This was basically an impromptu summer trip that my wife Leigh and I decided on a couple of days prior to going; the kids are now old enough to stay home for a night on their own, and we left them with strict instructions to walk the dog, be nice to each other, and not spend too much on Door Dash. I think they enjoyed it WAY more than they would have enjoyed two baseball games over the span of 18 hours, with 14 hours of driving bookending the trip. But that sounded like ballpark Shangri-la to me. Anaheim is about seven hours, with some stops, from our house in the Bay Area. Once I saw that the Detroit Tigers would be visiting, it seemed like a prime opportunity to get back to a ballpark that I haven’t seen in about 15 years. The last time I was here, it was while chaperoning a Journalism Education Association high school convention in 2008. I went via bus with few adviser friends, including C.E. Sikkenga and Rod Satterthwaite, to see the (Los Angeles) Angels (of Anaheim) beat the Seattle Mariners on a Friday night in April, 5-4. Rod reminded me that we received Mike Scioscia bobbleheads that evening. I have moved three times since then, and I’m not entirely sure where mine might be.

In case you’re interested, the Angels ended up winning 100 games that season, eventually losing to the Red Sox in the playoffs. This particular 2008 game was a quick one, finishing in just 2:21, featured Ichiro hitting leadoff for the Mariners and Vlad Guerrero, Sr. batting third for the home team. Neither superstar did much that day. Richie Sexson hit two home runs and drove in all four Seattle runs in a losing effort. Torii Hunter had three doubles and three RBI for the Angels. Joe Saunders pitched eight innings to pick up his third win early in the season, and Francisco ‘K-Rod’ Rodriguez closed it out in the ninth for the seventh save of his all-time-record 62 that season; I didn’t realize that until I looked it up just now. No one else has ever recorded more than 57 saves in a season. K-Rod also pitched for the Tigers at the back end of his career and interestingly, the Long Island Ducks in 2018. But despite 437 career saves (sixth most all time), he only received 10 percent of the Hall of Fame vote in 2023, and 7 percent in 2024.

Fast forward to the current season, during which I’ve now seen the Tigers play five games in three different ballparks (Comerica, Chase Field, and here in Anaheim). They are 3-2 with me watching in person, and I’m hoping to get to games later this summer in both San Francisco and Oakland. This is, no research necessary, the most I’ve seen them play in…a long, long time.

The drive down was not super-trafficky, as it often can be on the stupid I-5, which is in California but still somehow the nation’s worst highway. But it was Saturday, so traffic was relatively light. In Gilroy, we stopped for one of those “25 avocados for a dollar” signs, but this one had been updated to read “25 avocados FOR FREE.” I mean…how could you resist? It did require a $10 purchase, so we bought a bag of garlic popcorn and a bag of garlic corn nuggets for the ride down. As an added bonus, the jeep smelled lovely. And, of course, by the time we made it BACK to our home on Sunday, the 25 avocados were pretty much past their prime. Oh well. Still a good stopping point, and an easy way to make use of a roadside outhouse.

We had booked a hotel, the Ayres, about a mile away from the ballpark, so we were able to park there for free and walk maybe 20 minutes or so to the game on Saturday. There isn’t a ton going on around the stadium, but it’s a safe walk and I always like avoiding paying 20 bucks to park.

It was “Christmas in June” weekend, which meant free Santa hats on Saturday. They’re fun, but apparently made for the heads of toddlers instead of actual adults. I was able to squeeze my noggin into one for about 30 seconds before my brain felt overly compressed. They also photoshopped all of the players on the scoreboard so that they were wearing goofy winter hats, which were guaranteed to make me laugh every single time. Leigh also thought they were cute, but for some reason I found them UNBEARABLY cute, and kept pointing them out, after each batter. “Look at Gio Urshela!” I’d say, or “Oh my gosh, look at Colt Keith!” I did that a lot. I must have been in the Christmas spirit.

We also found dozens of Santas sprinkled throughout the ballpark; every older dude with a big beard within a hundred miles of Orange County was mysteriously drawn to the stadium that evening. One of them sang Christmas carols with the house band stationed out beyond the right field bleachers. A bunch more were available for photo opportunities behind that big rock waterfall structure.

Angel Stadium gets sort of a bad rap for being an older, not-super-interesting ballpark. And quite frankly, it IS both of those things, but it’s also a pretty enjoyable place to see a game. I recently watched one of those AI-generated video clips of MLB’s worst stadiums, which had it ranked 30th, I think, just ahead of the Coliseum and the Trop. Of the parks I’ve seen, I’d put it ahead of Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago and ‘new’ Yankee Stadium, which is way more antiseptic-feeling than Angel Stadium is. It’s got a certain old-school, retro charm to it. For one thing there are those ushers wearing those old-time hats (what are those called? Pork Pie hats? Carnival barker hats? You know the ones I’m talking about). They, and most everyone else at the ballpark, are super polite and helpful.

