2005 Baseball Road Trip, Part Two
Oakland, San Diego, and Los Angeles

After I got back from the first leg of my road trip, I started looking at the schedules for the remaining California teams. I had originally planned on going to Oakland and Los Angeles on one weekend and going to San Diego a couple of weekends later. When I took a closer look though, I realized that I could knock off all three stadiums over the course of a single weekend. After double-checking some drive times and talking to Andy to make sure that he could go, I started making plans. Daniel said that he wanted to go, too, so we ordered some tickets for San Diego online and finalized our itinerary.

On Friday, April 29th, Andy and I ditched our afternoon classes to go pick up Daniel and head to Oakland. I went home and loaded up the Corolla with all of my camping gear and the cooler full of food, soda, and energy drinks. Daniel met me at my house since we both lived in the same cul-de-sac, and we went to pick up Andy. We left Reno around 1:00 and got to Oakland in plenty of time for the game. We got into the Oakland Coliseum parking lot at about 4:00 and played some catch in the parking lot. After several near accidents that would have involved a lost baseball and a broken car window or two, we decided it was time to go buy our tickets. We bought the cheapest seats that were available since we knew we wouldn’t have any trouble moving to a better section of the park once the game started. I’d been to this stadium several times before, and it’s always possible to significantly upgrade your view. (That probably won’t be the case this season though, as the A’s have decided to completely shut down the upper deck.)

When we entered the park the A’s radio partner had a booth that involved one of those cheesy “Wheel of Fortune” knockoffs where they give away free stuff. We decided it was worth a shot since one of their prizes was a free hot dog and we were planning on eating at the ballpark anyway. Andy went first and he was lucky enough to get the free hot dog. Daniel followed him and he won a mouse pad for The Amityville Horror. When it was my turn, I got the mystery prize. Now, the long-haired hippy working at the booth could have been cool and just given me a coupon for the free hot dog, especially since he had just heard us talking about it. But instead, he chose to mess with me and gave me a free McDonald’s step counter. One of those stupid “prizes” from the Adult Happy Meals. We all complained loudly enough for him to hear us and he told us to get lost. Daniel and I both tossed our “prizes” in the first trash can that we came to.

We went and got our food and decided to go find some seats. We had General Admission tickets, which meant that we could sit anywhere in the bleachers. After looking around, we decided that the left field bleachers would probably afford us a closer view of the game. We went in and sat down only to discover that we would be sitting behind the flag wavers for the entire game. Deciding that we wanted to be able to see some baseball that night, we headed over to the right field bleachers. They were noticeably further away from the field, but there were no obstructions and much fewer people. Unfortunately, the people that were sitting there more than compensated for their lack of numbers.

There was one kid in particular who kept asking everybody in the section if he could see whatever piece of technology they currently had in their hands. The guy sitting behind us had just hung up on his cell phone and the kid was on him like white on rice. He started asking if he could use the guy’s cell phone to call his brother and the guy immediately told him no. The kid wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, so the guy decided to cut him a deal. If the kid would pay him a dollar a minute, he would let him use the phone. Apparently, the kid decided that the rate was too steep, so he decided to go find someone else to bug. During this entire scenario Andy, Daniel, and I were cracking up.

Unfortunately for us, we were next on the kid’s list. Andy had brought his digital camera to the game, and as soon as he pulled it out, he found the kid sitting in the seat directly next to him. He made the mistake of making eye contact, and it was on. He did his best to sound as uninterested as possible, but the kid didn’t take the hint. He kept asking him about what brand it was, how much it cost, and other ridiculous questions. Finally, we decided we’d had enough and got up to move to a better section of the park.

We moved over to the first base side of the stadium and wasted no time in planting ourselves about 15 rows off of the infield. We sat down, leaving two seats between me and the next person in, and two seats between Daniel and the aisle. As soon as I was seated, the woman who was sitting closest to me started staring at me. I began to think that perhaps we had just sat down in some seats that belonged to someone that she came to the game with, and that maybe they had just run to the bathroom. I was almost right. After a couple of minutes, a man and a young boy came from the aisle on our right and sat down directly next to me. I don’t know why I decided to leave two seats between me and the woman (normally I would just leave one), but it worked out to my advantage. Shortly after I got over the mild heart attack that accompanied the arrival of the man and his son, two more people came and sat down right next to Daniel. Daniel kind of glanced over at them, and they asked if those seats belonged to us. We explained that we had just moved over from the bleachers and that we would move out of their seats right away. They said that they weren’t their seats, but that they were doing the same thing. Apparently they had also realized that this sorry excuse for a ballpark didn’t have any decent views except for on the field level. This is when I first began to grow my hatred of the “cookie-cutter” stadiums.

