Angels tell Anaheim they're opting out of their lease on Angel Stadium

[LMU]

39 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

 

I have no doubt Long Beach would work. You're in a city with just under half a million people and within a half-hour drive of both LA and Anaheim. That's on top of all the pre-existing entertainment-based infrastructure already there. It doesn't get much better than that in terms of location.

 

The issue I see comes down to cost. There's a reason nobody has moved into that area. A stadium there would run well over $1 billion and easily be the most expensive MLB stadium ever built.

 

The Angels have no problem drawing right where they are, and it would be a lot cheaper for them to stay put than to move any way you cut it. Their current ballpark isn't great, but you can work with it, and the Angels have.

 

I don't see them moving outside the LA market because anywhere they moved to would be a downgrade. They're second in the league in attendance, playing in the second-largest media market in the country. Why mess that up?

 

I think they're going to wait for the smoke to clear with whatever is going with the Anaheim city government before doing anything. No mater what happens, they're not in any danger of getting kicked out of their stadium tomorrow.

The problem with that thinking is the Arte Moreno ego wildcard.  He's impulsive to the team's detriment.  When the Dodgers signed Zack Greinke away from him he made the executive decision to overpay for Josh Hamilton.  He personally intervened with the Albert Pujols deal just because it was flashy despite his stats already starting to crater.  This isn't about the ballpark to him.  He's already agreed to pay for a replacement stadium next door out of his own pocket if that's the better move.  This is all about him getting cheap real estate to get his Haloville development built and with Anaheim cancelling the whole thing it's going to be going back to square one with dealing with the State and the obligation to offer sale to housing development before the team gets a whiff which, knowing his ego, he's not going to stand for.  Plus, it would be the ultimate Arte Moreno move to jump at LB just to thumb his nose at Guggenheim that he has oceanfront property.

[Brian in Boston]

1 hour ago, FiddySicks said:

Yeah but you say that with the assumption that whatever the Angels would set up wouldn’t be the mind-numbing, nerve-fraying, soul-sucking slog that is getting in and out of Chavez Ravine, and I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong assumption to make. It’s still Los Angeles, after all. If public transportation was set up better, I might buy into that line of thinking, but as it currently is, the very nature of the city is a mind-numbing, nerve-fraying, soul-sucking slog. 

My statements are based upon my experience as the owner of a Los Angeles Kings full season ticket plan from 2003 to present, a  Dodgers partial season ticket plan from 2005 through 2016, and a Los Angeles Football Club full season ticket plan from 2018 to present.

If I want to make sure that I'm in my seat at Dodger Stadium in time for the 7:10 PM start of a weeknight game, there is no way I'm electing to leave Santa Monica by car any later than 5:30 PM... and that's not necessarily going to guarantee I get there on time. And don't even get me started about exiting the parking lots at Chavez Ravine after the contest.  

Meanwhile, a 5-minute drive from my home gets me to the Metro station in Santa Monica where I can grab the E Line train to the Pico station, a trip that has never taken me longer than 47 minutes on a Kings game night. From there I'm a 5-minute walk to Crypto.com Arena (which sits adjacent to the plot of land Farmers Field was to be built upon).

Similarly, the trip from my preferred Metro station in Santa Monica to the Expo Park/USC  station for an LAFC match has only once taken longer than 35 minutes. That was on the night a car accident blocked the track... and the total time from Expo Park/USC back to Santa Monica was 50 minutes, even with the need to clear the automobiles from the intersection.    

There is simply no comparing the slog of fighting my way through traffic in an automobile to and from Dodger Stadium for a baseball game  with  the ease and speed with which I can travel via the E Line of the Greater Los Angeles Metro Rail System from Santa Monica to either the Expo Park/USC  or Pico stations for - respectively - LAFC matches and Kings games.  None.

There is a reason that Dodgers fans have gained a reputation for arriving late to games and leaving early: it is a chore getting to and from their stadium in a timely manner.      

[FiddySicks]

Yeah you’re definitely right that Chavez Revine is particularly difficult to get to and from. It makes me wonder why the city didn’t do more to build public transportation to and from the area decades ago. The stadium is sort of located in a perfect area in some ways. It’s up above the city away from the crush, which isn’t a bad plan for a stadium, as long as you have the resources to get to and from the area. Dodgers Stadium absolutely does not have that in its current form. 
 

Southern California’s lack of a truly robust train system still baffles me. I get that it’s the very definition of a car city, but how that was ever overlooked is beyond me. I’m sure there are reasons, I’ve just never really heard any good ones. 

[pmoehrin]

4 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

I’m sure there are reasons, I’ve just never really heard any good ones. 

The same reason Detroit and most southern cities don’t have one. Car and gas companies lobby against them with a great amount of success.

 

I think the only reason we have trains at all in this country is because you can’t ship everything via truck.

[LMU]

9 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Yeah you’re definitely right that Chavez Revine is particularly difficult to get to and from. It makes me wonder why the city didn’t do more to build public transportation to and from the area decades ago. The stadium is sort of located in a perfect area in some ways. It’s up above the city away from the crush, which isn’t a bad plan for a stadium, as long as you have the resources to get to and from the area. Dodgers Stadium absolutely does not have that in its current form. 
 

