It Looks Like a Whole New Ballgame

Smile, Mom told the family. Never mind the smile, a voice cried out from the soon-to-be family snapshot, just make sure you get the waterfall in the background.

And then, standing in section 423 of the view level, Jason Watrous smiled for Mom. It was the least he could do for her. Jason wanted so much to attend the Angels’ first game at Edison Field that Mom drove to Santa Barbara Friday morning, picking him up from Westmont College in time to return to Orange County and attend the game.

“I would hope fans would come out to see the team,” Watrous said. “But I’d tell ‘em they have to come anyway. They’d miss one of the hottest new places in Orange County.”

With hammers silent and hard hats removed for the first time in six months, Disney unwrapped Edison Field for the first time Friday. Fans flocked here--more than 100 lined up behind home plate before gates opened at 5 p.m.--for the first peek at the signature elements of Disney’s $117-million stadium renovation.

Waters flowed and colored lights danced amid the rock sculpture in center field. But, even before strolling through the front gates, fans oohed and aahed at the brick baseball diamond beneath their feet and the giant bats and balls and caps around them.

“It feels like something’s happening here,” Kirk Hanson of La Crescenta said. “It feels like there’s an event going on.”

For one thing, another mother was taking another picture. Scott Ross of Rancho Santa Margarita stood atop the brick pitcher’s mound, his arm around daughter Hayle, and directed his wife to “get the bats and balls in the background.”

Said Ross: “We’re looking to see how much money we’ll need to eat here. I don’t think we’ll have much of a bargain.”

He guessed right. After increasing the average ticket price 27% in the off-season, Disney raised concession prices, too. Perhaps that explained the line, 17 deep, at an automated teller machine one hour before game time.

Or perhaps the line grew because another cash machine was out of order, one of several relatively minor glitches in a largely successful opening Friday. Computer trouble forced food courts to open late, and Carl’s Jr. has yet to move into several other concession stands.

Tasks remain before Wednesday’s season opener, including affixing numbers to some seats, hanging banners and signs, affixing the Angel logos on the giant caps and completing brick work. Then again, workers were installing seats in left field and in dugout suites as late as Friday afternoon.

“We didn’t get it exactly perfect,” said Kevin Uhlich, the Angels’ director of stadium operations. “Cleaning the concourses was tough, because we still had people drilling. It’s not the way it’s going to be Wednesday, but it’s still a very good presentation.”

The Diamond Club, the luxury restaurant behind home plate, attracted attention from fans peering inside the glass windows, pointing to diners as if they were fish in an aquarium.

And, back in section 423, Solomon John Castro of Fullerton pointed down to the patio diners.

“They’ll have to be careful,” he said, “or they could get a souvenir on their plate.”