Showing posts with label Anaheim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anaheim. Show all posts

Monday, September 30, 2019

Brad Ausmus Fired

I wasn't invested in Brad Ausmus either way, but seems to me he's getting a raw deal. It's not like the Angels were coming off a contending season in 2018 or anything. Mike Scioscia quit after more than a decade of mediocrity. (The Angels won the 2002 World Series.)

Anyway, it's hard out there, I guess.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels fire manager Brad Ausmus; Joe Maddon expresses interest in job."


Saturday, August 31, 2019

Angels Pitcher Tyler Skaggs O.D.'d on Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Alcohol

I knew it.

I just knew it immediately when the news broke in July that Skaggs didn't die of natural causes. What exactly killed him? No one knew at the time. But it was suspicious and anyone with a brain probably had it figured out.

Prayers for his family and his soul.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Tyler Skaggs’ autopsy: Fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol led to death by choking on vomit."

And, "Details of Tyler Skaggs’ death could trigger legal battle with millions at stake":
Investigations into that question could determine whether the Angels and the family of one of their most popular players face off in legal proceedings that could take years and be worth tens of millions of dollars — or more.

The Skaggs family and the Angels each have retained attorneys based in Texas, where Skaggs died July 1 on the first day of a team trip to play the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. The prospects of a wrongful-death lawsuit appear significant, given that the family‘s assertion in a statement Friday that they had learned the “circumstances surrounding Tyler’s death … may involve an employee of the Los Angeles Angels.”

That statement prompted Major League Baseball to launch an investigation. Police in Southlake, Texas — where the Angels were staying that night — have been investigating since Skaggs’ death. The attorney hired by the Skaggs family, Rusty Hardin, intends to pursue his own probe.

“We’re going to want to know how it came about that those drugs were ingested,” Hardin told The Times, “and whether or not others are responsible for what happened.”

The prospects of success for any wrongful death suit could depend on whether attorneys can identify a party besides Skaggs that might be at least partially responsible for his death, said Julie Cantor, who teaches law at UCLA.

“You need to have a wrongful act,” said Cantor, speaking generally because she has not reviewed any records in the Skaggs case...
RTWT.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Position Players Pitching

I love this development, actually. It adds so much fun and variety to the game, although it's not optimal baseball from the manager's perspective.

I posted last month, for example, "Orioles Beat Angels in 16 Innings: Outfielder Stevie Wilkerson, Pitching 55 MPH, Records the Save (VIDEO)."

At USA Today, and third baseman Wade Boggs, back in 1997, below:


Friday, July 26, 2019

Orioles Beat Angels in 16 Innings: Outfielder Stevie Wilkerson, Pitching 55 MPH, Records the Save (VIDEO)

What a game!

Second longest in Angels history, and also in Orioles history.

At the L.A. Times, "Angels use 10 pitchers in a 16-inning marathon but lose to Orioles."

My mouth was hanging open watching this guy Stevie Wilkerson pitch. He was throwing up softballs, but it was so late in the game, players were clearly tired, and no one could adjust to the lobs. It was freaky.




Saturday, June 1, 2019

Disneyland Manages Wait Times at the New Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Disney's now gone all woke with corporate social justice policies, and CEO Bob Igor's a fool.

But their crowd management techniques for the new attraction are definitely putting paying customers first. Everything's pricey, but heh, you gotta pay the price to feel nice.

At LAT, "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge forces Disney to tap eons of crowd-control expertise":

Disneyland first wrestled with crowding on opening day in 1955 when restaurants ran out of food and drinks, lines formed at the bathrooms and visitors sneaked in with counterfeit tickets.

In the 1960s, Disneyland pioneered the use of stanchions and tape to create switchback queues for waiting visitors and provided entertainment to pass the time. The park took another swipe at the problem two decades ago, when it introduced “Fastpass,” the virtual queueing system.

But the opening this weekend of the biggest expansion in park history — the 14-acre Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge — pushed Walt Disney Co. to launch perhaps its most comprehensive crowd-easing effort yet, in effect acknowledging that the 18.7 million people estimated to have visited Disneyland last year is a record primed for breaking.

“It’s always been an area of work for us because we know intuitively that it does impact the experience,” said Kris Theiler, vice president of Disneyland Park. ”By coming at it from a comprehensive perspective, we’re able to make some really big impacts.”

