Game 3 - The “Freeway” Series: Los Angeles Dodgers v. Los Angeles Angels
Final Score: 5-3 LA Dodgers (boooooooo!)

This was the game I was truly looking forward to, but in many ways it was the most disappointing experience of them all. Now, don’t get me wrong: a bad day at the ball park is better that a good day at just about anything else. Nonetheless, it was a disappointing experience for the most part. Let me count the ways.

Tempe Diabolo Stadium is the home of the LA Angels, and is the oldest of all the ballparks in the Cactus League, having been completed somewhere around 1991 or so. Its last update was in the early 2000s, and it’s not that the ball park is shabby per se, but rather just massively outdated. To be fair, the stadium is supposed to be getting a massive facelift this year, but it’s too late for us (unless we come back). It’s gonna take a bullet list to sort this out.

  • The stadium is not very handicap accessible as far as walking to your seat. There is no rail down the center of the stairs for people to hold as they walk up and down the stairs from their seats. AML, with her mobility issues, had nothing to grab on to help her navigate the stairs other than my arm and the use of her cane.
  • There is no upper deck, so as a result there is no place to sit in the shade to watch the game. The seats stop being seats and become benches just past the dugouts. There was no way to know this when buying seats. Our bench seats were in the first section of benches (field boxes), and they were not comfortable. No drink holders, nothing. On the plus side, it was a great area to get foul balls or balls tossed into the crown by the players (I came close on two), but that was its only advantage.
  • The scoreboard is a relic. It provided scant information, there was no radar gun, the screen was not a broadcast-quality screen, and the player’s stats were all you could see. No faces or images of players, no recap of their previous plate appearances In fact, the stadium’s system is so outdated that the ABS system cannot be used here, as the results cannot be broadcast to the scoreboard.
  • For reasons I don’t understand, I had no cell service in the park. The park sits in the middle of the city of Tempe, so it’s not an out-of-the-way location. I use Visible, which is a Verizon MVNO. I got 5G in sporadic bursts of maybe 2 minutes, but that was it. To compound the problem, the stadium had no guest wireless access point for fans to use. Being without internet was fine once I gave in to the situation, but it’s really quite confounding that neither cell data nor wireless access points were available in such a location.
  • No fun fan games in between innings. No sound effects or crowd energizers. And in a way, I sort of liked that.
  • The singing of the National Anthem was a horror show. The singer changed key in mid-stream when she realized she wasn’t going to hit the high notes. And I HATE these pop-style renditions.
  • The concessions were pretty bad. There were tents and food wagons along the left field side, but if your seats were on the right field side you had a good walk on your hands to get any interesting food.
  • This was the only stadium where you had to pay to park. $10. Considering the quality of the stadium, a rip-off by the city of Tempe. On the plus side, we did manage to get a club car ride to the gate, sparing AML from walking.

In short, a pretty lousy experience. Gary, the attendant guarding the dugout, was great. Props to Gary. He took a lot of fan photos and interacted well with the fans. When AML and I left our seats, he came up and walked behind her to make sure she wasn’t going to fall backward if she missed a step. He should get a raise.

The game, you ask? Well, pretty good overall. The Dodgers (whom I hate) did not bring their “A” lineup. Missing were Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman. This is not really uncommon, as oftentimes the star players don’t travel with the team to away games this early in spring training. Disappointing, but expected. Chris Taylor, Michael Conforto, and Kiké Hernandez provided the power in the LAD lineup, while the Angels did come with their “A” lineup, which included Mike Trout, Jorge Soler, Travis d’Arnaud, and two former big names trying to resurrect their careers - Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada, both former White Sox.

LAA threw Reid Detmers out to open the game. He will be a part of the Angel’s rotation. Their starters are actually not too bad, and they’ve had some success over the years, but the Angel offense just can’t seem to put it together. The Dodgers started Landon Knack, who’s pitched only 69 innings in the bigs. He’s probably ticketed for the bullpen; at 27 he has to have a big season, but the Dodgers is a tough team to break through on. Kenley Jansen, the Angel’s new closer who hopefully still has something left in the tank, tossed an inning. The rest of the pitchers who came out on either side were bullpen guys or AAA hopefuls.

Mike Trout was, for me, the player of the game. He hit a solo HR his first time up, but struck out his other two ABs. But I was impressed with his defense. He is moving to right field this season so hopefully he won’t wear down too much or get injured, but today he saw a lot of action out there. And I mean he hustled! He played every ball hit to him with urgency. He even went up against the wall to try and grab an Eddie Rosario home run, missing by inches. I mean, this is spring training; he doesn’t have to do that, and it’s better if he doesn’t. But he doesn’t play ball that way. Three running catches, a bullet to a cut-off man to hold a runner at third - I mean, he put on a defensive SHOW! And of course he signed a few balls for the kids lined up along the wall.

We decided to leave after the sixth inning when the reserves came in, because we were both uncomfortable (just as well, no runs were scored after the 6th). Before we left, we grabbed some food: one hot dog w/mustard (AML), one bratwurst w/peppers, onions, and mustard (me), and a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos (shared). We waited for the golf cart ride back to the car.

Attendance was 8,245, but it felt like more than that. I am not sure how they count the lawn seats. Good crowd, more alive than yesterday, but the Game 1 crowd still the noisiest. Weather: 71°, partly cloudy. Time of game: 2:34.

I love baseball. I’ll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.

-Steve Earle