In theory, cookie-cutters are a great idea. In just one building, you could host any number of sporting events. Parking was no problem, and with everything in one facility the people paying for these structures saved huge amounts of money. Unfortunately, what works in theory doesn’t always work in real life. At most of these multi-use stadiums, the fans of at least one sport suffer because of the needs of another sport. Most of the time it’s the baseball fans that suffer poor sight lines and seat alignment due to the huge number of seats designed for football and the poor fit of the field into the stadium. In these stadiums, most of the seats point to where the 50-yard line is on the football field. This would be fine for baseball if it weren’t for the fact that most of the action doesn’t happen right behind second base. More often than not, baseball fans are pointed 90 degrees away from home plate and have to turn their heads at an awkward angle to be able to see the majority of the action that occurs during a game. Also, most cookie-cutters usually have large areas in the outfield that would normally have seats but instead are just empty space. The seats that are in the outfield are also pretty high up off the ground, meaning that the fans have no chance at catching any home runs that might make it out that far. From what I’ve read the Coliseum hasn’t always been this way, however. In fact, it actually used to be a pretty nice ballpark until the Raiders moved in. That’s when the Raiders’ owner, Al Davis, decided to get rid of the open space beyond the outfield and construct the behemoth wall of concrete and bleachers that has since become known as “Mount Davis.”

Anyway, back to the game. It was still fairly early in the season and the A’s were choking hard. That night they lost to the Mariners by a score of six to two to further drop their record below .500. Before I set out on my trip, I decided that at each stadium I would root for the home team – with a couple of exceptions. The first one being that if I saw the Yankees while they were on the road, it would only be natural for me to cheer for them, having grown up as a Yankees fan. The second exception would come much later in my trip at Fenway Park, for reasons that should be fairly obvious. To sum up my point, the fans at the previous ballparks had been fairly active and into their teams, but in Oakland it seemed like only a minority of the fans were actually paying attention to the game. This didn’t make very much sense to me because of the lack of entertainment that the Coliseum offers away from the field. One would think that the fans in San Francisco, for example, would be much more distracted with the giant Coke bottle and baseball glove behind left field and the state-of-the-art scoreboard and video screen. However, it was the complete opposite. San Francisco’s fans were much more into their team and into the rhythm of the game than the Oakland fans were despite the distractions that surrounded them.

After the game we headed back out to the car and drove to Santa Rosa to stay with my Grandma once more. Everything was going fine until we got to a mess of freeway overpasses and underpasses and the GPS got us thoroughly confused. I wound up getting off one ramp too early, which ended up making us have to take an extremely long detour. We had planned on sticking to the highways outside of the main cities to try to make the best time, but instead we found ourselves taking surface streets right through the heart of San Francisco. At one point, Andy (who also brought along a GPS) notified me that I needed to make a left hand turn in order to get one street over. Every intersection that we came to, though, had restricted left turns, and you were only allowed to take them if you were driving a taxi or city bus. I was driving neither, but I decided to get in behind a bus and follow it through one of the intersections. At the very worst, I could at least say that I was following the bus too closely to notice the “Busses Only” sign. Thankfully we didn’t get pulled over, and we made it to my Grandma’s house at about 11:30. We checked our route for the next day, set our alarms, and went to sleep.

On the morning of April 31st we woke up at 7:00 and ate a quick breakfast. We loaded up the car and began the long drive to San Diego. According to the GPS it was going to take eight and a half hours, but I figured that it would probably take longer because we had to go through Los Angeles again. We actually made pretty good time and cut about an hour off the expected arrival time. And then we hit LA. We sat in traffic and watched the minutes tick off the clock, but we finally got moving after about 45 minutes. By the time we got to Anaheim we were back up to full speed and heading towards San Diego. We got into the city at about 4:30 and drove around looking for a good deal on parking. We ended up parking five or six blocks away and paying five bucks. Not too bad at all.

We hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast that morning except for a couple of stale Oreos, so we decided to grab some food before we hit the ballpark. We stopped into a New York style pizzeria and grabbed a couple of slices each. It wasn’t the best pizza I’ve ever had, but it was good enough. We headed down to the stadium and went right inside to our seats. This ballpark was awesome. All the seats had good views, and the upper decks here were much closer to the field than at any stadium I’d been to yet. Petco Park is the perfect example of what a modern day ballpark should be. My favorite feature was the corner of the brick Western Metal Supply Building that served as the left field foul pole. If a fly ball hit the right side of the building it would be ruled a home run, but if it hit the left face of the building, it would be a long foul. Our seats were in right field and they were unfortunately slightly obstructed by the foul pole. The area was crowded and the ushers looked like they were doing a pretty good job of checking tickets, so we decided to just deal with it.

