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An offshoot/evolution of my Watts Happening rides has been my discovery/inclusion of the location of Wrigley Field and the history of the city’s true native baseball team: The Los Angeles Angels. I’ve become so enchanted with the club from an historical perspective as one of the most successful Pacific Coast League (PCL) franchises (who also played their first major league season there; followed by the next four at Dodger Stadium before moving permanently to Orange County) that I’ve gone a little crazy (don’t judge) over at Ebbets Field Flannels buying replica uniform memorabilia (a Wrigley Field groundskeeper jacket, a 1957  “Los Angeles Baseball Club” tee, and a 1935 home jersey. On top of that I joined the Pacific Coast League Historical Society — and most importantly have switched from a dismissive disdain to an entire embrace of the team’s seriously scoffed-at official name that owner Arte Moreno changed a few years back: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Many angelenos — myself included — openly mocked the new title as nothing but a marketing ploy to capture the L.A. audience — and I have no doubt that was part of it. The city of Anaheim even sued to block the switch, unsuccessfully and understandably. But now I also recognize that in my native city whose history is one overly populated with examples of a wanton disregard and destruction of its history, Moreno has boldly anchored a line to our past and rightfully secured the team to the place where it played its first games some 107 years ago.

From 1903 through 1925, the team played at the long-gone 15,000-seat Washington Park, at Hill and 8th Streets in downtown Los Angeles. Owner William Wrigley then built Wrigley Field as their home beginning in 1925 and it stood until 1966 (some accounts have it torn down in 1968). On three occasions of my Watts Happening rides I’ve visited the location, each time having discovered and shared a bit more info with the people accompanying me. My most recent one, this past May, spoke of the facts that among the many Angel greats along with those throughout the PCL two of the Greatest To Ever Play The Game — Joe DiMaggio then of the San Francisco Seals and Ted Williams of the San Diego Padres — no doubt played at Wrigley Field; DiMaggio in 1933 (the year of his PCL-record 61-game hitting streak), and Williams in his sophomore season with the club 1937, his hitting helped his team to the pennant that year.

So what? Well, if you’re asking that I can’t blame you. It was a long time ago in a place that no longer exists, in a sport you may not be as interested in as I am. But consider the legendary stature of those two, and perhaps you can realize the impact this local angle has on me. For me, it was something akin to discovering something previously thought impossible, like Michelangelo having painted in London.  See, DiMaggio’s and Williams’ amazing careers were forged far away from here, in New York and Boston. From a baseball fan’s perspective that was the other side of the world really what with the closest Major League Baseball team at that time being in St. Louis. So to suddenly learn they specifically took to our Wrigley Field — that they caught and threw and swung and ran its base paths, that they spat and swore and stole and slid — brings these mythological figures not down to earth, but down to my corner of it. These are two of baseballs most glorious gods and they played here. They. Played. Here.

Or rather, they played at what once was here.

Can you imagine having been at one of those games and bearing witness to what was to become such future greatness? Damn. Pardon the digression, but the closest I’ve ever come to doing that was in the early 1990s at the Forum in Inglewood for a tennis match. Before the main event started, two little girls no taller than the net took to the court to play a few games. I’ve long since forgotten the names of the established pro players we’d come to see exhibit their skills, but I’ll never forget the names of those unknowns who wowed the crowd: Venus and Serena Williams.

Anyone still alive who can say they saw “Joltin’ Joe” or “Teddy Ballgame” when… well, that’s almost as ephemeral a thing as the place where they were seen. After the Angels debut major league season ended in 1961, stately Wrigley Field under its signature 12-story clocktower never hosted another baseball game, and five years later in disrepair was demolished.

It’s some consolation at least that the block upon which the stadium once stood now serves the community rather than the for-profit needs of some subdividing residential developer. But it’s sadly typical that what was built there was done with little consideration for what once was and as far as I know there’s nothing to memorialize the ballpark that served a larger community so ably for so long. No sign. No marker. No commemorative plaque sits where once sat home plate to which DiMaggio and Williams and so many others strode.

And that got me thinking: Where might that base be in relation to the place today?

