The evening of the first day of expo was spent eating exquisite American steak. The evening of the second day of expo saw my colleagues Johann and Carl eager show off something even more American to me. In other words, off to a baseball game we went!
Truth be told, I was pretty excited about this. The fact is that I do actually rather like baseball. I played it as a kid for a good number of years (go Bellville Tygers!), and even coached a girl’s softball team late in high school for fun.
(Also, there was precedent to this. I caught a profession baseball game the very first time I ever left South Africa’s shores, meaning that there was no way that I could not make the same effort given the fact that we were now in the very home of this sport!)
Our hotel turned out to be within walking distance of the Angel Stadium of Anaheim (also known as The Big A), and as luck would have it, there was indeed a game on that very evening – the Chicago White Sox were in town to take on the local boys from the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim).
So we bought the tickets (reasonably pricey of course), walked down to the stadium (on the way discovering that this part of the States actually import a lot of flowering plants from South Africa – so, so weird seeing strelitzias along the side of the road!), took some photos, and grabbed some stadium beer, before heading in to find our seats – just in time to watch the t-shirt cannon girls begin entertaining the crowd.
As for the baseball itself, the game ended up being pretty good to watch. Despite no exciting home runs being hit, the Angels managed to run in a well deserved 7-0 victory, leaving the home crowd in quite the good mood.
(Also, I have to thank the super helpful/patient local who was sitting in the seat behind me – I kept pestering him with 101 questions when it came to the stats and abbreviations on the giant scoreboard, for pretty much the duration of the game!)
A classic Americana experience at its best then. #USA2016
Related Link: Los Angeles Angels | Wikipedia | Angel Stadium of Anaheim | #USA2016