My First Ballpark Road Trip (7) - Ticket Stubs

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These are the ticket stubs from my first ballpark road trip in August, 1985. Notice the "Swinging A's" logo on the Angels ticket at the right, and Mike Davis' autograph on the first ticket. The first two tickets were bought from Ticketron and Teleseat, and have no baseball design to them like the third. This played a big part in future tickets that I bought. If I could get an "official" ticket direct from the team, I always did. Heck, the first ticket looks no different than a Santana concert in Berkeley. Okay, call me a ticket stub connoisseur. I'm VERY picky about my ticket stubs.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (6)

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After the Sunday doubleheader was over, I headed back to claim my motel room and take a real shower. A friend from my summer job was going to be on vacation in San Diego with his wife. He wanted me to join them at a comedy club that night in La Jolla, just a short drive away. I showed up and they didn't. I found out later that his wife had a bad case of food poisoning. Well, hungry I left for a restaurant. I couldn't find a good one open that late. I settled for a Taco Bell. Now, a Taco Bell in La Jolla was quite an experience. The parking lot was filled with Mercedes and BMW's. I had a yellow Camaro.

The next day I toured the beaches in San Diego, the same place where I took a shower the day before, and found some great places in Mission Beach. I fell in love with San Diego. I didn't plan it originally, but I decided to drive back up to Anaheim that evening to watch the Angels and A's. Anaheim and SD are only about 85 miles apart, barely an hour and a half drive. I bought a ticket at the park. I don't remember much of the game, but I just happened sit next to two sailors (or were they marines?) that lived only a few blocks away from me back home, and who had seen me in the bleachers in Oakland. They drove up from San Diego, just like me. Small world. I found out the following year that a cousin of mine was also at that game and had seen me.

After the game, the sailors wanted to go out, so I joined them. We went to a dive bar in Anaheim, and I played video games. Yawn. They really liked baseball and were going to go to the game the next night against the Yankees, so we arranged for them to pick me up at my motel and drive to Anaheim. They never showed, but I ran into them in the bleachers restroom in Oakland the following spring. Okay, so instead of going to Anaheim, I went out on the town to a hot club I heard about from friends back home. All in all I was there two more days before returning home. My battery also died while I was there, and had to bum jumper cables, then bought some. To me, a battery was just too big an expense for a 21 year old on vacation. I spent the other two days in San Diego, checking out beaches and clubs and Mexican food joints. Box scores for Monday's game in Anaheim.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (5)

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I got to the ballpark, Jack Murphy Stadium as it was known then, before game time. The Padres were playing a double header against the Braves at 2:05pm. Fireworks were to follow the second game. I parked, and walked toward the stadium I had seen in the dark less than 12 hour earlier during a seating change. It looked different in broad daylight. Double sets of thin concrete columns arrayed around the "rounded square" shape, sloping inward as they rose toward the top of the stadium, had a distinct look. Since the lights were contained within the top row of horizontal concrete bands, there were no light towers. The overall appearance of the park was that of a spaceship from outer space. Not that it was bad, just very different from what I knew from the Bay Area. I actually liked this park and its feel.

I had an extra ticket for this day, too, so I began looking for a single who didn't have a ticket. I ran into somebody standing around outside the third base side of the ballpark. I casually approached him, fearing an undercover anti-scalping agent of some kind. He was just casually looking for somebody who had an extra ticket. So we casually agreed to casually entering the park together. He paid me on the inside. This was fine. He was a Dodger fan who lived in a coastal town half way between LA and San Diego. Nonetheless, he was good to talk to during a double header.

We had field level seats down the third base line. Not many fans were around us, as double headers had a knack for fans coming and going all day, but the seats did fill up fairly well at some point. Both games went only about 2 hours, 20 minutes. At the end of the second game, it was still very light, so the fireworks were blown off before it got dark. It wasn't nearly as much fun seeing streaks of gray smoke as it would have been to see the actual colors. It was "America's Finest City" celebration put on by Coors. I love San Diego, but they do have a knack of touting themselves as the finest city anywhere at anytime in history. I dunno about that.

Yes, this was another park I'd never seen before, but the newness of any park had worn off a bit. The awe I felt at Anaheim Stadium was superior, and I believe it would have been reversed had I seen the Murph first. But, it was still a thrill to look through that tunnel and see something completely new. After the game I left and went back to claim a room for the first time on my trip. Box scores for game one and for game two.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (4)

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Oops, here's a link to the boxscore to my first ballpark visit. With the game over, I headed out to find a motel for the night. This was about 11pm. I had tickets to a double header in San Diego the next day, starting at 2pm. San Diego is about an 85 mile drive south of Anaheim. But this is where being young and extremely naive came into play in a big way. You simply don't travel to Southern California in August without room reservations. Two out of every three families in the entire USA vacation at Disneyland or Seaworld just before school starts. I learned this the hard way.

