Baseball remains one of my great conundrums. On the one hand, I admire its place in American history. There’s a rich sense of community every time you get a team together and slap a cap on. Everyone young and old has some experience with baseball in their lives. There have been great moments that symbolize greater change in social change because of baseball. And yet, it’s one of those past times that I don’t know ever became fully ingrained in me.
It is strange to consider given that I spent a lot of my early life at the ballpark. In Downtown Long Beach, there was a facility that I used to frequent to see The Riptides or The Barracudas. There was some strange loyalty to these minor teams. You came to expect the seventh inning stretch as someone passed you a box of crackerjacks. There’s a whole tradition to it that feels lifted from a Norman Rockwell mentality. I’ve taken pictures with athletes. I’ve been on fields and ran bases. Even in my teens, I was able to take in a game or two. The last time I was anywhere within the proximity was when The Rally Monkey was a regular and active mascot for The Anaheim Angels (later renamed to the ridiculous Los Angeles Angels… because we can’t have just one team in anything for some dumb reason).
But anyway… I think that baseball is one of those sports I try to feel in my bones because of how long it’s been part of my life. Unlike basketball or volleyball which I watch with a frenetic energy to every play, baseball has felt like background noise. You go less to sit on the edge of your seat than it is to lean back and talk to the beer-battered patron behind you. Maybe you’ll eventually talk about the game, but it’ll mostly be a bonding exercise. Don’t get me wrong. Fan unity is a great gift. However, baseball is by and large a sport that I struggle to watch.
A few months ago, I watched the College World Series for the first time. Maybe it’s because I am more loyal to the NCAA than MLB as a collective, but I found myself invested in these tight match-ups. I was more able to recognize my attention shifting from background noise to actual engagement. Maybe it’s because my sister’s school (Cal State Fullerton) has done very well in past years and produced Justin Turner. Long story short, it was the spark of potential that going to an actual baseball game would be what I needed to turn me back around. Given that I don’t actually root, root, root for any team as of this moment, it is an odd proposition to expect a very ritualistic sport to take hold almost immediately.
To provide some context, I didn’t go to my first MLB game since middle school because of some belief it would excite me. I was merely curious to see if certain thirsts could be quenched in a social setting. A family friend is out visiting and given that he’s European, he’s very unfamiliar with baseball. Whereas I take a lot of it for granted, he left the game with more questions than answers and there’s a good chance I’ll be trenched in The World Series before too long. However, I wanted to go and determine if anything would click at all…
Yes and no.
The game featured The Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim temporarily in Long Beach) playing The Oakland A’s. There was some kismet in going to Angel Stadium because it’s a venue I’ve known well. I went to my previous game there. I attended the Holiday Havoc concert in their parking lot. A few months ago, I graduated there. Without having much emotional attachment to the team, I wanted to believe that the venue itself would provide some warmth.
Before I dig in, I would like to say that there’s something about fandoms that are very strange from the outside. While I feel this more with musicians and actors than sporting organizations (largely because it’s less of a single hive mind), it still feels alarming to walk in anywhere and be overwhelmed with the iconography that you’re only half familiar with. I know OF Shohei Ohtani. He’s the one breakout baseball star that has been heavily featured in the press. I’m pretty sure I’ve even seen him on the cover of Time Magazine. It was poor timing on my part because there would’ve been some fun novelty to see him perform. Even then, I looked at the names in the gift shop and took stock of who I would need to watch for. Given that this was the closing weekend of the season, reality set in that I wasn’t seeing any of those guys in more than dugouts.
As someone who has developed an affection for walking around Crypto Arena before The Los Angeles Clippers or The Los Angeles Sparks games, I do understand what would make a ballpark like that exciting, especially since there’s genuine history that took place on that field. It’s where they won championships. There are decades out there to be proud of. Even if they’ll always be seen as lesser when compared to “the boys in blue,” I do think there’s something sincere about Angels fans that I wanted to enjoy but just couldn’t because, as I’ve mentioned, I didn’t know a single player.
To provide historical context, this was also poor timing for someone like me who would’ve gone just to see Ohtani. Not only was he injured, but there’s talk that he’s leaving the team. From my couch, I could laugh about how that meant everything was on discount and they’d scrub his legacy from their books.
However, I go to the game and I couldn’t have had a greater sense of appreciation for what he means to fans. Ohtani is one of the first baseball players from Japan to play in the MLB. While it probably gets taken for granted with NBA nowadays, having someone of that magnitude join an American league is a big deal. In fact, it generally made me recognize how brilliantly it tapped into a market that most national teams probably haven’t. As I entered the ballpark, not even there for more than minutes, I was surrounded by Ohtani memorabilia. There are jerseys with Japanese lettering. The population was much more diverse than even the NBA games I’ve attended. There was something heartwarming about seeing what Ohtani has done for this organization.
I’ve known that there’s an obsession with baseball in Japan. I was watching Stray Dog (1949) a few months ago and there’s a whole scene where Akira Kurosawa directs people wandering around a ballpark overseas. It’s packed. Not to say there aren’t other examples, but it proved that there’s always been a market there, and I don’t know that it’s been as recognized in earlier years. I would imagine it’s probably like seeing Rui Hachimura play and having fans who feel “seen” root him on. Even then, I don’t know that his jersey would be as omnipresent as Ohtani’s.
