels cap, but I was really there to root against both teams. AJ was wearing his Cardinals jersey, which he kept waving at Albert Pujols and yelling "The curse of Musial, Pujols! The curse of Musial!" The game itself contained some revelations. The biggest of these was a 20 year old, rookie phenom for the Angels named Mike Trout. They say he's the new Mickey Mantle and based on what we saw, I'm not going to argue with that description. He's over 6'1", 210 and he's one of the fastest MLB players that I've ever seen. He got on base in his first three at-bats and stole second easily each time. So easily, that he was laying across the base before the ball got there every time. The last time there was no throw. He's a blur. On defense he's so good, that the Angels have moved Torii Hunter to rightfield. Hunter has nine gold gloves as a centerfielder, so we can assume that the kid is amazing there too. At the plate, he hit the ball hard against Giants pitcher Matt Cain who is 9-2 and who tossed the only perfect game in Giants history (1883) on his last start, so it's safe to assume that Mike Trout is for real. http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=236499&title=Giants%20beat%20Angels,%20Cain%20gets%20the%20win All in all we had a good time. The beer was cold, we stayed out of any fights and AJ caught his train on time to get back to the hotel. Not a bad way to spend a summer evening in So Cal...
LOL. The train station is in the north parking lot and it has special deals for Angels fans. You can get on the train anywhere in SoCal and the round-trip fare is just $7. Two trains wait 30 minutes after every game to take fans home. It's the perfect "designated driver" for locals rich enough to get drunk on expensive stadium beer.
:lol: Terry you are my hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AJ thought it was funny that I would send you this pix. I told him since he was MIA I needed to prove her was OK
LOL...what was even funnier was when they showed Kobe from his suite, and pretty much the majority boooed him pretty good. The price of premium beer (Newcastle Brown Ale.....Yummy) at the stadium you ask?....well, let's put it this way....for what I paid got us 1 pitch to Pujols.... :lol: Thanks to Diane, Coach and their lovely Grandaughter for a great evening as I was back in SoCal for the 1st time since 2004. BTW, the Carne Asada's are still the best I've ever had.....
AJ and I had a conversation during the game about pitchers doctoring the baseball, which was brought about by the news that Tampa Bay's Joel Peralta had been caught red-handed, thanks to his old manager Davey Johnson who turned him in during the game... http://www.cbssports.com/general/blog/eye-on-baseball/19387096/joel-peralta-ejected-for-foreign-substance-has-glove-confiscated-by-umpires We both remembered specific incidents in baseball history where this had happened before. AJ remembered Joe Niekro getting caught with an emory board and trying to toss it behind his back when the umpires searched him. I remembered my friend Kevin Gross getting caught with sandpaper in his glove when he was a young pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. When I got home from the game, ESPN ran a brief history of pitchers who were caught red-handed, and both Niekro and Gross were shown as bad examples from the past. I had to laugh out loud at the way Kevin looked back then. The moustache was too much...
Mike Scott of the Astros during his prime had some nasty pitches, many thought he was doctoring the ball. The Reds one time even saved a bunch of balls from a Astros/Reds game and tried to make something out of it...nothing ever came of it though. Mike Scott A few "adjustments" made Mike Scott unhittable during the mid-1980s. While attending a game at the Astrodome in 1986, my dad, several thousand other fans and I witnessed the following: the umpire going out to investigate the opposing manager's complaints that Scott was scuffing the ball. As the ump approached the mound, Scott sticks his hand in his back pocket, then pulls it out, raising both hands as if to say, "See, nothing in there, ump." What the ump missed but anyone sitting close to the field saw was a small white emery board fall to the back of the mound when Scott pulled his back pocket inside out. None of us said a word, and as Scott chatted up the ump, second baseman Billy Doran calmly sauntered over to the mound, bent to check his shoelaces and walked off with the board. Travis Baker Brooklyn, N.Y. How could you not mention Mike Scott? His "awesome" splitter that he "discovered" before the 1986 season was caused by ball that was scuffed by more sandpaper than Bob Vila's workshop. It's too bad he couldn't have pitched more games of the 1986 National League Championship Series -- the Astros would have had a chance. Mike Latham, N.Y. Scott made a few "adjustments" to his delivery in 1986, and this mediocre hurler just happened to win the Cy Young Award, throw a no-hitter and lead his team to a division title, all in the same year. He brought a whole new meaning to the term "cut fastball." Sush Reddy Kansas City, Mo.
Please note: modern pitchers have to be creative, because they have nobody to doctor the ball for them. In the good 'ol days, a team would throw the ball around the infield after an out, if there were no runners. This allowed one of the infielders to play doctor with the ball. Usually, it was the second baseman or shortstop, because they don't normally stand near an umpire. There's a reason why modern umpires throw out the baseball after every three pitches. It saves them from having to undress the entire infield...