Following that awesome time in Miami, it was time to grab my stuff and make the long flight back across the country to what I guess is a “home-away-from-home” Los Angeles California to see LA’s “second team” (not at all) The Angels take on the defending Major League Baseball Champion Houston Astros (oh yeah and it was also game 30/30).
Gaining an extra three hours flying West proved to work well, as I landed at noon and quickly UBER’d North to Santa Monica to meet Bryan and Mindy and hit the “Santa Monica Brew Works” where we would wait for the rest of our crew (and usual suspects) Jesus, Nancy, Nancy’s son Gavin (another child who dresses sharper than me), Nancy’s friend from Texas Marie and familiar face and baseball buddy Fabian (who unfortunately was unable to make it to the Dodger game I went to back in May).
Given the size of our crew, Jesus went all out for us and rather than take public transport all the way down the 405 to Anaheim, our guy rented us a massive Ford SUV – certainly a great way to continue to the party all the way to the Stadium (note: Given Jesus was driving he also didn’t drink – huge shoutout and thank you for getting us there safetly)!
We were all pumped upon arrival and took our seats in the outfield to enjoy a Saturday evening of Southern California baseball (literally beautiful one day, perfect the next) at beautiful Angel Stadium.
With both teams wearing colourful “Little League” uniforms, including player nicknames on the back (where the last name would usually be) the game started off slowly with no runs being scored until the Astros gun short shot Jose Altuve blasted a solo home-run in the bottom of the third inning.
The Astros would then tighten the screws in the fifth by reeling in another 4 runs to make it 5-0 before the adding another in the seventh before some resitance came from the Angels with two runs in the bottom of that same inning.
Both teams would exchange a single run in the eighth to make it 7-3 heading into the ninth, but another run from the dominant Astros would be the final nail in the coffin as they ran out to a statement 9-3 win.
Despite the result not going the way of the home team, it was still such a great atmosphere with perfect weather in a beautiful ballpark and with some of my best mates. We got back into the SUV and headed back to the familiarity of Santa Monica and of course one of our favourite bars in Brentwood “Q’s Billiards” to end the night and celebrate life and the end of the Thirty before 30 journey.
I won’t go into too much reflection in this post about the entire journey (I’ll save it for another day), however the feeling of sharing it all and coming back to LA to finish it was a fantastic feeling (although somewhat bitter sweet).
The next day, as is tradition, we all assembled for brunch and were in bed by 6:00pm.
So with this post, the milestone has been reached and I have officially experienced a game at every Major League Ballpark in the United States (oh and Canada).
Looking forward to writing up a few more thoughts, going through the numbers and getting back to somewhat of a regular routine.
Hopefully you’ve all enjoyed reading these and getting a taste of what I’ve seen, experienced and felt – WE DID IT!!
Thirty before 30 