Pickin' Splinters
Rochester's Independent Sports Source
Wally & Fam’s excellent summer vacation featured 8 days in SoCal. If you asked the Fam, the best part of the trip were the 3 days spent at the happiest place on earth with Mickey, Goofy, Pooh and pals. As you can see, Wally trains the youngsters early to be aggressive when seeking celebrity autographs.
After Audrey tried to sack Tigger, I thought they were gonna call security and throw us out. All in all, great fun was had by all at Disneyland, California Adventure, and Hurricane Harbor.
Now if you ask Wally what he liked best about the trip … it’s no contest … our ventures to Dodger Stadium and the Big A take the prize. Here’s a sign welcoming us and our friends the Mergen’s to the Dodger game.
The Braves were in town and the Dodgers were having trouble scoring runs. Here’s me and Audrey cheering on the LADs.We loved Dodger Stadium.
The third oldest stadium in MLB is in great shape and sits majestically up on a plateau in a scenic setting called Chavez Ravine. Dodger fans arrive late and leave early, but they still packed the house between the 3rd and 8th innings. A very curious trait, but i’ve got to think the omni-present traffic jams are partially to blame. Not real easy to get to Dodger Stadium.
On the other hand, there’s the Big A in Anaheim, which I think we all liked better.
Easy to get to, very fan-friendly, and a much broader range of food selections. Tickets also seemed more reasonably priced. The Big A is now the fourth oldest park in MLB if my calculations are correct. It is in terrific shape. The highlight of the day was probably oldest daughter Sarah nabbing a screaming one-hopper batting practice ball in right field.
The Angels put a pretty good beating on the Tampa Bay Rays. Ervin Santana pitched a nifty complete game in a breezy 2:15.
New Blog Post: Mickey, Minnie, Manny & Vlad https://pickinsplinters.com/2009/08/16/mickey-minnie-manny-vlad/
Wally
Great stuff – love to see the pictures of the family. Thanks for sharing.
Wally! This is terrific!! I, personally, like the pictures of Audrey with the characters!!! Those 3 days would have been my favorites also! Loved it!
Wally – Great stuff! Dodger Stadium is one of my favorite stadiums. I was shocked at how good of condition the stadium is, considering when it was built. Have ticket prices gone up though? When I was there, it cost us $5 to sit in the outfield bleachers.
I agree with you about why people show up late to the games. The infrastructure to get cars in and out of the stadium is lacking – big time. My brother and I made it a point to get there very early to avoid the traffic, but we still caught it.
Personally, I didn’t like the Big A as much, but I think our seats had something to do with it. People were constantly walking in front of us.
Looks like a fantastic trip. Thanks for sharing!!
This latest baseball odyssey got me thinking about which major league cities I haven’t attended a game in. Haven’t been to: Oakland, Arlington TX, St Louis, Colorado, Detroit, Philly, Pittsburgh, Florida, Baltimore, Boston or the NY Mets. That’s about it. Now some of the games I’ve attended haven’t been to the new parks … for instance, I saw the Brewers at County Stadium and the Twins at the old Met. How in the world I haven’t seen the Cardinals yet at Busch is kinda inexplicable. Really want to see a game at Fenway before it’s too late. Camden Yards, too.