After 20 years, the rites of spring training have changed just a little

It had been 20 years since I’d been to spring training. Twenty years since I covered the then-California Angels for a newspaper that no longer exists and announced my arrival to then-Angels manager Doug Rader:

Me: “So, whattya gonna be doing today?”

Rader (disgusted): “Baseball. (Disgusted and walking away) We thought we’d do baseball today.”

So, I hadn’t missed spring training that much. But then the Dodgers moved from Florida to Arizona, making it possible not only to see both L.A. teams in a single trip but allowing my son, Jack, and me to check another item off of our “Sports To-Do” list: USC- Notre Dame football game in South Bend? Done. World Beard and Mustache Championships? To do. Spring training? Pending.

Arranging the trip was easy. I found a reasonably priced ($90 a night), well-appointed (complimentary breakfast and all the pens you can pocket) Phoenix hotel between the Angels’ home in Tempe and the Dodgers’ facility in Glendale. I also got some cheap game tickets ($10 each for Dodgers, $6 for Angels) with the usual ridiculous surcharges ($9 Dodgers, $11 Angels.)

Making the trip? That took 7 1/2 hours . . . in a little red compact car ($23 a day) lacking cruise control and dignity; what the rental company called “compact” I’d say was more accurately described as “elfin.” To be fair, it wouldn’t have mattered what we drove this day, we weren’t going anywhere fast as we sat in mind-numbing traffic on the 91 Freeway just outside and through Riverside. The only way we managed to get to Phoenix as soon as we did was 1) traffic eventually let up and 2) from what I witnessed, posted speed limits on Arizona highways amount to little more than temperate suggestions.

So Friday came, opening day at the Angels’ Tempe Diablo Stadium. Built in 1968, the stadium was home to the Seattle Pilots, Milwaukee Brewers and Seattle Mariners before the Angels took residence in 1993. In 2005 it got a $20-million renovation that produced a well-appointed ballpark with nice sight lines, a capacity of nearly 10,000 and the nicest staff this side of Oz.

(A question to an usher about a good place to take a 16-year-old boy produced a flurry of suggestions ranging from the nice older man who suggested the Grand Canyon to the charming older woman who suggested Hooters.)

Our tickets entitled us to a spot on a grassy hill just beyond left field. Some people brought blankets (advised) and some men went shirtless (ill-advised.) The day was sunny but not blazing and neither was Angels starter Sean O’Sullivan, who, before taking the mound against the Colorado Rockies, had said he “just needed to make a good pitch and let the batter take care of the rest of it.”

The Rockies did: five runs, two home runs and a triple in 1 1/3 innings.

This didn’t seem to upset anyone. Though there were T-shirts and caps pledging allegiance to myriad teams — Angels, Rockies, Mariners, Braves, Dallas Cowboys, Led Zeppelin — there was no trash talk or heated words. Beer was another matter. They take beer seriously at Diablo Stadium, and it is fierce business for the swarms of bucket-wielding vendors who hawk their brands and say not-at-all nice things about other beers and/or beer drinkers. The rivalry is especially heated between the Coors Light and Miller Lite factions and we witnessed at least one family torn apart by the controversy.

The first three innings took nearly 90 minutes and it was at this point that Jack and I could no longer resist the siren call of the park’s best feature, the area just above the left-field line featuring a row of grills billowing forth the delectable smoke of everything from dogs to brats to cheesesteaks to portabella mushrooms. There was also New York-style pizza served by New York-style people — “OK, OK, whattya want? C’mon! WHAT?!”

After eating, we strolled to the first base side where there was shade and snagged a couple of seats. With no concerns about beating traffic out or getting up for work the next morning, we sat languidly and talked about different things . . . and then, we heard the crack.

Having taught my son in countless hours of catch to always focus on the ball, you’ll forgive a father’s pride at the sight of Jack wheeling effortlessly, following the foul ball as it hit the stadium roof, rolled off, bounced once and caromed off the wall outside the men’s room where he reached out — with two hands — and grabbed it, never losing focus, capping a great day and creating a memory he’ll always have.

I’m sure the weeping young boy denied the ball by Jack’s superior height will remember it also.

On to Camelback

Saturday brought a trip to Glendale to the see the Dodgers.

Glendale isn’t so much a place as a place in the midst of becoming a place. It is vast tracts of land set off by the occasional housing development and sports stadium. University of Phoenix Stadium, home to the Arizona Cardinals and the Fiesta Bowl, is just up the freeway, all puffy and gray so it appears to be the biggest, blandest bouncer ever.

Then there is Camelback Ranch ballpark, which the Dodgers share with the Chicago White Sox, who happened to be Saturday’s opponent. While the Angels moved into what could be called a fixer-upper, the Dodgers and White Sox went for something brand new.

Much of the complex is made from Gabion rock and natural stone veneers as well as a good bit of earth tones and staining to achieve that Frank Lloyd Wright effect of blending a structure into the environment. The press box and luxury boxes have an angular, craftsman feel about them.

The place is clean, sparkling, and has the largest capacity of any stadium in the Cactus League: 13,000. There are 12 practice diamonds and three practice infields. It has a stocked pond and an orange grove.

Once you enter the stadium and go by the Dixieland band to get your first whiff of Dodger Dogs (which never seem to be more than 10 strides away), you come to the field. With grass seating areas that virtually envelope the outfield, there may be even more access than at Diablo.

When we arrived, more than a few people had congregated on the right-field line to applaud Juan Pierre, now of the White Sox. Approached for his autograph, Pierre politely said it was “time to go to work,” reminding everyone why they fell in love with him when he filled in last season for the suspended Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez, for his part, warmed up along the left-field line. When he headed toward the stands to sign autographs, it set off a rush of people screaming and yelling everything from “Hurry, get the camera” to “I told you we shoulda brought the syringes!”

The game started. I can’t tell you a lot about it. I know the place came to a stop every time Ramirez came to bat, and he responded with two hits. But most of our time was spent browsing through the many concessions and comparing Dodger and Chicago dogs — I’ll take Dodger.

The atmosphere in the park was a good deal more charged than at Diablo, so much so that when Jack screamed something not very nice about White Sox reliever Bobby Jenks — a man whose Jefferson Davis-like chin-fall he nonetheless admires — a White Sox fan in front of us turned and stared daggers at Jack, declaring: “Hey! He’s the closer!”

Unsure exactly what that meant, I laughed to defuse matters, but needn’t have worried since her heaping cup of wine soon took care of that. She and her friends, all enjoying a cup or four, were soon joined by another woman and the exchange went something like this:

“How blond am I? Look at how high that guy filled my cup with wine. Just because he thought I was cute.”

“He doesn’t think you’re cute. He did it because I gave him 10 bucks.”

“What?”

I don’t know. I think it was something about that exchange’s being indicative of the hope that distinguishes spring training and the inevitable disappointment that follows that told us it was time to go.

So we went. The drive back was much easier; we made it in a breezy 4 1/2 hours. All told — three nights’ lodging, car, food, aloe vera (don’t ask), game tickets, a night at the movies (don’t ask), etc. — we spent about $600. Not bad. Not bad at all.

But I think we’ll be back to do baseball.

Mmmm, maybe Hooters.

sports@latimes.com