On Friday, the first day that the expansion was opened to the public, the hard-core Star Wars fans for the most part moved about the $1-billion land with ease. But the lines to the only operating ride as well as the cantina and the most anticipated shops — attractions in their own right — fluctuated from brief to excruciatingly long.

Giovanni Peraza, a recent high school graduate from Chandler, Ariz., complained that he waited an hour to ride the interactive Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. “It was too long,” he said.

But Karen Covington and her husband, Bill, from Del Mar said they were happily surprised that their wait for the ride was only 25 minutes.

“They are doing a good job of crowd control,” Bill Covington said.

“I hope it stays this way,” Karen added.

To keep crowds from creating gridlock, Star Wars employees directed parkgoers to move in a counterclockwise direction, starting at the Millennium Falcon ride and circling to the Middle Eastern styled marketplace.

About 90 minutes after the land opened, workers were seen putting black tape on the ground to create switchback lines near the opening of Savi’s Workshop, where visitors can build their own lightsaber. At about the same time, Oga’s Cantina, the space-themed pub, reached capacity and only allowed new entrants when the crowds thinned.

Disneyland executives, who stood by to assess the opening day, said they saw no surprises.

“It happened exactly as we thought it would,” said Josh D’Amaro, president of Disneyland Resort.

Anticipating an out-of-this-world demand for the fictional land, Disneyland required parkgoers to book a four-hour reservation period to visit the Star Wars expansion during the first three weeks. Visitors were given colored wristbands to identify those who were allowed in and those whose allotted four hours had run out.

When the reservation period for a Star Wars land visitor ended, the guest was not allowed to board an attraction or enter a shop and was told: “Your credentials have expired.”

The reservation system allowed the park to control how many people are in the Star Wars land at any given time. But even with such restrictions on guests, the wait time for the Millennium Falcon ride fluctuated Friday from 20 minutes to 70 minutes.

Disneyland is the second-most visited theme park in the world behind Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Florida, according to an annual attendance study by the Los Angeles consulting firm Aecom and Themed Entertainment Assn., a trade group for theme park designers and producers. Disneyland drew 18.7 million visitors last year while the Magic Kingdom hosted 20.9 million visitors, both up 2% from the year before.

Disney doesn’t release daily attendance figures, although longtime Walt Disney Imagineering art director Kim Irvine recently revealed that Disneyland attendance of 65,000 is a “normal” day. During holiday seasons, Disneyland has had to temporarily shut its gates from time to time when the park reached capacity, a ceiling that has never been publicly disclosed but some insiders have said is about 80,000 visitors.

Some industry experts say crowding worsened at Disneyland after the resort began in 2009 to offer monthly payment plans to make it easier for more visitors to afford annual passes.

Such passes range in price from $400 to $1,400.

To cope with the expected crowds during the 60th anniversary of the park in 2015, Disneyland opened up behind-the-scenes pathways to direct crowds around gridlock areas.

A year later, the theme park adopted a “demand pricing” policy that lowered admission ticket prices on a typically slow day — maybe a Wednesday in September — and increased prices on high-demand days. Disney portrayed the move as a crowd-management technique.

A study by the Los Angeles Times found that the queues at the park grew longer even after the dynamic pricing scheme was adopted.

In 2015, only three years after the Walt Disney Co. acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion, the theme park announced plans for a $1-billion land based on the blockbuster Star Wars sci-fi franchise...
Still more.


Thursday, July 19, 2018

Mike Trout Responds to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred's Comments

The O.C. Register's Jeff Fletcher asked the initial question about Mike Trout earlier this week during coverage of the All-Star Game:


And also at USA Today, "Mike Trout, Angels respond to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred's comments on star":
In a startling rebuke of Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday issued a vigorous defense of All-Star outfielder Mike Trout, touting his commitment to promoting the game and his work in the community.

The Angels' statement, which calls Trout "an exceptional ambassador for the game," comes one day after Manfred told a gathering of the Baseball Writers' Assn. of America that Trout's lack of widespread popularity among casual sports fans was due in part to his hesitance to participate in activities that might promote him.

"Mike has made decisions on what he wants to do, doesn't want to do, how he wants to spend his free time or not spend his free time," Manfred said in the hours before MLB's All-Star Game at Nationals Park. "I think we could help him make his brand very big.

"But he has to make a decision to engage. It takes time and effort."

