Angels Fans Don’t Know the Score: Game Was Postponed

How would you feel if you showed up at Anaheim Stadium on Saturday afternoon for the California Angels-Chicago White Sox game, only to find out it had been postponed to that night?

“Traumatized,” said Jeff Hoffman of Irvine, who had come with two friends. “We’re three traumatized teen-agers.”

Actually, Hoffman is 21. But he says everybody is a teen-ager at a sunny-afternoon Angels game. And it wasn’t too hard on them, since they were already dressed for the beach.

But there were scores of Angels fans Saturday afternoon who somehow did not get the word that the game time had been changed from 1 p.m. to 7.

The Angels had announced the change July 20, after learning from NBC that it had dropped its plans to televise the game. Season ticket holders were informed by mail, and the change was eventually publicized by the news media.

But some complained that the media should have emphasized it more.

“Why didn’t Stu Nahan (Channel 5 sportscaster) say anything, man?” said Anthony Gomez, who had come from San Diego to join his brother and friends for the game. “TV should tell you these things.”

Frank Bozart and William Jackson had brought their two sons from Pasadena. Jackson’s 11-year-old, Alonzo, had brought all his Angels baseball cards, and it was his first game.

“We can’t come back tonight,” Bozart said. “This is just awful. No wonder we got such a great parking spot.”

One couple, too sheepish or to angry to allow their names to be used, had read in the newspaper the game was at 7. But they were sure the newspaper was wrong, because it said right there on the ticket, in black and white, 1 p.m.

Michael Carter of Anaheim had taken his wife Sherry, her sister and the sister’s son, to the game for Sherry’s birthday.

“This is a bummer,” Sherry Carter said. “It’s too late to change our other plans for tonight.”

For Pierre Howard and Ennis Howard, two brothers from Los Angeles, it was an easy decision to skip the game. Their tickets cost $9 each. They had Saturday night tickets for Hiroshima, a jazz group at the Greek Theatre, for $23 each.

“We’ll read the box scores,” Pierre Howard said.

Some sold their tickets to others waiting in line for the night game tickets. Others simply gave them away. Some who did not have tickets got in line, while some said they would come another day.

“I’m big on the Angels; I’m not big on waiting in long lines,” said Jeff Weinstein of La Mirada.

But most fans who had made the mistake said they would try to come back.

Wes and Karen Matson had driven from Saugus--an hour-and-a-half drive, they said--with their 9-week-old daughter Nicole.

Wes Matson wasn’t blaming anyone but himself.

“I guess I just missed it,” he said.

Karen Matson said they would hang around at a mall until time for the night game.

Some said they would go to the beach, and others said they would just go home and wait. But some may have privately shared the same idea voiced by Jesse Rodriguez of Los Angeles, who had come in the back of a pickup with the Anthony Gomez group.

“Let’s go find Gene Autry and tell him what we think about this,” Rodriguez suggested.