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   These certainly can be no argument that these days are great days to be baseball fan in Southern California, well, at least those north of San Diego, where the Padres are putting their fans through baseball hell. And, up north, the Oakland A’s have done their fans (all 1,500 of them) a disservice by quitting on the season at the All Star break despite still being in the division and wild card race.  The less said about the giants the better, although I can describe them to you. I’d tell you that to get an idea of the San Francisco Giants, go to your local municipal park on a Sunday afternoon and watch the high school wannabes who tell you about their “Glory Days” and get together and play at the park and embarrass themselves while drowning in their sorrows with a keg of beer in the dugout, and you’d see the Gi-Aints.
  But here in the Southland, well, even the most ardent biased East Coast honk and Midwest Cub lover would tell you that, at the moment, the Angels are the best team in baseball. The addition of Mark Teixiera to an already solid team with great pitching makes them a real threat to not only advance to the World Series but favorites to win it all. As for the Dodgers, who compete in the aptly nicknamed National League Worst, they got a boost to their title hopes and to their credibility when future Hall Of Famer, and one of the most complete hitters in the game today, Manny Ramirez, fell into their laps just before the trade deadline. The addition of Ramirez should put the Dodgers over the top in the West and, with their pitching and the fact that the National League’s best team, the Cubs, are maybe the most famous chokers in sports, the Dodgers could end up in the World Series themselves. And wouldn’t that be something, an East Coast nightmare, a Freeway Series between the Angels and Dodgers! Something that I could only have dreamed as when I grew up as an Angel fan could actually come true.
   The Los Angeles baseball teams have always been a rivalry only in the geographic sense because even though I have never been a Dodger fan, I have great respect for their tradition. Even though it is one of the oldest stadiums around, I must admit that on the rare occasions I visit Dodger Stadium, I can’t help but be overwhelmed when you first step into the stadium and see that gorgeous mountain backdrop as you walk in, and as night falls, the lights of downtown Los Angeles shine for all to see. For many years, the dodgers were the standard for LA sports, while the Angels, despite the efforts of their beloved owner, the late Gene Autry, a poorly run joke of an organization that was as faceless and obscure as any organization in sports, They drew poorly, and whenever they signed a “big name”, it was usually a fading star in his late 30’s waiting to cash out a big paycheck while contributing nothing. Well, in other words, kind of what the Dodgers are doing now! They and their fans suffered from the ugly stepchild syndrome of never being the Dodgers, and the fact is, while they are lights year better now and have the better organization, they could win 5 World Series titles in a row and still not be more popular than the Dodgers. The Dodgers’ arrival in the late 1950’s showed everyone that Los Angeles was now a major sports city. They will always be the big brothers; a fact Angel fans may hate but know is true.
  But, as the Angel success has grown, the bitterness of Dodger fan has become, well, rather obnoxious, arrogant, and downright sickening. Tune in to hear any Los Angeles sports talk show, and Dodger fans will deride any Angel fan as being bandwagon, only around since their World Series title in 2002, and say that any Angel fan who says he is a lifelong supporter of the team is liar. They all seem to truly believe that any Angel Fan became a follower of the team only out of hate for the Dodgers, like that of a Clipper fan who hates the Lakers, and that when the pendulum of power swings back to the Dodgers, all bandwagon Angel fans will scurry back to Chavez Ravine in support of the REAL Los Angeles team. They have the perception that being an Angel fan began in 2002, that there is no real fan base, no tradition, that this rise in popularity is just a passing phase.
  I have news for those Dodgers fans.  The Angels have been good for a long time. Sure back in the days of co habiting Dodger stadium and the early years of the Big A were mostly marked by ineptitude and a lot of fans dressed as seats. And, like Clipper games, big crowds mostly came to see their favorite out of town team. And, playing close to nearby Santa Ana, with maybe the highest Latino population in the United States, the team never targeted them as an audience, and only recently put Spanish speaking broadcasts on the air.
  But the Angels have a tradition. Most talk show callers, those Dodger fans who love to spew their anti Angel rhetoric, love to claim thy are “life long Dodger fans”, and are probably between the ages of 25 to 35 years old. That would mean they were born in the mid seventies, for the most part.
  The Angels became a respected, winning franchise when they won their first division title in 1979. Since then, they have won 6 division titles, a World Series, and been in the ALCS twice. They have established a core fan base, a rather large fan base.
  One of the most amazing things about the Dodgers is their ability to draw fans, they regularly draw over 3 million fans a year, and it is a tribute to their loyal fans and great marketing.
  I’m not usually a big numbers person, but in order to dispute the absolute crap that Dodger fans love to say about “bandwagon Angel fans”, there are some rather impressive numbers. Since 1979, the Angels have drawn less than 2 million fans only 5 times. They have drawn less than 2.5 million fans only 9 times. They have drawn over 3 million fans the last 5 seasons, and you have to keep in mind that Anaheim Stadium has been downsized to 44,000 seat capacity, so they regularly fill more than 90% of their capacity.
  My point about using 1979 as a starting point is that it tells you that since this organization started to put out a respectable product, it shows that the fans they have now, mostly in that 25 to 40 year old age group, have also been LIFE LONG Angel fans. Their kids grew up Angel fans. They may or may not like the Dodgers, but their main link is their affection for the Angels. It is supremely arrogant of any Dodger fan to think that Dodger hate drives Angel fan. Maybe a guy like Dave Smith feels that way, but when I go to the park, I see a lot of younger fans in my daughter’s 17 year old range there, all with Angel gear and ardent fans. Their favorite players are named Kendrick, Figgins, Hunter, Guerrero, and K Rod is their idol. Garret Anderson is a life long Angel.
  When they go to a game, they cheer their team, they don’t keep track of the Dodger game hoping that they lose. They could care less. They hate the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Oakland A’s. To them, the Dodgers are another team in Los Angeles that is in the other league. From what I hear from people who go to Dodger games, they are the ones who cheer when the Angels lose. They criticize Angel fans as being soft, but only because they see the shift in power. Drive around and see all the people in Angel red, or vehicles with the big “A” with the halo sticker. No, it’s not an Angel town, and never will be.
  But the Angels are here to stay. Go to a game. See people of all races, including the black faces and brown faces crossing into the infamous “White Bread” Orange County, to cheer their team. It’s not just a bunch of old people, there are mostly younger people who bring their families, all decked out in Angel stuff.
   So Dodger Fan can go on and say whatever they want, but they are just ignoring what is right there for all to see—The Angels don’t have bandwagon fans, they have Angel fans—-period.