Looking at the satellite image of the block in Google Maps (bordered by 41st and 42nd places to the north and south, and San Pedro and Avalon to the west and east), then comparing it to images I’d found of the ballpark, the location of home plate looked to be beneath a building that’s part of a community mental health center complex standing centrally located.

I then did some entirely unscientific pinpointing on the Google Maps image using neighboring buildings as rough coordinates and at first I was heartened that the intersecting lines (seen in the upper left of image below) seemed to place the base just north of one of the building’s walls.

To verify that I remembered the awesome Historic Aerials website and sure enough I found an image of the block from 1948 (pictured at left).  But then when compared to an image on the site from 2005, indeed and sadly, home plate is underneath the structure south of my original intersection, practically equidistant between the building’s north and south facades. Darn it.

There is good news though. Drawing a diagonal line 60 feet and six inches to the north and east of home plate, shows that one can still stand outdoors where Wrigley Field’s pitcher’s mound once stood, albeit now it’s under however much parking lot pavement. Better that than a building.

You can bet on my next Watts Happening Ride, that’s where we’ll be.

After riding from Silver Lake to Seal Beach and back to downtown, before pedaling the last five miles home, I was able to catch the last remaining competitors in the Tour of California Time Trials taking place on a course stretching between Bunker Hill and the Memorial Coliseum.

I was entirely blown away by the amazing display of speed, including that of past champion Levi Leipheimer, who I was barely able to keep in frame as he whizzed past me into the turn from 1st Street north onto Main Street (click for the bigger picture):

UPDATED (5.24): For a sense of the speed involved, here’s a brief video clip of the cyclist who followed Levi. I changed street corners for more of a coming-at-ya vantage point:

Answer: A flash-flood.

It was during the Minnesota/New Orleans NFC championship game a couple weeks ago that I looked up at our livingroom’s built-in shelves and saw a long-standing decorative touch of Susan’s that made me realize not only who was going to win that game, but who was going to win the big one they’ll be playing in later today:

Geaux Saints!

Well, no surprise: All the offerings to the Rose Bowl Fairy didn’t work and instead of magically being delivered tickets and watching Alabama battle Texas in person in Pasadena I was instead forced to listen to the first half of last night’s BCS Championship game at the Rose Bowl via the Sirius Satellite Radio app on my iPhone while biking home across town.

It was better than nothing, which I can’t say about the way Alabama started out.

I was leaving the office when Bama Coach Nick Saban inexplicably called for a 4th-and-long fake punt deep in their own territory that was entirely botched, and I was on Ballona Creek after Texas scored first blood only to have Bama’s kickoff receiving team somehow forget that you have to catch the ball when it’s booted to you.

Those first few miles I’m pretty sure I rode with my mouth hanging open and my eyes wide wondering who these imposters were and what had been done with the kickass football team that I so irrationally live and die for and defend against all haters and deniers, especially certain sportswriters at the institutionally anti-Bama biased Los Angeles Times such as Chris Dufresne — who spent the season chronically knocking and dismissing them. Even after Alabama so dominantly beat Florida for the SEC Championship Dufresne ridiculously cited Texas’ undefeated and historical record of 7-0-1 against Alabama as good reason why he thought the Longhorns would be triumphant. To him I say Ha! Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. HahahahahahaHAhaHA. And HA!

But back to me biking home in horror. In the midst of all my gaping apoplectica, Texas QB Colt McCoy sustained some sort of phantom arm injury that was enough to send him out of the game and I was forced into STFUing the chorus (one of whom will undoubtedly be Dufresne) who would no doubt qualify and excuse an Alabama victory by saying how there’s no way the Tide would have had a chance had McCoy not been so unceremoniously forced into early retirement.

“Yeah well, then Texas should think about building their programs around players who aren’t so easily bruised!”

I’m pretty sure I said that out loud somewhere in Culver City.

At the beginning of the second quarter when Heisman Trophy-winning Alabama Running Back Mark Ingram punched into the endzone to take the lead back from Texas, “Roooooolll Tiiiiiiiiiiiiide!” was another thing I said much louder (accompanied by some serious fist pumps) and much to the concern and confusion of the motorists and pedestrians in my immediate vicinity while stopped at the intersection of Venice and National.

