Exhibition Optimism at the Big A : Baseball: Spring’s promise thrills fans of Angels, Dodgers at Freeway Series game.

Midge and Carroll Watrous staked a place in the chill wind Saturday, waiting patiently for their son to buy tickets for the clash of the freeway titans--Dodgers versus Angels.

As they always do, they endured this baseball rite of spring without complaint.

“After all, we waited all last season for the Angels to play well,” said Carol Watrous, 52, of Placentia. “They didn’t, but this is a whole new season.”

That optimism--fresh as new emerald grass--was spreading and growing at the second game of the annual exhibition Freeway Series between regional rivals, the California Angels and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Saturday’s competition was waged on the Angels’ home turf, a day after the Orange County team beat the Dodgers 2-0.

At the ticket windows, more than 200 fans lined up two hours before the game began. When the gates thundered open to allow ticket holders into the stadium, there was a heady excitement among the fans who were immediately drawn to the snack stands for baseball’s version of a square meal: golden mustard and sizzling hot dogs, salty peanuts and cold, cold beer.

“It’s been a long wait for the season to start,” said Bob Allan, 47, of Torrance, with the tone of a famished man. Allan--bearded and burly and sporting a baseball cap--was chaperoning a group of fifth-grade students from Harbor City Gateway Christian School.

“It’s time for the players to go out there to play the game, for the fans to eat dogs, smell grass--I mean the kind you mow,” Allan said.

‘It’s baseball you understand?” he declared, his voice rising like a fly ball. “It’s life!”

For Joyce Marary, baseball is her life. And that means romance and nostalgia. She remembers a blind date 36 years ago at a game pitting the Detroit Tigers against the Yankees. That was the day she started to win her husband’s heart.

“I’ve been a baseball fan ever since,” said Marary, 58, of Brea. “I go to the Angels games all season long, but the series is especially nice because it’s the only time you get to see the Dodgers and Angels play each other.”

For die-hard fans, the series signaled something more--a time of new beginnings and hope as hard and solid as a baseball.

This year, they insist, their team is going all the way.

Seven-year-old Jim Greene of Anaheim begged to differ.

“I don’t care who’s going to win,” he said. “I just like baseball.”

“Let’s play ball.”