GO: Dodger Stadium

The other night I went to my first Dodger game in more than a decade
with my very special b/f whom I love to death. Yeah, my best friend, Francine.
Who else did y'all think?

Going to a baseball game was surprisingly a very pleasant experience. Quite
relaxing with gorgeous views and balmy weather. The Dodgers played the
Milwaukee Brewers. Francine and I both didn't know in which state Milwaukee
existed. It's one of those cities that you know in the back of your head and
vaguely assign as being in one of those "middle states." Anyway, the Dodgers won 6-1 or something like that.

I always deemed baseball as the most boring sport on the planet. More dull than watching
curling on television. And I thought it would be the same watching it live
but au contraire it was actually exciting and it went by way faster than I
expected. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the Brewers weren't at bat for
very long in each inning. Additionally, to kick the whole experience up a notch, Francine and I kept cheering on the team FOB-style. Only in public do we like to embarrass ourselves.

Of course, any time I find myself in new, unfamiliar territory, I
automatically commence to do some fieldwork and do a cursory
anthropological analysis of the people-group I encounter. At Dodger stadium, I found
myself in an peculiar, eclectic crowd I don't usually find myself in: clean-cut white high school baseball jocks either with their airhead, belly-exposing girlfriends or with their
beer-bellied aging fathers; Latinos (a lot of them, young and old); a
handful of Asians, who mostly looked Korean (hey, if you didn't hear the
news, Chan-ho is playing in Texas); old, wrinkly single white bachelors who look like
they split their time between hard plastic chairs and bar stools); and rich
white people.

Francine and I gradually made it down to each level until we found
ourselves sitting behind home plate thanks to her friends, who also happened to be at the same game, hooked us up. Each level was a new visual revelation, offering a uniquely different view of the field and the environs. Furthermore, the lower you go the whiter
it gets. When we were sitting in our final destination, where season
ticket holders get to hear the crack of the bat, I was struck by the people
who sat there - mostly middle-aged white men who look like they make a lot of
money and raise families in La Cañada. Muy interesante, I thought. See, even a
baseball stadium offers rich opportunities to study socieconomic
differences. But I must make a disclaimer: this is in no way even close to
what an anthropological ethnography looks like, in particular because of the very un-PC vernacular I'm using.

I recommend that all catch a game this summer in lovely Chavez Ravine where, by the way, many Latinos were displaced from their homes in order to build the stadium back in the days. But that's a whole 'nother matter. Anyway, you can get cheap tickets for as low as $6 but watch out, parking is $10!!! And food is a rip-off so eat before you get to the game. And try to resist the temptation to get the garlic fries. They suck. Expensive mediocre food + Expensive parking = Hence the 4 stars instead of 5.

I plan to go as often as I can this summer (instead of the perennial Hollywood Bowl; I know that crowd too well). I have free ticket vouchers to use up. If you wanna come, all you have to do is give me a buzz.

::4 stars::