Well This Sox: In Which, I Attend the White Sox-Angel Game Solo

 I hate the White Sox. I have hated them as long as I can remember, being a rational Cub fan. The two factors that most fueled my vitriol during the most recent years, Ozzie Guillen and AJ Pierzynski, are no longer with the team, and with that I am not blinded by the hatred that I once was for the boys from the South Side. I still canNOT stand Hawk Harrelson, but if an obnoxious broadcaster is the pinnacle of my dislike, things have calmed down considerably.

All that being said, I really wanted to go to the May 16th game against the Sox. Not so much for the game, per se, but for the Mark Trumbo bobble head that was the giveaway that night. I had found cheap tickets after some negotiation with ScoreBig.com and both Lauren and I would be off work in barely enough time to head over to the Big A for the game. Then, reality hit. Lauren was sick and had been invited to see an opening day showing of the new Star Trek movie, which interested her much more than the Angels game. I was now at an impasse.

I really wanted that bobble head, but I had never been to a baseball game solo before. I am actually very loathe to be solo in public, as I irrationally assume that everyone is staring at me and wondering, "Who is the weird guy with no friends?" My desire for the knick-knack that I have no need nor space for outweighed my social anxiety and I decided I was going to go it alone.

Lauren picked me up from work and brought my change of clothes so I wouldn't have to drag a bag full of smelly work clothes into the ballpark and dropped me off, en route to her theater for the movie. Since I had paid for 2 tickets, I was certainly going to get both the bobble heads that I had paid for. I initially thought that to get both bobble heads I would need to engage in all sorts of trickery and enter initially through Gate A, exit Gate B, hide the swag and enter Gate C, all while changing shirts and using a fake mustache to avoid being recognized.

In reality, I walked up to the ticket scanner, told the woman that I had 2 tickets, that Lauren would not be joining me but that I did want her bobble head. She looked at me, asked if I was sure Lauren wasn't coming and upon my assent, yelled for the distribution elves to give me 2. Painless, but not nearly as exciting as my imagined spy mission.

I made my way out to right field and found my seat in an empty row and sat down to begin my solo adventure. I had the row to myself for awhile, until the sorority girls came by. They added quite an interesting element to the game with all of their insightful comments, which included the statement that they weren't going to boo at all, because "...that would be, like, really bad sportsmanship" and the need to share details about exactly how they wanted their future weddings and boyfriends to be. And, of course they were ignorant Disneyland passholders. With no other human being to talk to, I got to listen to this banter for the entire duration of the game. Yay, lucky me.

Meanwhile, on the field there was a baseball game. The Angels actually held the lead for a vast majority of the game supporting a fairly solid outing from Jerome Williams until the fantastic bullpen duo of Dane De La Rosa and Michael Kohn made an appearance in the 8th. De La Rosa gave up the tying run and Kohn decided that Jeff Keppinger, he of the .188 batting average, should get his first walk of the season. With the bases loaded. With a tie score.

This, sorority girls, is why you boo.

The Angels failed to mount a comeback against Jesse Crain and Addison Reed and, despite having Reed on my fantasy league team, I felt no joy.

My first solo game was a success and I had lots of friends ask me if I would do it again. Absolutely, I would. The only change is that I think I'd bring a small FM radio to listen to the game. I had my iPhone with the MLB AtBat app, where I could listen to the game, but there tends to be a bit of a delay there and I didn't want to be listening to a game on a 30 second to 2 minute delay that was happening live in front of me. That's how accidental time travel occurs and nobody wants that.

Until Next Time, Keep Tripping Baseballs.

In Which I Snap My Losing Streak and the Angels Beat the Royals

I recently found a great site online that operates like Expedia or Priceline, but for event tickets, where you tell it roughly where you want to sit, submit a bid and see if you can score a major discount on tickets. I discovered it the other day on Twitter when I randomly saw an ad for it, offering tickets that were valued at 35 dollars selling for bids of 5. I rolled the dice and once again, Lauren and I found ourselves at Angel Stadium on a Tuesday evening. And, of course, I once again found myself being shut out from any baseballs or autographs.

Not that I didn't have my chance though. We got to the game early and the Royals were on the field. I trotted down from our seats to the field barrier and waited with a fairly large group of fans trying to get a batting practice ball. Greg Holland was warming up near us and any time a ball came to him, all the fans were just screaming "HOLLAND!" having read it on the back of his jersey. I tried a different approach, since I actually knew his name and yelled "Greg!" He finally got a ball, turned and threw it. It was coming right for me. And then, a ginger guy stepped right over to me, stuck his glove in my face and snagged my ball. He walked away for a moment, which was a wise plan on his part because I was steaming, but then had the audacity to come back a few minutes later. Needless to say, there were no more baseball tossed in my vicinity.

Following that, I went over and hung out by the Royals dugout for a little bit, but none of the players were around signing.

I read a lot of MLBlogs and just independent autograph/ballhawking blogs in general and am always astounded as the bloggers recount 5, 10 or even 20 baseball days and I have yet to get one this season? It seems very strange to me. I know I'm not the fresh faced little kid or a hot blonde chick, but then again neither are these other bloggers. What am I doing wrong?

But I digress. The Angels threw Jason Vargas on the mound versus Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie was sporting a shiny 5-0 record and the Angels were floundering, so I was somewhat wary of the matchup, but I need not be worried. The big boys--Trout, Pujols, Hamilton and even lil' Howie Kendrick homered and the Angels cruised to a 6-2 victory.

There was however a dark spot on this victory. That was the Royals fans who were sitting near us. The woman was probably no more than 30, was sitting in the front row and sporting a Royals t-shirt. That is all well and good. I can certainly understand wearing your team's gear into an opposing stadium. Heck, I have only ever seen the Cubs as a visiting team. However, you do not then try to heckle the home team's fans and get angry when your drunken actions get thrown back in your face.

She spent the first half of the game screeching at right fielders, Jeff Francoeur and Mark Trumbo, proclaiming her screechy love for Frenchy and vitrol at Trumbo. That was annoying, but it's her right to do so. After a few beers, the second half of the game was mostly spent turned around shouting at the section of Angels fans behind her, her defense being that the Royals had a better record and had won the night before. I have never seen an entire section of fans turn on a single person like section F132 did on that woman. The entire section started booing her and as she and her partner left (before the game was over, mind you) she tried to start at least 2 fights. It was spectacular.

Like I said, it put a slightly bad taste in my mouth because even the Angels fans we had sitting around us were on the obnoxious side, but if that's the price I have to pay to see them light up that Halo every game I attend, I will gladly bare that burden for the cause.

Until Next Time, Keep Tripping Baseballs!