Date: 16/07/2010
Time: 10:06 PT
Location: Anaheim, Orange County
Population: 353,643
Taco Bells: 10 (I saw one)
Weather: 79F: 26C
TV show: Channel 1116, MGM HD: Straight Out of Brooklyn: An inner city youth tries to gain money for his poor family by robbing a drug pusher victimising his neighbourhood.
Word of the day (English): undercast: something viewed from above through another medium, as of clouds viewed from an airplane.
The 1st thing to say about LA is that it is big... really big. Its rather like a pice of toast that has been lightly spread over with butter, the butter covering the entire slice in a thin layer. Whereas the London toast slice would be partially covered with a chunk of butter 1 centimetre think. With things being so spread out public transport is non-existent so everyone above the age of 16 is on the roads, most of the time in a car. Traffic is thus the proverbial nightmare, all day, every day. The problem is such that the car pool lane's minimum requirement for access is that there be more than one person in the car. Even this seems to much for the LA locals because the lane was empty. the shear size of LA is further demonstrated by the fact that we travelled by car for 1h 30 mins whilst at all times remaining in LA to go see the local team play.
We arrived in Anaheim, home of the mighty ducks and disneyland (the two are linked in a rather bizarre way which I will elaborate on later). We had an hour to kill before the game so we found a Bowling ally and had a quick game. I was rusty and Priscilla, being American, could bowl to an international standard so I lost. But we're having another game tomorrow so here comes the big comeback.
We got a little lost on the way into Anaheim so we got to see much of its suburban district, (the sat nav took us to Mall boulevard instead of the Mall). there didn't seem to be much too the place and I think the bowling ally, Disneyland (which was right next door)and the ball park are the 3, and maybe only, things to do there.
We arrived at the stadium about an hour before....pitch off? as everyone is on the roads, and as there is a lot of space in the western States, there was parking for every one of the 45,050 seats inside the ground. In the car park or lot, I saw my 1st hummer. The fact that a hummer was, for at least one American, the vehicle of choice to go to a Baseball game was not the biggest shock. The most outrageous thing was that the car fitted in the parking space!!
outside the stadium there were proselytisers holding black and yellow signs with slogans such as "receive salvation through Jesus", "I am the way the truth and the light" and, with slightly dubious syntax, "return is the lord"... "the lord is returning" maybe? I wasn't sure what they were doing? Were they protesting? is there a new commandment: thou shalt not hit balls? Priscilla told me that this kind of thing was common place at America sports games and I told her that the Welsh loved to sing hymns at a rugby match, we are kindred spirits!!!
We took our seats inside and readied ourselves for the game. The guy next to me, Jack, saw my England shirt and ask if was "English or just stupid?", I said "both". He told me how his Mum and Dad were from Birmingham and that he was "routing" for England during their brief stay in South Africa. He would fill the roll of chief explainer of what the hell was going on. He couldn't explain however why there was a water feature (see photo) in the middle of the stadium. the ground was recently revoted so I can only assume it was done so by Ground Force. The rapid water cascading down the landscape had Charlie Dimmock written all over it.
The American National Anthem is a funny old thing. Its not that they don't sing, If the etiquette was to let the professional singer sing it for you then that would be fine. Its that 39,900 Americans were murmuring it. You would have though that Americans, oozing with Patriotism that they are, would love a good rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. But it seems they prefer to sing it to themselves that sing it to everyone else. There is, however, only a certain length of time an American can last without wooping and sure enough on the phrase "And the ROCKETS red glair," the wooping started and didn't stop until the end of the song.
While the singing of the National Anthem is perhaps out of character the game of baseball is most certainly not. The athletes on the field performed tremendous feats of dynamism with effortless ease and grace. The fielders would glide from side to side and extend their arm to gather in the ball without breaking into a sweat, then fire it off like a tracer bullet to the baseman. The balls trajectory seems to defy the laws of gravity as it travels parallel to the ground. they made the impossible seem routine.
Baseball seems to be a game where an educated crowd knows what going to happen before it happens. The ball has barley left the batters.... bat and the crowd are cheering because they know that the fielder is going to dive to his left, reach out and catch the ball, regain his feat, fire the ball across to 1st base 60 yards away and the 1st baseman is going to catch the ball without moving from his position. its rather like at a fireworks display but in reverse. imagine you sound travelled faster than light and you heard the bang before you saw the colour. It seems the athletic manoeuvres the Players have to perform are by no means out of the ordinary. On one play the scoreboard ticked over from 2 to 3 men out and the batter was half way to 1st base and the ball was 75 yards away in the fielders glove. More physics defying stuff there.
Queueing for a Beer another fan noticed my accent and mentioned the world cup. While Football hasn't really reached America it has reached it enough for them to know how bad we did. There were some interesting moments of self policing from the fans also. One guy, in a moment of rage at the Angels batter said "don't just effing stair at it (the ball)." even in moments of extreme rage the man managed to avoid a wee swear. Perhaps we have found a new football chant "who the effing hell are you!!!!... as if.
baseball is a long slog and my mind started to wonder. I noticed the other side of the freeway another indoor stadium and i asked Jack if thats where the Ducks played. He said yes and then explained how the team was created after the films in a bizarre case of reverse engineering. Not the sort of thing you normally associate with the manly sport of Ice Hockey.
Another sign, literally in this case, of prototypical American culture towered high into the sky 200 yards away from us. It was a billboard with Cools Light written on it, and it was meant for us, 200 yards away. As if you can advertise to people visually that far away. On the freeway back I noticed that a lot of shops and fast food chains have there boards 100 feet or so in the air. Its as though they are advertising for whoever is behind whoever is next to what they advertising. As though those who are closest have seen for themselves whats on offer and are thus a lost cause.
here endith the lesson,
More to follow,
Chris.
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