Littlest Angel (Fan, That Is) Officially Recognized as Team’s Most Ardent Booster--From Her Seat on High

That booming voice coming from the $6 seat on the top level at Anaheim Stadium belongs to Bobbi Barry, 63.

“It’s the best seat in the house although I wouldn’t mind sitting in the dugout once,” said the 4-foot, 10-inch Angel die-hard who had held out hope that her team had a chance for the pennant as late as Tuesday. “It’s like Yogi Berra said, ‘It ain’t over until it’s over,’ ” she said.

But the one-time Army truck driver, who had to get special dispensation to enlist during World War II because of her height, now thinks her team has to go back to the drawing board for next year. “I wanted them to win the pennant and World Series so bad I could cry,” she said.

That feeling is one of the reasons she was honored Tuesday as Angels Spectator of the Year at a luncheon sponsored by Bushnell, a division of Bausch & Lomb, maker of sports binoculars.

“I knew I was in the running for the title and I sweated it out for two weeks,” said the grandmother of three who works as a computer communications supervisor in Torrance.

She once played on the Angels Booster Club baseball team against the Angels wives, and said she would still be playing “if my knees hadn’t given out on me.”

Barry is so dedicated to the Angels, she stood in the rain and slept on concrete to get tickets for the 1982 playoffs.

“It broke my heart when we didn’t make it all the way that year,” said Barry, who has caught six foul balls over the years from her perch near the top rows. They are in her living room alongside hats, bats, gloves, pins, blankets and pennants. The room looks like an Angels gift shop.

“You don’t just catch foul balls,” explained Barry, who said she doesn’t bring her baseball glove to the games. “You have to fight for them. It’s tough up there.”

After baseball season, Barry said she often goes fishing by herself in Alaska and attends L.A. Kings hockey games and watches high school football while waiting for spring training to start.

She doesn’t care much for professional football or the L.A. Rams, and complains that Anaheim Stadium was ruined as a pure baseball stadium when it was altered to accommodate football.

Barry attended 50 Angels games this past season and although she doesn’t buy season tickets, “I usually get the same seats and the same people are all up there,” she said. She was at the first game the Angels played in Anaheim and the first game the Dodgers played at Chavez Ravine.

A couple of times a season she follows the team on the road. This year in Kansas City she jumped all over the manager of a hotel that had a banner saying “Kick the halo out of the Angels.” “I really chewed him out,” said Barry, who also plays bingo every week, unless it interferes with Angels games.

She said most of the Angels players know her by sight and it’s no secret that Wally Joyner is her favorite player.

But she gets a special kick out of exhorting Chili Davis to get a hit.

She calls him “Hot Chili.”

The 31 million people who rode The Corkscrew roller coaster at Knott’s Berry Farm during the past 19 years before the ride closed earlier this month will soon have another chance to take the hurtling, looping, upside-down thrill trip.

This time they’ll have to visit Silverwood, Ida., where the roller coaster ride will be part of a turn-of-the-century theme park built around an antique airplane museum.

“We didn’t have a problem selling the ride,” said Robert Deuel, a spokesman for Knott’s. “It was a pioneering roller coaster.” He said the roller coaster originally cost $1 million, but was sold for $250,000.

The park held a raffle for park employees to fill the 26 seats on the roller coaster for the final ride. “It was a sentimental final ride,” Deuel said, noting that a new high energy roller coaster will take the place of The Corkscrew.