One thing was sure. Regardless if I finally started to like Los Angeles, my sports allegiance would never change; I would never like the LA sports teams. In fact, most of the time, I hate them. The same can’t be said for their baseball team’s stadium. I really enjoy Dodger Stadium. Besides some of the “fans” inside it, Dodger Stadium is an old school classic; I believe it’s the 3rd oldest stadium behind Fenway and Wrigley. Never been to Fenway, but I’m guessing I’d like it there too. Enjoying Dodger Stadium is where my affection for sports in LA ends.
I don’t like the Dodgers, especially nowadays. I really can’t think of a time when I liked the Dodgers, even though that was my little league team growing up. I remember getting pissed when Kirk Gibson hit the HR, and now, with the limitless payroll putting an All Star team on the field… that’s earned them one COVID title and that’s about it. There is one thing I did like about Dodger baseball besides the stadium… Vin Scully. How good was he? We ended up driving up to the stadium entrance to take a quick picture; couldn’t get much further than that.
We were staying right down the street from the Staples Center, or the Crypto.Com arena. Apparently, they were having some sort of event, so they had all the t-shirt vendors outside. Yet, my hate for LA sports, specifically the Lakers in this case, didn’t stop me from taking pictures of my son with each of the statues outside; I even let him pick out a Kobe & Shaq t-shirt. The Shaq statue may be the coolest, since his is up in the air, hanging on the rim. Of course, there was Kareem and Magic and Kobe and West and Baylor… damn, how many legends did the Lakers have? Even some of the Kings were out there, including the Great One Gretzky. Oscar De La Hoya had one too; they’re going to need to expand soon; I’m sure there will be a statue of LeBron one day, whether or not he truly belongs in the same conversation as those others I mentioned. Do Laker fans really like this guy? Funny enough, no LA Clippers to be seen out in statue central…
What about football? Yeah, the most famous sport in the US… LA didn’t even have a football team when I was out there. The only team in town was USC, which was sort of like a professional team, since they were getting paid. But now, the Chargers and Rams share their brand new stadium; I saw it from the plane when landing, but we didn’t so past it. We did pass by USC, and also visited UCLA. UCLA had a great tribute to their athletic success over the years; we walked around that building… it was very cool.
Was there ever a Los Angeles based team that I liked? Good question; besides our recent adoption of UCLA as our college basketball team, none come to mind. I did like the 1991 Lakers when they lost to the Bulls for their first title… haha. Or the Dodgers when the Cubs beat them in the 2016 NLCS. There’s a couple. I never really considered LA a sports town, not like Chicago, although they have had plenty of success… the passion just doesn’t seem to be there, or at least that’s my impression from the late arriving, early leaving crowds; it’s more of a place to be seen then to really cheer on your teams… or maybe it’s just a traffic thing… One part of LA I did not miss is the traffic…
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