Southern California’s lack of a truly robust train system still baffles me. I get that it’s the very definition of a car city, but how that was ever overlooked is beyond me. I’m sure there are reasons, I’ve just never really heard any good ones. 

Alas, it once did back in the days of yesteryear.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric

[FiddySicks]

37 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

The same reason Detroit and most southern cities don’t have one. Car and gas companies lobby against them with a great amount of success.

 

I think the only reason we have trains at all in this country is because you can’t ship everything via truck.

Sadly, that makes sense. I’m not sure why I ever inquire about things anymore when the answer is basically always that capitalism ruins everything. 

[Brian in Boston]

Yes, indeed. The tragedy of Southern California's public transit history is that Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties were once linked by an extensive system of electric streetcars and interurban cars. The Pacific Electric Railway Company was the largest electric railway system in the world at its peak. Over 2,100 daily trains traversed more than 1,000 miles of track while  serving  cities and towns throughout Southern California.

[JerseyJimmy]

this seems like a good time to bring up that Robert Moses was one of the most evil men to have ever lived.

[pmoehrin]

30 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

this seems like a good time to bring up that Robert Moses was one of the most evil men to have ever lived.

 

I think that's a little bit of an oversimplification.

 

He had a romanticized view of what the automobile could do but was a major catalyst in getting a lot of New Deal projects off the ground.

 

He just didn't know when to quit and was bringing an uncompromising pre-WWII vision of the automobile to a city that neither wanted nor needed that vision to flourish.

 

Was he ruthless in going about getting what he wanted? Absolutely. But I can't say all of his ideas were necessarily bad or that ruthlessness wasn't necessary to see some of those projects through.

 

The only thing I can say for sure about Robert Moses is that, for better or worse, no other person did more to shape present-day New York than him.

[Digby]

4 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Southern California’s lack of a truly robust train system still baffles me. I get that it’s the very definition of a car city, but how that was ever overlooked is beyond me. I’m sure there are reasons, I’ve just never really heard any good ones. 

 

True, but, find a US city that has done more to build out its public transit system in the past 10 years than LA. Better late than never.

 

I'd place a bet on a Union Station-Dodger Stadium gondola waaaay before one on a downtown LA Angels stadium.

[sky1324]

For all the sabotage it endured, LA's public transit is actually pretty solid. I can get pretty much anywhere I need to within a couple hours from USC. Certainly better than the one straight line Charlotte offers. LA's issue is that it's been built off of the idea of everyone owning cars, making it a nightmare to drive in or walk in. The suburban single-family neighborhoods that dominate land outside of urban centers are nightmares for building public transit and connecting different parts of the metro.

[Digby]

Anyway, the Dodgers have led MLB in attendance for a decade. The traffic in Chavez Ravine is unpleasant, but not something I’d personally bet my billions against.

[DEAD!]

14 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

True, but, find a US city that has done more to build out its public transit system in the past 10 years than LA. Better late than never.

 

I'd place a bet on a Union Station-Dodger Stadium gondola waaaay before one on a downtown LA Angels stadium.

 

When I went to LA for a weekend about three years ago, I was actually surprised how extensive the Metro subway/light rail system is. I stayed downtown and I took the metro to Hollywood, Santa Monica and USC. 

What it lacks though, is a proper stop at the airport. Yes there is one nearby LAX, but I think you still have to take a shuttle there. Maybe that is asking too much. 

[LMU]

13 minutes ago, DEAD! said:

What it lacks though, is a proper stop at the airport. Yes there is one nearby LAX, but I think you still have to take a shuttle there. Maybe that is asking too much. 

Give it a year or two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAX_Automated_People_Mover

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

He had a romanticized view of what the automobile could do

bitchass didn't even have his license!

[Digby]

1 hour ago, pmoehrin said:

The only thing I can say for sure about Robert Moses is that, for better or worse, no other person did more to shape present-day New York than him.

something something made the trains run on time

 

ironically fitting here 

[Digby]

8 minutes ago, LMU said:

Give it a year or two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAX_Automated_People_Mover

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Line_(Los_Angeles_Metro)

i just begrudgingly said a nice thing about trains in LA, but I’m fortunate to balance that out with the note that this new extension will *still* require a bus to both LAX and the Rams/Clippers stadia. So close!

[LMU]

6 minutes ago, Digby said:

i just begrudgingly said a nice thing about trains in LA, but I’m fortunate to balance that out with the note that this new extension will *still* require a bus to both LAX and the Rams/Clippers stadia. So close!

Yes to SoFi, no to LAX. It will in 2024 be a people mover train from the airport right to a passenger facility that contains a light rail station.

[Digby]

6 minutes ago, LMU said:

Yes to SoFi, no to LAX. It will in 2024 be a people mover train from the airport right to a passenger facility that contains a light rail station.

The people mover looks more OAK than SFO. far as I’m concerned it’s a bus on tracks until proven otherwise! 

[sky1324]

2 minutes ago, Digby said:

The people mover looks more OAK than SFO. far as I’m concerned it’s a bus on tracks until proven otherwise! 

It's a people mover system, like what you'd find at Disney World. Specifically, it's a Bombardier Innovia APM 300 - an upgraded model of what you'd see at DFW or indeed SFO. In fact, it's the first 300 series installed in the US. I'm looking forward to it, taking the bus to the bus center or the C Line was kind of a pain.

 

(A 300 series in Bangkok)