Disneyland is only four blocks away from Anaheim Stadium, and I travelled down boulevards for miles in each direction. There are thousands of motels. "No Vacancy" was all I saw. This went on for at least an hour. I finally found one motel, and it looked dark and seedy. It was run by foreigners who obviously never watched June Cleaver clean her house on TV. The room was filthy and infested with insects, so I got my money back and split. With no light at the end of the tunnel, I decided that maybe I'd have better fortune if I hit the freeway south toward San Diego and got away from Disneyland. No such fortune. I hit every exit for 60 miles looking for a motel room. There were none. I resigned myself to sleeping in my car in a motel parking lot somewhere near Carlsbad. I dozed off for a bit, and I can only conclude that it was about 2am, when suddenly I was awakened by a noise. Okay, this was a bit creepy. I heard sirens in the distance. Then a man came flying over the concrete wall and landed right in front of my car and dashed off. Cop cars came screaching into the parking lot and chased this guy down on foot. This scared the crap out of me, and I was out of there. I had no trouble staying awake for quite a while.

So I kept going down toward San Diego, still hitting each exit. Finally I made it there, and with nowhere to go and wide awake I decided to go see where the ballpark was located. It was 3:30am. The stadium lights were on at Jack Murphy Stadium. Hmmm. I figured out that they were changing the stadium over from football to baseball. Back in those days the Padres shared the place with both the NFL Chargers and the San Diego State Aztecs college team. Sometimes the Padres' three game weekend series would have a Friday night game, then a football game on Saturday, followed by a baseball doubleheader on Sunday. I settled in to yet another motel parking lot. By this time I really had to relieve myself, so I went in the bushes in front of the car parked next to me, and fell asleep in my car.

I awoke in the early a.m. to daylight, about 7am. I looked around me and noticed that there was a family asleep in the car next to me. Whoa, was I embarrassed. I went inside the motel to see if by chance they had some kind of room. The clerk said I could wait for cancellations but that it might take a while. There were several people in line in front of me. Hours later, somebody cancelled for four days. Wahoo! I wanted to stay there longer, but it was a break. I took the room. BUT... It wouldn't be available until 2pm when maid service was done. But I had to be at the game before then. I broke down in the desert, sweated a lot and slept in my car. I needed a shower bad. I asked the clerk if he knew of any place I could shower. His only suggestion was at the beach using the shower heads to wash sand off. It was better than nothing, so I went to the beach and showered, wearing my bathing suit. How humiliating. I went to the ballpark to see the games. To be continued...

My First Ballpark Road Trip (3)

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During that first game of my road trip, I just had to take a tour of the park during the game to get a flavor of the fans and different vantage points around the place. A bleacher bum just has to go sit out in the bleachers. So I headed for left field. What I found didn't resemble anything I knew of bleachers. They weren't wooden benches (I knew this from games on TV) and they weren't even called "bleachers" either. They were like "outfield reserved" or something. I forget whether they were even general admission. All of the outfield stands at Anaheim Stadium were an afterthought, being added in the 70's for the football Rams. So the left field seats were essentially football seats, extending all the way down to ground level behind the outfield fence. Nobody could sit in the first ten or fifteen rows because they couldn't see the field over the fence.

The fans out there weren't any more enthusiastic about the game that the fans in the box seats. They just had less expensive tickets. In Oakland, I was used to fist fights several times per game, fans starting chants, heckling the visiting outfielders, etc. This was obviously not happening here. I yelled to the A's left fielder, Dave Collins at the time, just like we did in Oakland. He was "our guy," no matter how good he was. He didn't seem to much more than acknowledge that an A's fan was there in Anaheim. Oh, well. I did talk to one fan for a bit, then returned. Overall, the left field section was a major disappointment.

Anaheim Stadium was a big memory for me my first visit there. It was a large ballpark, three decks high, completely enclosed, seating 65,000. It was shaped similar to Candlestick, and the outfield enclosure was similar in that it was done for football in the 70's and the left field stands were in the end zone. Both parks' right field stands rolled in to the side line, covering right field.

After the game, I remember heading to the players exit to see the A's come out. I vaguely remember this, but I have a Mike Davis autograph on my ticket stub. I must have hit him up. It was a great night and I headed out to find a motel for the night. I will write about that, plus my time the rest of the week in San Diego, and a return jaunt to Anaheim for another game on Monday in future posts.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (2)

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As a continuation to Part 1 of this series, I'll pick up with the game in Anaheim. I had made it to Anaheim before the game started despite my car troubles. I was wearing my A's hat and I had field level seats down the first base line. They were pretty good as seats went, as they were purchased much earlier in the year. I collect ticket stubs, and the ticket wasn't an Angels ticket; rather it was a Ticketron ticket (their phone order ticket service), so it didn't even look like a baseball ticket. There was no Angels logo, and the ticket taker was kind of clumsy on the tear. He missed the perforation and ripped the ticket right down the middle. If I didn't know what the ticket was for, I'd have a tough time identifying it.

