Well, the Mariners started workouts this weekend at any rate. But everyone else’s pitchers and catchers are reporting this coming weekend, the Angels on Sunday. Yay! Yay! Only 16 more days until they start playing live baseball! Okay, it will be rusty, working the kinks out, preseason, completely unofficial live baseball but I think we can all agree that after several months of nada, live is the only important word in that sentence…for a few weeks at least, until we grow tired of it and beg for the regular season to begin. But, for the time being, I’ll just sit here bouncing in my chair. The Angels have not released their Spring Training broadcast schedule yet, but I can figure some of it out based on the Dodgers posted broadcast schedule and, wow, live Angels baseball is on the horizon. The prospect makes me giddy. *boingy boingy, boingy*

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So, remember what I was saying about this being the Hot Stove year of the mystery team? Did anyone see Oakland coming on the Yoenis Cespedes deal? Seriously, anyone? Way to go Oakland! Um…I mean…I know we’re rivals and all that, a rivalry I especially enjoy I might add, and I really want the Angels to beat you soundly every single time our two teams meet, but how about the AL West this season? It’s really nice to be an oft discussed, and with respect no less, division again. It’s been an exciting offseason and I see even more exciting results coming this season. Thank you for continuing the crazy streak of key signings. I mean, seriously. AL East who? They still play baseball out there? 😉  And on the NL East front, I’m sure “AL West” is now a four letter word as far as the Miami Marlins are concerned.

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The Angels need a Truck Day! I mean, of course they do have one in the sense that there are trucks that staff must pack full of all of the necessary Spring Training goodies and at some point these trucks do leave the Big A bound for Tempe, AZ. Some fans may even be aware of the date and show up to see the trucks off for all I know. But this is the extent of any Angels Truck Day and that’s only if that last part is anything more than theoretical. I know that I live in L.A. instead of Orange County but, really, if there were a big celebration to see the trucks off, I would have heard something. And a big celebration is what I want – crowds of fans gathering to cheer the end of the offseason, speeches from VIPs, a sort of Angels state of the union if you will, open gift shops with some of the newer 2011 items that haven’t officially debuted yet on sale early and, heck maybe even an opportunity to taste that first ballpark hot dog of the year.

You know, I want what a lot of other teams have. Is that too much to wish for? Oh, and while we’re at it, a multiple day extravaganza of a Fan Fest would be nice too, you know, like other teams have. And, and…basically I wish this was more of a baseball town. Yes, we have two teams in close proximity in the general Los Angeles/Orange County/west end of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties area both of whom routinely fill, nearly sell out or outright sell out, the considerable number of seats in their large stadiums…well, both of them, when folks aren’t justifiably livid with the McCourts that is. But ticket sales do not a baseball town make, at least not on their own. Crazy passionate bleeding team colors fans make a town a baseball town. And while I would argue that the Angels and the Dodgers boast just as many crazy passionate bleeding team colors fans as the next team (check out the blogs if you have any doubt), we just don’t seem to get credit for that.

My unscientific but credible theory on this subject is that our percentages get skewed and diluted by the sheer enormity of the total population out here. Yes, many baseball teams throughout the U.S. reside in populous counties, several of them in counties sufficiently populous to land on the top 15 most populous counties list according to the last census. However, the four California counties I just mentioned (L.A., Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside) plus San Diego to our immediate south make up one third of the top 15 most populous U.S. counties list. We have a lot of people out here, which I think means that we have just as many diehard fans, but significantly more casual fans and non fans (not that I’m complaining about them, enjoy the game however you like) than other places and the combined impression that creates is not one of a crowd that would appreciate, say for example, a Truck Day. Or, maybe it’s just So Cal’s notoriously too hip for the room attitude keeping us from having nice things yet again? 😉