Angels, Dodgers Fans Share Mutual Apathy for Each Other
SoCal fans not singing Kumbaya
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June 21, 2009: Rafael Furcal of the Dodgers bats during the game with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
With both SoCal baseball teams in the League Championships, fans are wearing their colors. There's plenty of blue and red. Flags are being flown from cars. But Dodgers fans and Angel fans have not bonded in some romantic wave of baseball hysteria. Far from it.
During the Angels-Yankees game at Angels Stadium Monday, you could not find the score of the just started Dodgers-Phillies game by looking at the giant scoreboard in center field. It was not displayed. The same can be said of the Dodger Stadium scoreboard last week during simultaneously played games.
As parking lots emptied at both stadiums after games, you couldn't hear the other game blaring from cars while fans were trying to leave.
Dodger fans don't care about Angel fans. There's no hatred involved, like in New York or Chicago. They just don't care. It's not even a geography thing. The Dodgers-Giants rivalry remains intense, and those two teams are separated by 300 miles. The same can be said about the Cubs-Cardinals and of course, Yanks-Red Sox.
And in general, Angel fans don't care about the Dodgers. But that argument doesn't exactly hold after fans embraced the Angel's awkward name change a few years ago. Die hard Orange County Angel fans sat back quietly as the words "Los Angeles" were inserted into their team's name. Other than by the Mayor of Anaheim, there was barely a murmur of protest by Angel fans. Some say there must be some kind of inferiority complex by the OC over its neighbor to the north.
Here in SoCal, there is also the switchover phenomenon. Angel fans become Dodger fans and vice versa. There is never any pressure to declare oneself at an early age, like there is in New York or Chicago. And during the annual Freeway Series, hundreds of fans show up wearing clothes from both teams. It's a wardrobe malfunction of the most bizarre kind. Can you imagine showing up at Yankee Stadium wearing a Yankee hat and a Met t-shirt? You wouldn't last long before one of them was removed, most likely forcibly.
The only time Dodger fans think about the Angels is when Mike Scioscia's name is brought up. As fortunate as the Dodgers are to have Joe Torre as their manager, every Dodger fan knows it was Scioscia who should have been managing the Dodgers for the last 10 years. The inept ownership of Fox ruined what should have been destiny.