I was equally if not more demonstrative as they just kept rolling to a score of 24-6 and in in the midst of halftime I arrived at home to then watch the rest of the game with the Alabama baseball cap that I’ve had since 1992– the last year my Tide won the national championship — firmly on my head (when I wasn’t waving it in the air).

Texas never said quit and came back to make it a game against a Tide that quit rolling and flattened out until finally rising back up to seal the victory.

And when the final seconds of the fourth quarter ticked away and game announcer Brent Musberger intoned “The Alabama Crimson Tide Are National Champions,” yeah… I got choked up.

And stayed up well past my bedtime reflecting on their perfect season.

UPDATE (3:43 p.m.): I brought my Bama hat to work today, carrying it attached to the outside of my backpack, and wearing it in the office. A coworker asked me if I’d have it on today if Alabama had lost.

“Without doubt,” I said. “Maybe not as proudly, but with equal reverence and greater determination.”

It doesn’t help when I don’t read the Sunday paper or turn on the TV beyond an episode of “Nip/Tuck.” I’m just now at this late date finding out that Alabama running back Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night, becoming the first Crimson Tide player in the history of the storied program to attain the highest college football honor.

From the CNN.com report:

“Alabama has won outright or shared 10 national championships dating back to 1925, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Web site, but before Saturday no Crimson Tide player had ever won the sport’s most prestigious individual award.”

What a remarkable year for my favorite college football team, and a marvelous achievement for one of its key players. I’m just blown away.

For the last two college football seasons I’ve endured LA Times sportwriter Chris Dufresne’s snide anti-Alabama bias. Throughout the 2008 season, even though the Crimson Tide amassed a 12-0 record, he veritably — and rightly — predicted an SEC Championship mauling at the hands of the Florida Gators. Bama went on to the Sugar Bowl to lose to Utah, a source of pain for me and a source of validation and hilarity for Dufresne.

It was the same again this year. Early on he predicted another perfect regular season — not out of respect for Alabama, but out of disrespect for their schedule. In his weekly rankings, the Tide crept up slowly never rising  higher than 4th, despite always being ranked 1,2, or 3 in various national polls. And in the end, he said,  Alabama would be Sugar Bowl-bound after meeting up with the Gators and going home the SEC Championship losers once again.

Well that vindicating end came yesterday and my Tide proved Dufresne dead wrong by swamping and drowning the Gators, 32-13.

And this morning in his report does Dufresne even come close to saying “Wow!” or admitting he didn’t see that coming?

Nah. He just wonders what all the noise is about.

So I grabbed a cuppa coffee and told him why:

You ask “What’s all the screaming about?”

Well if you heard any noise coming from the Silver Lake area Saturday afternoon it was me as a Bama fan exulting, not to mention turning out the lights on the last two years of your deathlessly dismissive snark.

Sure, you’ve been saying all along that the winner of the SEC was going to play in the national championship, but you were also saying all along that it would never be Alabama. That even if they kept winning, they’d eventually meet Florida and — last verse, same as the first — repeat last year’s defeat.

It would have sincerely surprised me this morning if I’d read any sort of apology — not to Alabama, oh hell no! But to your readers for leaving them so unprepared for what happened in Georgia last night.

But of course you didn’t. Instead, in the wake of such a definitive start-to-finish upset victory the best you could admit — and probably painfully — was that the Tide “soundly defeated” the Gators. Then to make yourself feel better you had to lamely cherrypick from Nick Saban’s post-game comments and giggle about its pro tone. Finally to justify the Longhorns’ tickets to Pasadena you had to go and weakly reference our 12-10 win over Tennessee as some sort of comparison to the victory Texas squeaked by with last night.

Yawn. Of course you did.

And of course you’ll be forced to move Alabama up in your rankings this week, but any higher than one spot to No. 3 (behind TCU and Texas no doubt) and I’ll be shocked!

-Will Campbell

UPDATED (9:45 a.m.): Dufresne digests my email and comes back with — surprise! — a characteristic self-servingly obtuse response:

I should apologize that my No. 4 team, Alabama, beat my No. 2 team?