The game got underway and it started flying by. Brian Lawrence was pitching for the Padres and he was absolutely lights out. He made quick work of the Diamondbacks, and the game didn’t even last two hours. Towards the end of the contest we had to ask some people around us for their ticket stubs (because I was collecting those as well as pins from each stadium) since ours were printed on computer paper. We all wanted a stub but we were too afraid to ask anybody so we made a bet amongst ourselves. We bet on what the result of the next batter would be. I bet on a strikeout, Andy took a walk, and Daniel took a ball put in play. Whoever had guessed what actually wound up happening had to ask for stubs. Andy was on the losing end of the bet. The people that he asked thought that we were trying to scam them, but after Andy explained about our road trip, they handed them over. The speed of the game was kind of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I was kind of mad because this was the nicest stadium we’d been to so far, and we hardly got to spend any time there. On the other hand, it was getting downright cold and we were all in t-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

After the game was over we headed back to the car and decided that we wanted to go to Mexico before we headed back to LA. Once again, my inability to work the GPS ended up costing us time. I forgot to put the settings back to car mode instead of pedestrian mode. It thought that we were going to walk to Tijuana and told us that our estimated arrival time was 2:00 in the morning. After driving around and getting frustrated for about a half hour, I finally realized my mistake and we were headed for the border. On the way we kept seeing signs that said “Last US Exit,” but we kept on driving. By the time we got there we weren’t sure if we would need passports in order to get back so we turned around right on the border.

After all the excitement and a long day of driving, we decided to head to the campsite that we had looked up before we left and get some sleep. The site was only about 15 minutes outside of LA and we finally got there at around 11:30. When we pulled up to the gate, it was closed and the sign on it said that no one was allowed to enter after 10 pm. We were too tired to care and so we opened it up and drove right in. We looked for a ranger station but couldn’t find one, so we set up our tent at the nearest site. I didn’t sleep very well because we picked the site closest to the road, meaning that headlights and the sound of car engines were hitting the tent all night long.

When we woke up, there was a ranger truck right outside our site. We weren’t sure what to do, so we waited for him to leave and then packed up all of our stuff as fast as possible. As soon as we were all loaded up we headed out and went right by the ranger station. Yes, we were supposed to pay, but at that point we were really too tired to care. If they really wanted their $5 we would give it to them, but if they weren’t going to say anything, neither were we. We headed to a McDonald’s for breakfast and took our time eating before heading to Dodger Stadium.

When we got to the stadium we were still an hour too early for the parking lot to open, and it was still an hour and a half before the stadium would open its gates. We found a parking spot just outside the stadium in front of the police academy just a block away. While we were sitting in the car killing some time and reading about where to buy tickets, a man who looked homeless and was walking along the sidewalk stopped and talked to another man just a couple feet away. Andy rolled down the passenger window so we could hear their conversation and we realized that they were scalpers. The “homeless” guy was carrying a bag full of aluminum cans but he actually had tickets hidden in there too. I was amazed that the scalpers here would actually go to that much effort to try to hide their activity. Most places say that scalping or reselling tickets is illegal, but the police usually just turn a blind eye to it.

After a little while we headed over towards the parking lot gate and waited for it to open up. When it finally did, the line of about 150 cars took off as if they were in a NASCAR race. This was the craziest parking lot that I’d seen yet, and I wouldn’t expect anything less out of Los Angeles, home of the world’s craziest drivers. We headed over to the ticket booths and waited for a while in line there too. We had settled on getting tickets in the “Pavilion” sections, which are nothing but glorified bleachers. We went into the park and watched a little bit of batting practice from our seats. It was already pretty hot out and it was only getting hotter. By the time the game started I could already tell that I was going to have a pretty good sunburn the next day. I wasn’t too hungry, but decided that I was going to try a Dodger Dog after hearing so much about them. I have a good friend who’s a Dodger fan, and that’s all he talks about. Overall, I’d say the Dodger Dog was pretty good, but I’m not sure it lived up to all the hype. It was definitely one of the better dogs I had over the course of the summer, but it wasn’t a life-altering experience as some people make it out to be.

