At the stadium tonight I was pleased to see Angels' team Presidents John Carpino and Dennis Kuhl milling about the stadium. No word on if they had been sent out on rat-trap duty.
Meanwhile Kendry Morales was up from AAA with a bang - save for the dextrous glovework of Vernon Wells. How the Angels cannot find this kid playing time is mind-boggling. Injuries to other Angels, however, will take care of his bench-time.
The pregame program featured an a capella rendition of Oh Canada prior to the Star Spangled Banner and the jumbotron played trivial pursuit cheat for us, displaying the authors of each song. Francis Scott Key has company in the person of Calixa Lavallée.
For all of the flak that the casual fans get, I have noticed that plenty of us season seat holders get a bit jaded about some simple plays and tonight seemed quite heavy on the impassioned novice set in attendance, and they all were into the game and asking good questions and cheering loud for players.
While internet message boards love to snark on the newbies - especially people claiming that Angels fan culture is entirely bandwagoning newbies - the truth is we were all just getting into baseball at one point or another in our lives and without people coming out to the game in spite of their casual commitment (in other words, they are not baseball nerds), these are the people that keep our ticket prices cheaper and help pay Vlad's salary. The joke about calling the Angels' fan base newbies is that Oakland would have a thriving payroll and deeper team if they could afford it, but other than the rabid scabies playing drums and rehearsing for Raider Nation moments, their games have nobody besides the hardcore base in attendance, and that makes replaing each player hangnail that much more difficult.