The Angels fired back in kind on Wednesday, with a withering statement that did not mention Manfred by name but certainly made clear who they were referencing.


Saturday, April 14, 2018

Angels Off to Best Start Since 1979

At LAT:


For a team that has been so much about one player, the Angels keep winning as a group.

On Friday, they made it six victories in a row with key offensive contributions from everyone from a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Albert Pujols, to a pinch-hitter, Luis Valbuena. Five relievers strung together four more shutout innings and catcher Rene Rivera gunned down Whit Merrifield attempting to steal second for the final out.

"It's a team win tonight," starting pitcher Andrew Heaney said after a 5-4 triumph over Kansas City. "I put us in a hole early and they came back. Everybody did a great job."

And that included, naturally, Shohei Ohtani, who has dominated the game and the headlines. This time, the rookie had two hits and scored the winning run.

What's more, the legend of Ohtani and his immense popularity swelled again as the Angels apparently requested that a group of his fans at Kauffman Stadium quell its passion, for the good of the star and his team.

"I heard it," Ohtani, through an interpreter, said of the vocal support he received. "I'm thankful for the cheer. But at the plate I try to focus and block out all the noise."

A local reporter, citing security personnel, noted that someone evidently with the Angels contacted authorities to ask that the clamor be tempered.

"I was aware of that," Ohtani said. "But I wasn't the one who asked for it. I think they just did it so everyone could kind of focus at the plate. I was thankful for that."

And so went another night at the ballpark for the Angels, who improved to 12-3, matching the 1979 club for the best record in franchise history after 15 games.

That '79 group then lost four straight, something that seems unlikely for these Angels...


Saturday, April 7, 2018

Shohei Ohtani Makes History in Angels' 13-9 Comback Victory Over Athletics

The Angels are off to a great start. They're 6-2 so far, and both pitching and hitting are almost unrecognizable from last year.

I'm excited!

At LAT, "Down 6-0, Angels' bats awaken with homer by Ohtani and beat the Athletics 13-9":


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Officials Start Clearing Out Homeless Encampment Near Anaheim Stadium

Following-up from last week, "False Twitter Memes About Homeless Encampment Along the Santa Ana River Bike Trail."

Anaheim and Orange County officials launched the area's homeless eviction operation yesterday. Reading the Los Angeles Times' report, it turns out one woman's been living there for 16 years. I had no idea, man.

And as I noted at the blog post above, these are not migrants, illegal aliens, or refugees. These are mostly downtrodden white working-class folks. People have been priced out of the housing market, and the county lacks credible services for the homeless. What a bummer. The O.C. Register's piece indicates that 32 out of 33 cities in the county ban overnight camping for the homeless, which criminalizes homelessness. And the state's wasting billions upon billions of dollars building the bullet train to nowhere. Remember, these are progressive Democrats running the state, the holier-than-thou tolerance-preaching leftists. They're full of it, the degenerate hypocrites. No wonder people hate politics.

In any case, click the links:


Saturday, November 4, 2017

Disney Bans Los Angeles Times from Film Screenings in Retaliation for Newspaper's Coverage of Disney's Relationship with City of Anaheim

Here's the September story on the Disney Company's cozy relationship with Anaheim, "Is Disney paying its fair share in Anaheim?"

Disney's retaliating against the paper. See, at Deadline, "Disney Putting Hammer Down on Los Angeles Times Writers."

And today, at LAT, "A note to readers":
The annual Holiday Movie Sneaks section published by the Los Angeles Times typically includes features on movies from all major studios, reflecting the diversity of films Hollywood offers during the holidays, one of the busiest box-office periods of the year. This year, Walt Disney Co. studios declined to offer The Times advance screenings, citing what it called unfair coverage of its business ties with Anaheim. The Times will continue to review and cover Disney movies and programs when they are available to the public.
Also at WaPo, via Mediagaze (safe link), "Disney declined to offer LA Times entertainment writers advance film screenings claiming unfair coverage of its ties with Anaheim."

It's hard out there, lol.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Angels Acquire Justin Upton and Brandon Phillips

Hey, I can dig it.

I like Cameron Maybin, who was sent to Houston, but if the acquisition of Upton and Phillips helps the Angels make the postseason, it's no problem.

And the front office did some serious business with these acquisitions.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels signal they're in it to win it by trading for Justin Upton":

This is bigger than Yu Darvish.