Anyway, I was alone at the game, so I had an extra ticket. I tried to sell the other one outside the park (face value was all I was asking), but it just didn't feel right, so I went in alone. The concession stands had a different feel, and sold some different (and better) items than back at home. I got a hot dog and went to my seat. I don't know if this was the trip to Anaheim where this occurred, but after putting condiments on my dog, I dropped the wrapper on the ground, just like any baseball fan would where I was from. In a half of a second, there was a worker behind me with one of those old scoop broom deals and whisked my wrapper up and scurried off. Anaheim Stadium was extremely clean and uncluttered.

As the game progressed, I couldn't help but notice the crowd. I've always loved people watching, and I always take note of the feel of the crowd at a game. Angels fans were extremely tame. There were no loudmouth fans, no hecklers, nobody pounding beer after beer. Yes, there were people drinking beer, but no drunks, nobody even a bit loose. It was relatively quiet for a baseball game, even though I would have expected Saturday night to bring out the rowdies. People dressed conservatively, and it seemed that there were relatively few people wearing Angels hats, jackets and other items. They just sat there. They were very attentive to the game, but just seemed to stare toward home plate. I did my usual and cheered wildly and loudly for the A's, but even though I was very loud, few people seemed to even care. There were no strange looks or evil eyes.

One huge difference between the Angels crowd and the A's and Giants crowds that I was used to was in the women. Okay, maybe the Orange County/Southern California stereotype was true, but there were amazingly beautiful women all over the place. There wasn't just one in the left field bleachers and one over there in the box seats, but there were hundreds of them. I saw probably more beautiful women that game than in all A's and Giants games in my entire life combined. Maybe it was just the thing to do down there in LaLa land. Who knows, but a single 21 year old male didn't complain.

More in my next post.

My First Ballpark Road Trip (1)

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My first road trip to another ballpark outside the Bay Area came in 1985 as I ventured out on vacation to Anaheim Stadium and then Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. I went south in late August, the week between the end of my summer intern job and the beginning of college classes in the fall. The future Mrs. Scott and I had broken up earlier in the year after dating for two years after the first time we met. We had planned a trip early in the year. I had turned 21 in the spring. She wanted to go to Disneyland, etc., and I wanted to go to baseball. She wasn't a fan yet. I wrote to each team for their schedule, and bought tickets for the late summer trip in advance.

She didn't accompany me on the trip, so I went alone. It was a defining time in my life, my initial adventure as an "adult." I drove south on a Saturday morning, planning on making it to Anaheim (440 miles) by late afternoon so I could see the A's play the Angels. But I was confronted with roadblock number one. Making it through the Grapevine, my car overheated in the mountains on the downhill side heading toward Los Angeles. I was stuck in the desert in 105 degree weather, after pulling off under the freeway to escape the sun. I called for a tow truck. It didn't come. A freelance roadside helper came across me and stopped. He checked under the hood and figured that I blew a radiator hose. For 40 bucks he would drive me to the nearest gas station, get the part, install it and add water to the radiator. Good deal. It took about two hours, setting my schedule back. Just as he fixed it the tow truck driver showed up and was ticked off that I told him I didn't need his services. Anyway, back on the road.

I got to Anaheim I guess about an hour before game time. Seeing the stadium for the first time was an experience. Unlike the Oakland Coliseum, which is sunk into the ground, or Candlestick Park, which is built into the side of a hill, Anaheim Stadium was built up from ground level, so appeared much higher than what I was used to. The colors were so much more pastel as well.

I really had to pee after such a long trip, so I ran in and found a men's room. What I saw in there really blew my mind. My OC culture shock had begun. There was a worker with a spray bottle polishing the urinals. Polishing urinals? What kind of place was this? I mean Candlestick's restrooms were slime pits; places to go get rid of things. Rusty plumbing, troughs full of sunflower seed shells and cigarette butts, paper towel and toilet paper strewn all over the floor, stalls you wouldn't dare sit in. But Anaheim was sparkling clean, like Disneyland, which is only four blocks away. The contrasts were startling to somebody who only knew one way of baseball things. The parking lot had rules against tailgate parties and alcohol! A game without a tailgate party? Were these people communists? But inside, there was a saloon, and you could buy hard liquor by the shot. Go figure.

I walked all around, getting a glimpse of other-worldly ballpark sights, sounds and smells. More in my next post.