The game got underway, and it was pretty unspectacular at the start. The Rockies jumped on the scoreboard early, but being the Rockies, they weren’t able to hold on. The third inning came to an end on a fairly routine play. It was a sharply hit line drive to right field, and at first it looked like it might have a chance at making it out to us, but it quickly lost steam and settled into the glove of Dodger right fielder Jason Repko. The guy who was sitting next to me, disgusted after seeing the ball wasn’t going to make it, tore off his glove and threw it onto the seat next to him in disgust. Unfortunately for him, Repko turned around and threw the ball up into the stands. It was headed right for him but he wasn’t able to get his glove back on fast enough and because I hadn’t taken my glove off yet I was able to snag it right in front of him.

At first I was in shock. I couldn’t believe that I had actually just caught a ball that had been in use in a Major League Baseball game. It seemed like I was watching a movie, like it was happening to someone else. However, as soon as I turned and looked at Andy and Daniel and saw the expressions on their faces, I knew it was for real. The guy next to me, who was already upset about not getting a home run, was even more ticked off now. The people all around me were expressing their anger at not catching it, either, and the woman behind me actually started hitting me with her Thunder Sticks. I had never really liked those things, and this just gave me another reason not to. Throughout the game, as more and more Dodgers fans showed up (it’s not just a rumor that they all show up in the third and leave in the seventh), they all wanted to see the ball. One time I handed it to a guy and I didn’t think I was going to get it back. I decided then that it was probably time to just put it away and not bring it out again.

Dodger Stadium is an awesome atmosphere for fans. It is as long as you have seats in the Pavilions, anyway. Dodger Stadium is well known for its beach balls, and I was amazed at how many of them popped up throughout the game. People took a lot of time trying to smuggle those things in. There were several people who were nothing but beach ball head-hunters. They looked like security, but all they did was take and pop any and all beach balls that came out. The wave was also extremely popular here. At most stadiums the wave would get started for about five minutes or so before everyone lost interest and gave it up, but here it was almost a game-long event. One of the Pavilion sections would start it, and it was up to the next Pavilion section to keep it going. If they missed it or didn’t carry it on, they would be booed by the section that started it. Sometime in the fourth inning there was a new breed of thunder sticks that also emerged. These were in the shape of hypodermic needles and had a message printed on the side about creating a level playing field. It was hilarious.

While all of this was going on, there was also a pretty good game developing on the field. By the time the ninth inning got underway the Dodgers were clinging to a slim 2-1 lead. Rockies closer Brian Fuentes had hit a Dodger in the bottom of the eighth, and the top of the ninth promised some excitement. Yhency Brazoban was the Dodgers’ closer at the time and he was throwing serious heat. He set down the first batter with no problem before walking Brad Hawpe. The next hitter due up was the pitcher, so they pinch hit with Luis Gonzalez. On three consecutive pitches Gonzalez’s bat slipped out of his hands as he swung. Each time it got closer and closer to hitting Brazoban. Although I later found out that it was apparently an accident, everyone inside the stadium was going nuts because they thought it was on purpose. He ended up striking out and the runner took second on the last pitch. Brazoban decided that he thought Gonzalez was throwing his bat on purpose as well and decided to plant a 97 MPH fastball in the back of Dustan Mohr, who was unlucky enough to be the next guy to step in. The umpire issued warnings and the game was over when the next hitter flied out to deep left field.

We walked back to our car and were glad to see that it hadn’t been broken into. We stopped for gas on the way out of town and decided that we wanted to take an alternate route back to Reno. Instead of heading back up through California’s central valley, we were going to take a highway that would be more direct and head straight through the mountains. It probably would have been faster if there hadn’t been an accident at the top of the first hill going out of LA. We sat in the car for about 20 minutes before realizing that we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So we decided to pull out our lawn chairs and take a seat in the middle of the freeway. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who thought it was funny because we had several strangers come up and take pictures of us lounging in the middle of the road. Finally, after about an hour or so, traffic started moving and we were on our way back home. We stopped in a small town along the way so that Andy could use the bathroom and Daniel and I decided to spin the rims on the Escalade that was parked right next to us just for fun. At about midnight we made it to Mono Lake when it started to rain. We had to go even slower now, but we made it back to Reno around 1:30 in the morning.

After sleeping through the next several days of school, I started making the plans for the next couple of stadiums on my trip: Seattle’s Safeco Field and Arizona’s Bank One Ballpark.

 
Kevin Naughton is back at home now following his incredible journey. You can also find him in the Cafe's forums, where he posts as luckygehrig.
 

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