You might have wondered if the Dodgers were trying their hardest to win the World Series, but you never had to wonder whether they were trying to win. The Dodgers were bound for October, with or without Darvish.

The Angels? Mike Trout, some wings and a prayer.

When the July 31 trade deadline came and the Angels were afloat in the wild-card race, they made one move: dumping one of their most reliable relievers for no good reason, and nothing good in return.

With one bold move on Thursday, the Angels announced they were back.

Back to relevance. Back to winning. Back to a commitment to excellence.

No longer will the Angels allow themselves to be held hostage by the ghost of Josh Hamilton. When they agreed to acquire Justin Upton from the Detroit Tigers on Thursday, they finally removed the“vacancy” sign from left field, three years after they exiled Hamilton to Texas.

They could have had Upton two winters ago, or Yoenis Cespedes, Dexter Fowler, Alex Gordon or Jason Heyward. They passed on them all, trying to pass off Craig Gentry and Daniel Nava as a legitimate major league platoon. They still had to pay Hamilton, after all.

The Angels’ left fielders have hit 27 home runs in the three years of the post-Hamilton era, seven this season. Upton has hit 28 home runs this season, 11 in August.

The Angels’ second basemen had a .589 OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage), the lowest for any American League club at any position, aside from shortstop for the Kansas City Royals (Alcides Escobar). After two years and zero offense there in the post-Howie Kendrick era, the Angels doubled down on this year and traded for Brandon Phillips on Thursday as well.

Trout has drawn 11 walks in his last eight games, and not just because of his plate discipline. For most of the season, no Angels hitters besides Trout and Andrelton Simmons ranked above league average. They rank last in the AL in OPS. Frankly, with their starting pitching in tatters for most of the season, it’s a miracle they are in contention.

But they awoke Thursday — the last day before organizational rosters are frozen for postseason eligibility — and found themselves one game out of the second AL wild-card spot, two games behind the New York Yankees for the top wild-card spot.

The disabled list is clearing. Andrew Heaney and Tyler Skaggs are back in the starting rotation, with ace Garrett Richards expected to follow any day now. C.J. Cron hit two home runs on Tuesday. Albert Pujols hit two home runs on Wednesday.

The players deserved some help, and owner Arte Moreno gave it to them.

Moreno doesn’t come around the ballpark as often as he used to, and he doesn’t have much to say publicly, leaving fans to wonder whether he remains engaged and interested in his team. He takes pride in running the team as a successful business, with no debt. He could sell the team for 10 times what he paid for it.

On Thursday, he showed he still is in it to win it. The Angels’ lone World Series appearance, remember, came the year before he bought the team.

This is the last year of the Hamilton contract. Moreno will pay about $35 million to left fielders this year — $26 million to Hamilton, the rest to Upton and Cameron Maybin.

It isn’t that the Angels’ payroll is taking a huge jump this year. It’s not. The Angels let the Houston Astros take Maybin on a waiver claim, and the $1.5 million the Angels save there will cover much of the $3.7 million Upton is owed for the rest of this season. The Tigers will pay some of that too. And the Angels’ commitment to the 36-year-old Phillips is less than $1 million; he’s a free agent come fall.

No, the plaudits for Moreno come because Upton has four years and $88.5 million left on his contract after this season. He could opt out, but Moreno assumed that risk — and, really, there’s not much to lose here.

The Angels know they get a month of Upton for a few million bucks, without losing either of their two legitimate prospects in the trade. They just might get four more years of a premium power hitter at a market rate.

Upton, who turned 30 last week, has hit at least 25 home runs five years running. They ought to hope he does not opt out. If he does, they won’t get a draft pick.

The Angels cannot dream of getting anywhere near that production of anyone in their farm system by 2020.

That is the last year of Trout’s contract. The Angels don’t have time for a tank job if they want to persuade him to stay. They need to show him they can win, with him, and soon.

And, as of Thursday, they are two big bats closer to doing something they never have done since baseball’s best player joined the Angels in 2011: winning a postseason game.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Angels Storm Back, Keep Playoff Hopes Alive

The Angels beat the Athletics last night, 8-6 at Anaheim Stadium. They were down 6-2 in the sixth inning, and I thought there for a minute the team would lose. It'd have been the first time they lost while I was in attendance for the last five years or so. Really, when I go to the park, they always win. And they did it again last night. I was pretty magical.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels mount comeback to beat A's, stretch winning streak to four and improve to .500":
The Angels are still not healthy, still receiving lackluster seasons from an array of hitters, still struggling to capture the public’s interest, still unlikely to actually qualify for the postseason.

