I can count the number of baseball stadiums I’ve been to on one hand, but I’ve been to two of the best: AT&T and PNC. I’ve also been to the ~objectively~ worst, obviously. I decided to further put off my final papers for school and head over to Angel Stadium to catch Thursday’s game. Here are my thoughts:
Parking: Yeah, I’m taking this from the top. We got to the game about an hour early, and had no problem finding parking in the lot that surrounds the stadium. We forked over the 10 bucks to park there, but there were also a number of $5 options within walking distance of the stadium.
Outdoor Aesthetic: Angel Stadium looks great from outside. It has enormous cap and bat structures out front, giving the stadium an almost amusement park-like feel (fitting that it’s only minutes away from Disneyland). Much like AT&T Park, the ramps to walk up to the higher levels are external and zig-zag up the side of the building. You get a nice view of the halo-ed “A” from the ramp.
Indoor Aesthetic: They’ve done a nice job covering the inner corridors with player images and stats—it’s very immersive. You can see the game action from almost all of the indoor areas, and it wasn’t too crowded to walk around leisurely. Angel Stadium also has a couple of fountains. One is the infamous center field giant, from which many flares were shot. The other is this whimsical “A” shaped one out in the center field concourse:
Seating: I paid $8 for my ticket, so it’s hard to beat that. I sat in deep right field, which for the most part was great. However, much like the plaza reserved section of the Coliseum and some areas of the bleachers, the outfield wall was below and slightly behind the front row, so I couldn’t see many of the warning track plays. Luckily, they had adequate scoreboards to see replays. It didn’t look like anywhere else would have an obscured view.
Food: The poll I included in the game thread names the famous Angel Stadium dishes, but none dominated enough for my meat-eating friends to give it a try. We did get some delicious garlic fries and a classic hotdog. It looked like most main dishes cost $10-12, and there were a number of vegetarian options (will have to go back for the mac n’ cheese) as well as helmets full of nachos, etc. The Angels clearly have not followed Dave Kaval’s lead in lowering beer prices: everything was at least $12, though they did have a variety of local brews. One especially helpful element was periodic concourse directories labeled by food type. Also, the lines for food were very reasonable.
Overall, I’d say Angel Stadium is a reasonable park with some frilly features, and was definitely worth the trip.