This is a long way of saying that I recognize the sense of community and history at Angel’s Stadium. Before I got to the field, it felt like a whole culture blossomed before my eyes. They were getting hot dogs and beer. The baseball caps were everywhere. I imagine to someone who had more “tradition” around a ballpark, this would be a thrilling moment. Or, it would be at a more optimistic time of the year since this was closing night and the best we could do was “fan appreciation night.” Even then, Ohtani got to win an MVP trophy and walk the field. Listening to the cheers again, made me wish I had any connection to what was going on.
Part of it was also that the angle of our seats wasn’t the best. We selected, impulsively, seats that were very cheap. This meant we sat way, way in the outfield where we’d get to watch the catchers run around and throw balls to adoring fans. As for the mound itself, you had to put in effort to follow most of it. These were not optimal for those who wanted to lose themselves in the technique of the action. You can sort of make out who’s on base, but even then you have to compete with beer vendors and children running over to talk with the ball boy. I’m not saying any of it is bad, but engagement in a three-hour event is something I’d like to take seriously.
All in all, my biggest takeaway was how much more baseball feels catered to the family crowd. While it’s true that every sport has that component, I felt like I saw the most parent-child combinations there just smiling and having a good time. I’m willing to believe that it’s even further generational going back to the early 20th century. Given that my grandfather was a pitcher in the minor leagues, I can see why people would want to keep the spirit alive. Though yes, I recognize that it’s probably as much the sport itself as it is having a relaxing day at the ballpark where you get to sit back and talk with the beer-battered patron behind you. It expands your sense of community more than NBA games, which move so quickly (and the venues so loudly) that it’s hard to form a thorough conversation. In fact, if I had to describe a baseball game’s pacing in one word, it would be “turgid.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing and I hesitate to wonder how I’d be speaking of the game right now if it was better competition. For what it was, there was one home run ON THE SECOND PLAY before proceeding to have seven whole innings of no runs. The one part of baseball that is unmatched in any sport is the potential for a one inning swing. I love that component and it’s probably what keeps you watching the most. However, when it’s seven innings of nothingness, it’s easy to wonder if things will ever turn around.
Ironically, the biggest moment for The Angels – and I say that as a singular stretch of time – was when I decided to go to the bathroom and take a walk. As a result, I ended up hearing the cheers of what became three runs from the lobby. I saw the third one the way I always saw them… on a TV. Fans were in line at some concession booth watching with joy. Given that this now set The Angels leading 3-1, there was some hope that, provided this went back to nothingness, would be the greatest way to end a lackluster game. It wasn’t meant to be, as Oakland came back with six runs that gave them an unfair lead. Still, you believed down to the final moments that something would turn things around. As much as I disliked the lack of action, that uncertainty kept me hopeful for a rare chance to see a ball fly into the stands.
You had the works that night. There was a DJ hyping up the crowd. Angels employees were shooting merchandise into the stands. It felt bizarre to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and not say “Root, root, root for the home team,” not realizing that was a placeholder and not a lyric. Meanwhile, in the crowd, you had fans from Oakland yelling “Sell the team!” while the guy near me was a chaos agent trying to spice up the chant. There was something fun about the audience, though it might’ve just been that there was implicit boredom at points throughout the game that required some adrenaline.
All in all, I don’t see myself as revved up by baseball as I am by basketball and volleyball. I watched games in both of those in the days surrounding the game and found them much more enjoyable. Is it simply that I’m more into a faster speed, or was it just that boring of a game? I feel like there’s also a point where the field is so big that you end up feeling disconnected from what you want to see. It’s why I’m contemplating whether going to NCAA-level games next time will be for the best. If nothing else, I feel like there’d be more of a reason to root for players I’ve never heard of before.
The one thing that was strangely fulfilling though was being able to look at the screens during the game and see people that reminded me of people. I used to podcast with someone who was a fan of The Atlanta Braves. Without seeing him, I saw people whose mannerisms reminded me of what he’d do in those situations. I’m also friends with someone who is a devoted Houston Astros fan. There is reason to feel connected to baseball, though I don’t quite feel that coked-up junkie feeling that either of them did where they have to keep an eye on every score change.
My biggest takeaway from baseball is that it’s not my favorite sport… and that’s fine! It doesn’t mean I dislike it, but it just means I’m less likely to fill the next 20 years with a lot of baseball games. I may go again to hang out with family and have a good time. I just can’t see myself going alone. Even then, I walked to the stadium and saw the crowd, and felt something both bizarre and wonderful about fans. I didn’t find any bad ones necessarily, but I think just being removed from this culture makes anything resembling obsession seem odd. Even then, to see Ohtani fans in force tap into a market that’s always been there was in itself a highlight of the night. The door prize was an Ohtani-selected kabuto (which I was saddened to learn wasn’t the Pokemon) that a lot of people wore with pride.
Odds are that if I ever talk about this again, it will be from a college perspective. It may take time if it in fact connects with me in a way that makes this appointment attendance. With that said, volleyball was a sport I didn’t care about five years ago. Now I’ve been to four games in the past month alone. It’s thrilling to watch and I only have high hopes for what comes next. Same for basketball as preseason looms on the horizon. Still, MLB is a conundrum probably because it seems cool but not enough to make me feel engaged. I’m glad that others get a lot out of it, but I’ll settle for watching it on TV where I can see everything in a much more direct way. Play ball!
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