But they are undeniably making this thing interesting. They secured their fourth straight victory and sixth in seven tries Friday, scoring six unanswered runs to come back to beat Oakland 8-6 at Angel Stadium. They are 55-55, and only two games separate them from playoff position.

“Better late than never,” said Ben Revere, who scored Friday’s winning run.

It has become the team’s refrain this summer, enjoyed because of its duality: “We’re still in it.”

Applicable to their 32 comeback victories and to their playoff odds, the Angels cite it in interviews and tell it to their pregame visitors during batting practice, a subtle reminder to one another that they can yet contend in 2017. With each passing week, the idea appears more plausible. They do not have to play particularly good games, especially while hosting Philadelphia, Oakland and Baltimore on this homestand. They can always come back, as they did Friday.

After Mike Trout hit an infield single to short in the first inning, Albert Pujols tapped into an inning-ending double play. It was the 351st double-play groundout of his career, which holds grand significance. It broke Pujols’ tie with Cal Ripken and staked him alone to the all-time record.

Making the first start of his career, the Angels’ Troy Scribner did not give up a hit until the second inning. It was a three-run home run to Matt Chapman — a walk and an error preceded it — that gave the Athletics an early lead. The Angels made it 3-2 with three singles, two errors, a sacrifice fly, and a hit by pitch in their half of the second. With the bases loaded and two out, Trout flied out to left field.

Over the next three innings, they mustered two baserunners — both on doubles, by Trout and Kole Calhoun. Neither man advanced...
More.

The rally monkey did the trick last night. I love that, heh.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Indians Sweep Angels

The Angels' wildcard hopes took a real thwacking this week in Cleveland. It was brutal.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels on the brink after unraveling against Indians":
Last August in Cleveland, the Angels fell further below .500 than they had been in 17 seasons with Mike Scioscia presiding. The Indians swept them in four heavily delayed games, each muggy day threatened by rain, making for a miserable weekend and cross-country flight home.

The Angels’ record entering this series is improved and Northeast Ohio’s midsummer weather much more temperate, but the results have been no better.

After their seven-run comeback was negated in Tuesday’s 11th inning, the Angels unraveled during a tied seventh inning and lost 10-4 Wednesday.

They sank five games behind an American League wild-card spot. Only four games remain until Monday’s trade deadline, their decision day for whether to buy, sell or stand. Their season is on the brink.

“Usually, in the second half of the season, you start looking at the standings,” Mike Trout said. “But we can’t. We gotta go out there and play our game. Once we start looking at the standings, that’s when we’re gonna get in trouble, try to do too much.”

Trying not to do too much is Trout’s mantra. He says it after he homers, says it after he fails. The Angels as a team, though, do not have Trout’s talent. On top of ongoing offensive flaws, they are undermanned in the starting rotation, a group that Scioscia said Wednesday has been “patchwork” since the season’s start...
More.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

City of Anaheim Removes Bus Benches Near Disneyland, So the Homeless Have One Less Place to Sleep

I have no recommended solution here.

After reading about homelessness, you find there are some people who don't want to be institutionalized. They don't want all the fancy rehab treatments and shelters. They want to be free, even with psychiatric problems. So, at some level you'll always have street-people. What to do? Well, for the City of Anaheim, remove more and more of the bus benches near Disneyland, lest you give the homeless too comfortable a shelter for the night.

I guess this is just one of those shake your head stories. I don't know.

At the Los Angeles Times, "While homelessness surges in Disneyland's shadow, Anaheim removes bus benches":
Sweat rolled down Ron Jackson’s face as he pondered, as he does every day just steps from “the Happiest Place on Earth,” where he would sleep.

The homeless man’s hangout in Anaheim had until recently been a grimy bus bench across the street from Disneyland.

Then, one day, the benches around the amusement park — including his regular spot outside of a 7-Eleven at Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue — disappeared.

Soon, people were competing for pavement.

“No more sleeping spot. Just concrete,” Jackson, 47, said on a sweltering day. “There were already people claiming the space.”

