First of all, here’s a link to a baseball piece from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times magazine: the writer and his son go to a Dodgers game with Arnold Hano, author of “A Day in the Bleachers.” Among other things, he doesn’t like the visual and audible cues to get the fans to make noise.
On Sunday, Jason and I went to the second-to-last game of the Golden Baseball League’s short season, this one the Long Beach Armada versus the San Diego Surf Dawgs.
The Armada play at city-owned Blair Field, which has an analog clock on top of the scoreboard…
And there’s a ship in the outfield — unfortunately, it’s just a cutout…
Even though the mascot should be a Spanish conquistador or maybe a pirate, the mascot is actually a bird named Arby I. Here he is “helping” with a between-innings water balloon toss for kids…
And here he is sitting two rows in front of us…
Meanwhile, Rik Currier was on the mound for the Armada, pitching what would be a complete game one-hit shutout…
In some places, they have metal rails for the “K” cards to fit into, but Long Beach is a Velcro kind of town…
The final line…
Yes, “Armada” does look a lot like “Ramada,” especially at the lower left. A missed marketing opportunity!