A Few Thoughts From ALDS Series "B" Game 1

Last year we went to the two first round playoff games that our beloved Angels played against the hated Boston Red Sox at Anaheim Stadium and we were very, very sad to see them lose both games.  This year we swore that it would be different!  (Yeah, somewhere deep in my psyche I realize that the universe doesn't give a rat's ass what the fans swear or how much we think we deserve anything, it's all about the players actually playing the game, but that doesn't explain Cubs fans.)

We were most pleased to see that at the end of the night it was different.  We were happy.  We were giddy.  We were very hoarse.

The kid who sang the national anthem was too cute and she had a really good voice as well.  It was surprising that in this town, where they could probably pull in just about anyone they wanted for a nationally broadcast game, they had her, but that's a good thing.  She was able to avoid my favorite pet peeve - she sang the anthem at a decent tempo rather than dragging it out for 50% or more longer and slower than it should be.  Remember (all together now, family) -- "It's not a dirge, it's a drinking song!!!"

All of the other games I've gone to this year had kids that looked to be ten to fourteen or so years old playing the "stealing third" game between innings.  Tonight's contestant looked to be about five or six years old.  Nonetheless, he was as intense of a competitor as we've seen all year.  About five yards short of the finish line with about ten seconds left he did a total face plant and the stolen base went flying (left picture).  But he got up, the finish line and some help came to him, and he won.  Now THAT's an Angels fan of the future!!

Was it just me, or did their ribbon board logo look more like it was saying "AIDS" instead of "ALDS" most of the time?  Perhaps someone could have reviewed that graphic with a more critical eye...

Torii Hunter hit the three-run homer and then gets hit in the arm with a fastball on the first pitch in his next at-bat.  Yeah, that was an "accident".  Sure.  Right.  I understand that folks like Bob Gibson and Nolan Ryan and Don Drysdale used to play the game that way, and maybe that's right and maybe it's not, but didn't they get tossed from the game when they went "headhunting"?  Or at least get warnings issued by the umpiring crew?  Or something?  Yet another reason to get ride of the designated hitter.  Let's see that happen in the National League, where the pitcher might be coming up to the plate with a bat in his hand the next inning.  Payback's a bitch!

There were two guys in cammy & boots sitting down in front of us, sure looked like active duty guys who either just got off of their shifts and didn't have time to change or had to go straight from the game to their shifts.  The guy on the right (you can almost see him in this picture) was wearing a black beret, but the other guy had on an Angels cap.  Not sure what the military regs say about that, but he was *NOT* out of uniform in our book.  It's kind of like the whole "sanctuary" thing when you're protected in a church.  For an Angels fan, The Big A is hallowed ground, so he's OK.  Now if he had been wearing a Red Sox hat...  What's the number for the MP's?

OK, it's blurry, he was all the way across the stadium behind the Red Sox dugout, but this guy had the most gigantic beard any of us had ever seen.  When I first saw him in binoculars I thought that he might be wearing a Santa Claus mask, or maybe Bigfoot.  Maybe he swore in the early days of the Angels to never shave until we beat the Red Sox in the playoffs and won the World Series that year...

We happened to be sitting in the middle of a big mob of Red Sox fans.  Now, I've been to Fenway.  I love Fenway.  I've taken the family & my kids to Fenway.  We went while wearing Angels gear & jerseys while the Angels were playing the Red Sox.  And we got heckled.  More or less kinda friendly sorta heckled, but heckled.  So when all of the Red Sox fans started bailing out of the park after the top of the eighth, I thought it was only fair and just to start a little "Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na, Hey hey, Good Bye!"  They didn't seem to appreciate it.  For the record, I'm OK with that, especially since I heard it from those same Red Sox fans at The Big A last year.

GO ANGELS!!  On to Game #2 tonight!!