The vanishing benches were Anaheim’s response to complaints about the homeless population around Disneyland. Public work crews removed 20 benches from bus shelters after callers alerted City Hall to reports of vagrants drinking, defecating or smoking pot in the neighborhood near the amusement park’s entrance, officials said.

The situation is part of a larger struggle by Orange County to deal with a rising homeless population. A survey last year placed the number of those without shelter at 15,300 people, compared with 12,700 two years earlier.

Desperation amid Orange County’s riches

In a wealthy county known for suburban living and sun-dotted beaches, the signs of the homeless crisis are getting harder to ignore.

At the county’s civic center in Santa Ana, homeless encampments — complete with tents and furniture and flooring made from cardboard boxes — block walkways and unnerve some visitors. Along the Santa Ana River near Angel Stadium, whole communities marked by blue tarp have sprung up. In Laguna Beach, a shelter this summer is testing an outreach program in which volunteers walk the streets offering support and housing assistance to homeless people.

Cities across California — notably Los Angeles and San Francisco — are dealing with swelling ranks of the homeless. But officials in Orange County said most suburban communities simply don’t have the resources and experience to keep up.

Susan Price, Orange County's director of care coordination, said officials are trying to build a coordinated approach involving all of the more than 30 disparate cities that takes into account the different causes of homelessness, including economic woes, a lack of healthcare and recent reforms in the criminal justice system.

Most cities "don't have capacity to respond to all the issues of homelessness effectively. That's why we need a regional strategy,” Price said. "Every city has been grappling with this issue and not all cities are full-service so that means we need to find out what each other is doing and figure out how to combine resources.”

The homeless problem often stands in stark contrast to the perceptions many have about Orange County...
Come to think of it, though, sounds like some of the people, just drinking and smoking pot, maybe need to just get cleaned up and find a job. You can't just be bumming for handouts all the time, panhandling and causing "broken windows" style crimes. If that's so, perhaps a city crackdown is indeed a remedy.

But it's like I said, I'm not sure what to do about this. Seems like homelessness took off in the O.C. after the Great Recession hit, and it hasn't subsided much with the so-called economic recovery.

Blame the Democrats, I guess.

Still more at the link.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Anaheim Ducks Fall 0-2 Behind Edmonton Oilers

I'm just not into hockey, which to me is a Canadian sport that somehow invaded America, taking hostage American citizens who don't know they've been abducted into an alien ritual.

I used to have Canadian roommates from Calgary, and we used to watch the Flames. I visited Calgary, to spend six weeks with my best friend at the time, in 1984.

I still hate hockey, lol.

But everybody's wearing Ducks shirts and jerseys, and mounting fluttering window flags on their cars.

So, what the heck? Any hockey fans reading this blog?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Ducks fall into 0-2 hole at home with 2-1 loss to Oilers."


Sunday, April 9, 2017

Angels Mount Totally Improbable Come-From-Behind Victory Over Mariners

Dang!

I shouldn't be so skeptical of the Angels. They're on fire so far this season, and the Mariners just dropped a game that they in no way should have dropped.

I tweeted after Albert Pujols put one of the board with a solo shot early in the 9th inning:


And then the Angels made the comeback. To call it improbable is putting it mildly:


Saturday, February 25, 2017

Violence Breaks Out in Anaheim as Off-Duty Cop Scuffles with 13-Year-Old Boy (VIDEO)

Everything's going to be videotaped nowadays.

And a single off-duty cop would be having a hard time anyway, surrounded by a gang of young teenage hoodlums.

At the Los Angeles Times, "How an off-duty cop telling teens to stay out of his yard escalated to gunfire, protests and outrage":

The altercation on the tidy, suburban street in Anaheim apparently began with a complaint common in many neighborhoods: a group of teenagers walking through a neighbor’s yard on their way home from school.

But this seemingly mundane dispute spun out of control on West Palais Road on Tuesday when authorities say an off-duty Los Angeles police officer confronted the group. Other teenagers pulled out their cameras, filming the officer as he held a 13-year-old boy by the collar of his sweatshirt, trying to detain him.

The situation quickly escalated from there. At one point, another teen rushed the officer, sending him tumbling over a line of bushes. The officer then reached into his jeans and drew a gun, firing a single shot.

No one was hurt by the gunfire, which Anaheim police said was aimed at the ground. But footage of the encounter stirred uproar across the country, prompting criticism of the off-duty cop’s actions and questions over why investigators arrested two teenagers — but not the officer — at the scene.

