Not Los Angeles Baseball

A couple weeks back I was in southern California visiting Pete and Katie.  The first thing Pete and I did was get kicked out of Los Angeles Coliseum.  After that, we went back to his apartment in Santa Monica which is really nice.  Then we went to In-N-Out Burger.  I've covered fast food burgers before.  I thought I had it settled in my mind after going to Shake Shack at Kennedy Airport two years ago, but now I'm not so sure.  I had Shake Shack again last month.  It's really close between In-N-Out, Shake Shack, and Five Guys.  I think I would give Five Guys a decisive victory in the fries category.  I think Shake Shack lives up to its name and gets the victory in shakes.  The In-N-Out shake is almost too thick to enjoy.  But I've never had a Five Guys shake.  Googling seemed to indicate that they were testing shakes at certain locations a year ago and there hasn't really been any update on that.  As for burgers, I think In-N-Out is going to give you the best bang for your buck since it's so inexpensive.  Five Guys gives you the most options for your burger.  But Shake Shake might have the best quality burger.  So what's the best fast food burger place?  I don't know.

After that, we went to see the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play.  Yeah, they're the Anaheim Angles.  But let's think for a minute about how silly the name "Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim" is.  Is it Los Angeles or is it Anaheim?  It's Anaheim.  Before you point out the New York Giants/Jets, I'll point out that both teams at least originated in New York.  And I know that the Angels did play in Los Angeles for their first five years (one at Wrigley Field and four at Dodger Stadium), but they changed their name when they moved to Anaheim in 1966.  They went from the Los Angeles Angels (which they were legitimately) to the California Angels.  California Angels was a little silly for a team that's at best the third most popular team in the state (certainly behind the Dodgers and Giants), but it wasn't terrible.  Then they were the Anaheim Angels.  Hey, they got it right.  But then they went to this nonsense of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  If you drove from the part of the city of Los Angeles that's closest to Anaheim to Angel Stadium of Anaheim (there's a reason it's not Angel Stadium of Los Angeles), you'd have to go 26 miles (for comparison, there's a part of Manhattan that would be about a 7.5 mile drive to MetLife Stadium).  Lastly, if you take the phrase "the Los Angeles Angels" and translated all into English, you'd end up with "the the Angels Angels."  I think we can safely say that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is the stupidest name in all of American professional sports.

This big hats are kind of cool.

So how about the stadium and game?  It's surrounded by parking lots so that doesn't help it, but it's not the worst thing in the world.  When you go in and you walk around the lower concourse, you can't see the field.  Boo.  You can see the field from the concourse on the next level, but not on the upper level either.  So Pete, Katie, and I walked around the lower concourse until somebody who worked there directed us to the next level.  The outfield area is decent.  They had a big bar out there, but not a great beer selection (although apparently they have the cheapest beer in baseball on a per ounce basis).  We had a beer and continued walking around that level.  They have the rocks and the waterfall out in the outfield which is nice, but it's nothing all that special.  To eat, I found the short rib grilled cheese on that level which my research indicated was one of the best things to eat at the ballpark.  I would agree that it was very good.  My research also indicated that it had a good beer selection, but as I already mentioned, I didn't think it was all that great.  I had a Boston Lager on the upper level (which I do greatly enjoy), but I like to see a better local selection at the ballpark.  The view beyond the stadium is nothing special.  From where we were sitting, we could see the Stubhub building and the Honda Center (which is a hockey arena that's home to an NHL team that isn't the Los Angeles Kings).

The view from left center

Short rib grilled cheese

The game was Orioles against the Angels.  It was Ubaldo Jimenez against Garrett Richards.  The Orioles scored one run in each of the third, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth innings.  And that was all the scoring.  Manny Machado had four hits in five at bats including a home run.  Caleb Joseph had two hits with a home run.  Chris Davis drove in two.  Jimenez pitched eight and give up just two hits and a walk while striking out six.  His ERA for the year was 3.79 after the game.  This was the second time this season I've seen Jimenez pitch.  In those two starts, he's pitched 16 scoreless innings while allowing seven baserunners and and striking out 13.  He should start paying for me to come to his games.

Our view for the game

I've known Pete for a long time.  We met when I was a freshman in high school in 1998.  We worked at camp together for many years.  He's probably my closest friend who is a baseball fan that I had never been to a baseball game with.  I was really excited about Pete and Katie moving to Santa Monica so that I could go visit them and go to Dodger games, but not going to an Angel game until this summer worked out well for me.  It was good to see them and I didn't have to pay for a hotel room to cross Angel Stadium off the list.

Me, Pete, and Katie

So Angel Stadium of Anaheim was the 30th Major League stadium I've been to.  That's an average of one per team, but that's because I've seen the Mets and Yankees each play at two two home stadiums.  Angel Stadium doesn't rank too high.  It reminded me a little bit of Turner Field, which I wasn't a big fan of.  Angel Stadium is better than Turner Field, but it won't be too high on my rankings when I update them soon.

They had a fireworks show that we stayed for.  It was very good.  On the way home, we saw more fireworks shortly after leaving the parking lot.  Katie checked the map on her phone and was pretty confident that they were coming from Disneyland.  I was able to get a lot done on this trip to southern California, but Disneyland was not part of it.  Maybe on my next trip to visit Pete and Katie.

The last time I watched fireworks with Pete and Katie was at their wedding in England.