The stadium is also probably the cleanest one I’ve been to; wrappers and spilled beers and mustard stains are non-existent. And the fans, despite the fact that the team seems perpetually bad these days, is surprisingly supportive and enthusiastic. It was fuller and louder than I expected, for a team that’s floundering again and missing its biggest star (again). WAY louder than Chase Field in Phoenix, which I visited last month and is enclosed. All things considered, if I lived nearby, I’d likely go to a lot of games here.

Not only that, but it’s CHEAP, and that’s not something that we say in California very often. For Sunday’s game, I bought two resale tickets for six bucks a piece, including fees. For this particular game, it was relatively easy to sit in just about any section we wanted. Since we had to check out of the hotel, we found a parking lot for 10 bucks that was an easy walk. We found $12 nachos that were some of the best I’ve ever had, and now rank as perhaps my greatest ballpark food value.

Speaking of food, we ate pretty good both days. I love going to games with my wife because we can split something and decide if we like it enough to go back or go elsewhere. We first tried the Garlic Chicken Mac-n-Cheese Bowl ($14) from Craft Mac, which included teriaki glaze, sriracha aioli and green onion. The mac was perfectly cooked (and perfect for sharing). Toward the end of Saturday’s game I wanted to try the hot dog ($8) made by Hoffy, which I had never heard of before. It was just OK; the bun was a little crusty and the dog wasn’t bad.

On Sunday we found the aforementioned nachos at Chronic Taco and I’ve been thinking about them a lot ever since then. This was a MOUNTAIN of chips, chicken, cheese, pico de gallo, guacamole, jalapeños and sour cream, and all of it was fabulous. Don’t bother with the commemorative helmet version, which I think was 10 bucks more. This one is more than enough, even for two people. Finally, we felt it was incumbent upon us to try the warm-baked chocolate chip cookies from Cathy’s Cookies on our way out. It’s set up in a food truck section outside of the stadium, on the first base side. When we strolled over, there was a pretty serious line and we wondered out loud if it was worth it for cookies. “Oh, it’s worth it,” the woman in front of us said. “It’s definitely worth it.” They were excellent; warm and gooey, but almost TOO gooey, as they sort of melted together.

As for the on-the-field action, on Saturday we saw the Tigers lose a rough one, 6-5 in 10 innings, after leading 5-2 in the sixth. Both of these teams, right now, just aren’t very good, although the Angels’ win was their sixth in a row and fans were feeling pretty good. That may have been the high point of their season, however, as the streak ended with a Tigers’ victory on Sunday and they have gone 1-8 since then.

Sunday’s game, a 7-6 victory for Detroit, was a 7-1 laugher until the ninth inning, when the Angels scored five runs to make it very interesting. It also featured an incredible inside-the-park home run by Tigers’ rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy, who flew around the bases to just beat the relay. His slide included a face-plant that left some cuts on his chin. it was the Tigers’ first inside-the-parker since Victor Reyes in 2021, and the first at Angel Stadium since Tommy La Stella hit one in 2019. There have now been five inside-the-park jobs in the majors this season: Malloy, Elly de la Cruz, Stuart Fairchild, Wyatt Langford and Jackson Chourio. As far as I can remember, it’s the first time I’ve seen one in the majors in person, although as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I nearly saw one in Arizona last month and I did see one in the minor leagues in Modesto last year.

We also had a chance to chat with a bunch of Tigers’ fans during both games. On Sunday our initial seats were a row in front of a fabulous family with roots in Michigan: Shelly, who graduated from Farmington Hills Harrison High School a few years before I graduated from nearby Farmington High School, was there with her nephew Trevor, who grew up in Rochester Hills (and was sporting a sweet shirt featuring Alan Trammell’s 1984 Topps trading card), and his cousin Jack, who is from Dearborn. All three now live in Southern California but still follow Detroit teams regularly, including the Tigers and the Lions; they even have a local Lions’ bar where they catch games. Trevor and Jack both work in “The Industry,” as Shelly called it, with a laugh. “Did I say that right?” she asked both of them. They nodded and smiled. Later, when we moved to the second deck behind home plate, we chatted with another Michigander who went to Leigh’s high school in Romeo, MI and is friends with her brother Brad. This is perhaps the best thing about catching your favorite team on the road: if you stop to talk to anyone else in the ballpark wearing similar gear, it’s likely you’re connected to them in some way.

Ahhh, baseball. It connects us all, doesn’t it?