As the video went viral Wednesday, more than 300 protesters took to the streets to protest the shooting. Police broke up the demonstration and arrested 23 people, but not before some vandalized the officer’s home.

The tension in Orange County’s largest city comes after several incidents in recent years in which Latino activists have protested police shootings that they felt unfairly targeted the city’s large Latino community. Many of the teens involved in Tuesday’s incident appeared to be Latino, and the officer appears to be white.

On Thursday, officials from both Anaheim and Los Angeles scrambled to calm the public’s concern.

“Like many, I am deeply disturbed and frankly angered by what it shows,” Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait said about the footage of the incident. “The video shows an adult wrestling with a 13-year-old kid and ultimately firing a gun. … It should never have happened.”

Anaheim police are investigating the altercation itself while the Los Angeles Police Department and Inspector General are conducting internal investigations into the officer’s actions.

The Los Angeles Police Commission will ultimately decide whether the officer violated any LAPD rules during the encounter.

“I am very interested in knowing the facts of the incident based on the investigation by the department and the Office of Inspector General that is underway,” said commissioner Cynthia McClain-Hill. “Some of the actions — brief as that exchange caught on video may be — do not properly represent what I believe should be expected and reflected by a member of the Los Angeles Police Department when engaging members of the public, be it on-duty or off-duty.”

The officer, whose name has not been released by authorities, was removed from the field, which is standard protocol after shootings by LAPD officers.

An attorney representing the officer, Larry Hanna, declined to discuss the encounter in detail, citing the ongoing investigations. He also declined to name his client or describe his work with the LAPD, saying he was concerned for his safety.

“All of this will come out,” he said. “I just think that people should let the investigators do their job.”

The union representing rank-and-file LAPD officers came out strongly against those who criticized the officer’s action...
More.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

#Angels' Cam Bedrosian Shuts Down #Oakland A's to Record First Career Save (VIDEO)

I guess Huston Street's gone on the DL since that disastrous blown save on Sunday.

Cam Bedrosian was in to close last night. The Angels were ahead 5-4, so it was a maximum save situation. And boy did Bedrosian come through. It was very nice.

From Susan Slusser, at the San Francisco Chronicle, "Poor defense leads to A’s 4th loss in row - and why Marcus Semien is unlikely to get a break soon."

And from Pedro Moura, at the Los Angeles Times, "Marte, Bandy homer while Bedrosian closes the door in Angels' win."

Plus, video at MLB, "8/2/16: Bandy, Marte homer to power Angels past A's."

Monday, February 29, 2016

Violent Ku Klux Klan Protest in Anaheim (VIDEO)

So stupid.

Leftists are so out of control it's like they're out to create sympathy for the Klan.

Let them march. As hateful as they are, the Klan has the right to hold a rally. Let 'em be.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Anaheim is land of Disney, not Ku Klux Klan, dismayed residents say."


Sunday, July 19, 2015

Rained Out in Anaheim for the First Time Since 1995

Well, this is interesting.

You could see how hard it was raining on ESPN. Some brave fans were just hanging out sopping wet. Heh, ridiculous

At the O.C. Register, "Angels rained out at home for the first time in 20 years":
ANAHEIM – Mike Scioscia, the longest tenured manager in the majors, has seen plenty, but he hadn’t seen this.

The Angels had a home game postponed by rain on Sunday night, the first time since June 16, 1995, five years before Scioscia took over.

The teams will play a split-admission doubleheader on Monday, with the first game at 2 p.m. and the second at 7 p.m. It will be the first doubleheader at Angel Stadium since 2003, when they made up a game that had been rained out in Kansas City.

The last time the Angels made up a home rainout with a doubleheader was Aug. 5, 1988, against the Chicago White Sox.

The rare July storm delayed the 5 p.m. start of the game for about 2 ½ hours before it finally called. The grounds crew had spent about 45 minutes in the outfield, but they couldn’t clear enough of the standing water.

“Unfortunately you never really know how your drainage system works until you get enough water,” Scioscia said. “There is so much standing water in that outfield it has nowhere to go… The field was unplayable with no way to remedy it.”

Both teams will simply move Sunday’s scheduled starters to Monday’s first game, with Hector Santiago starting for the Angels against Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez...
More.