Ok, then, Im [sic] sorry.

Chris Dufresne
chris.dufresne@latimes.com
@DufresneLATimes

Loser says what?

I’ve had this hat since 1993, the last time Alabama won  the national championship.

For the most part, growing up in Los Angeles college football is all about USC and UCLA. For me since I was 7 years it has aways been about Alabama.  The Crimson Tide.

My fantasy when I walked on the Beverly Hills High School football team at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school in the fall of 1979? It was to get a scholarship to play as starting tight end for Coach Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama.

My neglible skills on that junior varsity team relegated me mostly to the bench, but throughout that nonchampionship season spent mostly being a tackling dummy in practices and keeping the sidelines warm during games, I never let go of my dream, at least not until the end of the season when the most important thing to the coach wasn’t my growth as an athlete or my return next year, but rather my return of the uniform ,  failure of which would subject me to a $150 charge. Asshole. But hell, it was Beverly Hills in the early ’80s. Everyone was an asshole when I was in high school.

It was a good thing I eventually did loosen my grasp on the fantasy. Had I remained a football player and even if I’d somehow managed to rise above to a greater scholarship-worthy skill set, it would have all been for naught.  Because in my senior year of high school, Coach Bryant announced his retirement and then up and died a few months later.

Still I was heartbroken. I would never play for The Bear.

But I’ve always been the President of Alabama’s west coast fan club, the ranks of which include me. And my mom, who is an Alabama alum — which is the foundation of my rabidity for its football program. Having never known my abandoning father nor what school he might have rooted for, Paul Bryant became something of a surrogate for me. I’d watch whatever games were broadcast here in Los Angeles and I’d study images of him on the TV screens.

And I wanted him to be proud of me.

I’m writing all this because besides me and my mom most Southern Californians don’t give much of a shit for the fact that Alabama played the Florida Gators today for the SEC Championship. And though few people outside of that great state had any hopes that they’d upset the top-ranked team in the country led by holy-rolling quarterback Tim Tebow, ‘Bama ended up righteously kicking some motherfucking Gator ass: 32-13.

Holy shit, indeed.

Throughout the telecast, I yelled. I shouted. I cried. I cheered. I bitched. I moaned. I lost my voice. I stomped. I tromped. I got sideways glances from my wife and every creature in the house with my antics. But even I didn’t expect the victory to be so lopsided in a game I tweeted at various points from start to finish (after the jump, if that sorta thing interests you):

(more…)

I’ve been an L.A. City golf course reservationista pretty much for as long as I’ve been a bad golfer, which takes us on a trip via the wayback wagon to 2002.

In all that time, the city-issued cards have been pretty much the ugliest most utilitarian things I’ve ever carried in my wallet, compounded hilariously by the graphic which depicts a duffer whose crotch-level hand location allows one to easily mistake him to be fighting with his fly rather than putting to save par.

But not anymore! As evidenced via my expiring one up top and the new one that came in the mail yesterday below, clearly even in these troubled economic times someone in the Recreation & Parks Department either found the greens fees needed to hire a graphic artist or maybe had a cousin and an old version of Photoshop dress up the cards gratis.

Either way: huge improvement — unlike my golf game, which will be in evidence at the Los Feliz 3-par sometime this weekend, perhaps joined by my friend Joseph Mailander if things work out.

I got all hyped up about the Tour of California coming to town and with it the greatest field of professional cyclists ever gathered together in the United States and decided to volunteer as a course marshal. While I’d been hoping to be positioned somewhere around the Rose Bowl, instead I was assigned to marshal the section of street in front of 4318 Commonwealth Avenue in La Cañada-Flintridge, some four miles away from the stadium. This actually worked out better. Since there weren’t many other spectators other than a few residents and my fellow marshals, my duties consisted of me having to do not all that much but stand in my orange volunteer shirt and cheeer them on when they passed.

So I set up my spare cam on a mailbox across the street and captured just that as they whizzed past.

UPDATED (9:55 p.m.): After a meticulous frame-by-frame review of the footage I found what seems likely to be legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong looking over to say hey to me as he pedals past, and me totally ignoring him (annotated and clickable for your enjoyment):