Southern California Part I: Playing Ball
Free-Floating Chasseneh readers may remember Detroit Joel. Well, he and I met up in his adopted region, SoCal, to try and recapture our lost youth by watching a series of baseball games, two at the new park in San Diego (Cubs vs. Padres) and one at Dodger Stadium (Detroit at L.A). During college summers we spent many weekends doing this, even embarking on impromptu road trips ("Pass the cheetohs. Hey, you wanna drive to Cleveland?") to see games.
Joel picked me up at the airport just about 10:30 and he immediately jumped on the freeway. He's got a brand new Mustang and has become adept at the quintessentially L.A. art of driving like an asshole. We made great time and arrived at our foul-smelling hotel in the slightly ghetto suburb of La Mesa. We took the trolly downtown and the route took us through some fairly depressed looking areas. It's hard to think of anything in San Diego as looking depressed, but there you go. Of course, the sun didn't shine once in our 30 hours in town, due to the "June Gloom," as one native put it.
Petco Park itself is enormous and has some nifty little features, like an old warehouse that has been converted to luxury boxes and places at the corner of the diamond. Joel pointed out that Petco, for all its quirks is really nothing special. And he's right. The Camden Yards school of stadium building, modern conveniences built to feel retro, has created a generation of parks that have unique quirks, but are really all the same. It's funny because part of the charm of Camden Yards when it opened was that it was nothing like Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, which was built to host many types of events and therefore was wholly unacceptable for most of them.
All of the new parks either have fake warehouses nearby (why people associate baseball with storage I'll never get) or are built with a skyline beyond center field. That, of course, offers the illusion that the staidum is really part a neighborhood. The area around Petco is pretty sweet though. We ate lunch at a decent sportsbar and had drinks at three or four different bars after the first game. The hot dogs were disgusting.
In L.A. we arrived decked out in full Tiger wardrobe and took our seats among the Dodger faithful. We were left alone, save for the girl behind us you was silent except to occasionally burst out, Tourette's style, "Fuck Detroit!" It was my first time in Dodger Stadium and I can't say I was all that impressed. Dodger Dogs are pretty average and most of the fans are assholes (what do you expect from L.A., honestly). There are some great vistas of mountains and palm trees as well as a breathtaking view of downtown all lit-up, but inside it looks just like Shea Stadium. That's not a compliment.
I did learn that I'm not cut out to be a visiting fan at a ballpark. I go autistic at baseball games anyway, insisting on keeping score (a thrilling challenge in an NL park) and on having stuff to do with my hands. I wanted Detroit to win, and clapped when they scored, but I don't feel all that much inclination to get into it with home fans by cheering every pitch. So I felt like I was letting Joel down during the first five innings, in which the Tigers had a lead. Then they, predictably, blew it.
In all it was a great trip, largely for seeing Joel and weather porn. Check back to tomorrow for Part II of my debriefing, in which I will ridicule a fringe religion.
Joel picked me up at the airport just about 10:30 and he immediately jumped on the freeway. He's got a brand new Mustang and has become adept at the quintessentially L.A. art of driving like an asshole. We made great time and arrived at our foul-smelling hotel in the slightly ghetto suburb of La Mesa. We took the trolly downtown and the route took us through some fairly depressed looking areas. It's hard to think of anything in San Diego as looking depressed, but there you go. Of course, the sun didn't shine once in our 30 hours in town, due to the "June Gloom," as one native put it.
Petco Park itself is enormous and has some nifty little features, like an old warehouse that has been converted to luxury boxes and places at the corner of the diamond. Joel pointed out that Petco, for all its quirks is really nothing special. And he's right. The Camden Yards school of stadium building, modern conveniences built to feel retro, has created a generation of parks that have unique quirks, but are really all the same. It's funny because part of the charm of Camden Yards when it opened was that it was nothing like Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, which was built to host many types of events and therefore was wholly unacceptable for most of them.
All of the new parks either have fake warehouses nearby (why people associate baseball with storage I'll never get) or are built with a skyline beyond center field. That, of course, offers the illusion that the staidum is really part a neighborhood. The area around Petco is pretty sweet though. We ate lunch at a decent sportsbar and had drinks at three or four different bars after the first game. The hot dogs were disgusting.
In L.A. we arrived decked out in full Tiger wardrobe and took our seats among the Dodger faithful. We were left alone, save for the girl behind us you was silent except to occasionally burst out, Tourette's style, "Fuck Detroit!" It was my first time in Dodger Stadium and I can't say I was all that impressed. Dodger Dogs are pretty average and most of the fans are assholes (what do you expect from L.A., honestly). There are some great vistas of mountains and palm trees as well as a breathtaking view of downtown all lit-up, but inside it looks just like Shea Stadium. That's not a compliment.
I did learn that I'm not cut out to be a visiting fan at a ballpark. I go autistic at baseball games anyway, insisting on keeping score (a thrilling challenge in an NL park) and on having stuff to do with my hands. I wanted Detroit to win, and clapped when they scored, but I don't feel all that much inclination to get into it with home fans by cheering every pitch. So I felt like I was letting Joel down during the first five innings, in which the Tigers had a lead. Then they, predictably, blew it.
In all it was a great trip, largely for seeing Joel and weather porn. Check back to tomorrow for Part II of my debriefing, in which I will ridicule a fringe religion.
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