Come on People Now, Smile on Your Baseball Brother
I’m an Angels fan. There. It’s out there and I feel pretty good about it. No longer will I feel the need to only wear red among my closest friends who will not snicker or judge me. I may even have a coming out party. I’m walking on eggshells as many of my colleagues here at LAist bleed Dodger Blue. Seriously, I’ve seen it. It’s really gross, like ink and ranch dressing. Being an Angels fan does not make me a Dodger Hater, though. On the contrary, I think the Dodgers represent pride and tradition better than any other team in baseball. But I just wanted to go over a few points and try to create some brotherly love and understanding, hand holding, and bong passing among baseball fans.
For those who don’t know the history of the team, aside from recent name changes, Disney (ad)ventures, and Vladimir Guerrero, the Los Angeles Angels were really the first baseball team in LA. They played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 to 1957. Their bitter rival was the dreaded (and often very drunk) Hollywood Stars across town, but this was before they ended up in rehab and had Harvey Levin up in their kool aid. The Angels resided at Wrigley Field, the west si-eeed version, owned by William Wrigley and located on the corner of 42nd and Avalon. Not only was it home to the Angels, but if a baseball movie was being made, there was your location. Much of Pride of the Yankees was shot on that field, as well as The Winning Team with Ronald Reagan. Ok, so not everything was positive.
The Halos came into the big boy league three years after the blue juggernaut landed in sunny So Cal. They shared Dodger Stadium, then simply known as Chavez Ravine, as Vin will always remind you. It soon became apparent that the Dodgers’ fans were in full force and the Angels owner, cowboy crooner Gene Autry, was loosing duckets all around. Rather than watch his team and dream die and get buried like a Red Sox jersey under a Yankee Stadium clubhouse, he chose to head ‘em up and move ‘em out. Following his friend Walt’s happy trail, he opted for Anaheim.
That being said, flash forward 42 years, and here we are. It seems we OC and LA fans lived in harmony until owner Arte Moreno decided to slip the city out from under the Dodgers cleats. Really, he was just putting it back, but I totally understand why fans are perturbed. It would be like, I don’t know, if the LA Rams played in Anaheim because the Raiders moved down from Oak-town and forced them out and killed their competition (take it figuratively or literally). It really wouldn’t be anything like that, but I used to be a pretty big Rams fan until they moved, got good, and now suck.
Another reason we’re not getting along is simple; the Angels are pretty darn good. They get a lot of media coverage, especially now that “LA” has been dropped in front of the name. This was exactly Moreno’s reason for doing so. What can I say; he’s a savvy businessman who understands that beer shouldn’t be $8 for 10oz. Now, if we were both in the same league, I can understand the hatred, fist shaking, brow furrowing rivalry that comes with Dodgers/Giants games. If it weren’t for interleague play, red and blue would only clash during the Freeway Series, and possibly a post-season Battle of Los Angeles that would make Zack de la Rocha proud. On the subject of the Giants, please remember that the then Anaheim Angels stepped on the grotesquely oversized neck of Barry Bonds and took away any hopes and dreams of him ever claiming a World Series ring.
Ok, so, the fans. Let’s discuss, shall we? True Dodger Blue fans are amazing. The ones that are there, win or lose, watching the game from first pitch to last, or at least until the eighth or ninth inning, because that traffic getting out can fill you with rage-ohol. The fans that can name the line-up from at least 20 years ago and get a tear in their eye talking about Gibson’s shot off Eckersley and his gimpy trot around the bags. Unfortunately, many of these are hard to come by. You know the drill. Arrive be the third, leave by the seventh, talk on your phone the whole time, let your kids act like lab monkeys for 2 hours, but make sure you’re wearing a couple paychecks worth of MLB gear.
Angels fans, as much as it pains me to say, are not much better. Many of them only pay attention when something on one of the big screens tells them to. However, they do manage to have 35,000 people show up on a Tuesday afternoon somehow. Still, the do-or-die Angels fans are few and far between. Most are just band-wagoners who know very little about the sport. So collectively, as sports fans in general, we can really never compare with fans of high school football in West Texas, or college football fans in Florida. I don’t know much, but I have a sneaky suspicion that had something to do with two NFL teams shipping out. That and our stubborn refusal to do anything about the Coliseum, which now actually does resemble ancient Rome.
I grew up in Anaheim and spent my summers at the stadium with about 2,500 other foolish fans in the late 80’s, but I loved the team. I eventually sold souvenirs there as a geeky high school kid who needed money for gas and weed. I didn’t know it would turn out to be the best job I ever had, and nothing has come close.
The bottom line is we’re fans of baseball here in LA. Nothing compares to a Sunday afternoon at the ballpark with a dog, a beer, your gal or guy (or both, it’s hip), or little ones who get to see their first real live home run. It’s such a beautiful thing, and we can all experience it together when we put aside our red and blue territorial dispute and just agree to hate the Yankees, but hate them together.
Photo by Mark Avery/AP