Ballpark experience number two: Los Angeles

The day after my ill-fated trip to Angels stadium, I visited the home of the real baseball team of Los Angeles. Fortunately, this game was an evening game, and I wouldn't have to deal with the ravaging California sun. I had spent all of that day lying uncomfortably in bed, dealing with some nasty sunburn; and recovering from what I suspect was a case of heat stroke.

I did manage to eat this for lunch:

Kimchi Carbonara! Me gusta mucho!

Good thing I ate a substantial lunch, cause it was quite the trek to get to Dodgers stadium. The place where the bus dropped me off was pretty far away from the actual stadium, and it was basically all uphill. Also, I really needed to go for a piss for most of my walk. There is always that big decision about whether to walk faster (but intensifying the feeling of needing to urinate), or walk slower in a zen-like state (attempting to mentally block out the feeling of needing to urinate).

With a stadium of this size, getting there is only the first half of the challenge. The second half involves trying to make your way to a toilet and then to your seat. A wrong turn can mean walking around aimlessly for nearly half an hour. Not that I know this from personal experience or anything like that...*cough* *cough*.

I got myself sorted and went in search of food. I spent about 30 minutes in a queue to get some barbecue from the Think Blue BBQ concession stand. While waiting to order, the national anthem came on. Pretty interesting to see everyone stop what they were doing (even if they were in the middle of receiving a big tray of food), turn to face the flag and take their hats off. When the anthem comes on, everything stops.

I got a beef brisket sandwich, I think. It had some pretty decent smokey barbecue flavour to it. The potato salad was pretty ordinary though and the blue cheese coleslaw was nasty (and I love blue cheese).

I also got a Dodger dog, which was pretty mediocre.

Yeah, it was probably the worst ballpark hotdog I had on my trip.

The game itself was pretty good. I was sitting facing right field, and two of the best young right-fielders in baseball were on display that night, Bryce Harper and Yasiel Puig. In the picture below, if you look past the curly-haired gentleman's head, you can see Harper chilling out in-between pitches.

I was pleasantly surprised during the seventh inning stretch that: A) most of the crowd hadn't left yet; and B) they were really getting into singing "Take me out to the ballpark". This was a much better atmosphere than the seven inning stretch in some other stadiums. I suppose this is a result of the Dodgers having a good team this year.

All in all this was a good ballpark experience. I had been a little weary after hearing a friend describe the last time he visited Dodger stadium. Apparently there were Mexican dudes yelling at each other and throwing up gang signs late in the game (after a bit of alcohol no doubt). I saw no such evidence of that, and everyone seemed to be happy and engaged.

So out of the 8 ballparks I visited , I would say that my Dodgers stadium experience ranked 5th. The stadium is not easy to get to, and the food options weren't all that great, but the crowd and atmosphere were pretty good. I didn't rank Angels stadium in the last post, but that came in 7th.