Dirtbag

It had been quite a while since I hit up the college baseball scene. As you can imagine, between all the Minor League games in San Bernardino and Adelanto plus the MLB action in Anaheim and LA, the colleges took a backseat for a while. This past weekend, however, I reinvigorated the college games for one day to close out a decent phase of seeing college ball. While my Sunday was loaded up with other activities, it was the game down in Long Beach that served to anchor a long and exhausting day.

As I described in my last post, this trip to Long Beach was going to have some added perks. First, I was going to do a ride through the Southeast Cities in LA County for CicLAvia. After the game, I was going to hit up a new brewery, finishing with a ride along the beach path and Downtown Long Beach. I knew that the day was going to be long with me probably collapsing on the train home, but I woke up early and saddled up my chariot for the day.

CicLAvia is a semi-quarterly event that the LA Metro sponsors. It is when they shut down a few miles of city streets just for bikers and walkers. On the Metrolink into LA, there had to have been fifty bikes in the bike car, all for people going to the event. It was advertised that people should take the Metrolink into Union Station and then transfer on to the Metro Blue Line light rail to the Watts Station. Knowing this, when we got into LA, I decided to beat the crowds and ride my bike down to the 7th Street/Metro Center stop, sparing me from having to make a transfer at Union Station.

Look, I've been on public transportation systems all over this country. I can say now that the LA Metro has to be the weirdest and most creepy. First, when I got to Metro Center, paramedics were on scene tending to a man who had, apparently, overdosed on drugs. He was waiting for the train and just collapsed. Add to the fact that there were still a ton of bikes trying to get on a woefully inadequate light rail train, and you had some frayed nerves. People on the Metro not riding bikes were getting very mad at the bikers and myself for riding the train and making everything so crowded. It got so bad that about halfway down the line, the sheriff had to come on board to calm the other passengers down. The people raising hell were not the kindest looking people either as they were all covered in piercings and tattoos showing gang affiliations. By the time we got off in Watts, all of us bikers breathed a sigh of relief to be out of there.

The CicLAvia course wove about ten miles, starting in the maligned neighborhood of Watts. The scene for the infamous 1965 riots, you really get a sense of the community by riding through it on a bike. Poverty is so visible as the houses were dilapidated and no businesses around except pawn shops and shoddy convenience stores. Even though the event was billed as a "bringing-out-the-community" event, every street corner had at least two uniformed police officers providing enforcement. As I was riding, I could see how families would be torn apart by the obvious gangs and drugs that have flooded the streets here. I gained sympathy for those that were innocent here just trying to live their lives.

This particular CicLAvia course was super long. I managed to get through about three-quarters of the circuit, weaving through Watts, Florence and South Gate. By the time I had to catch the train south, I had pedaled a good twelve miles. The meat of this Baseball Road Trip was just beginning, but I was already pretty beat.

I boarded the Blue Line again, continuing south all the way into Downtown Long Beach. From there, I rode about four miles through Long Beach neighborhoods to Blair Field. What I do remember from my trip down here last year was that my impressions of Long Beach were way off. This year, my new outlook on the city was just confirmed. While I'm sure that it has its rundown areas, from what I've experienced, Long Beach is nice. The bike boulevard I was on through this neighborhood reminded me a lot of Portland and Eugene, but the beautiful weather definitely made it more attractive. If it weren't for the actual beach being ruined (which I'll get to in a moment) Long Beach would definitely be my favorite Beach City. The impression that I get from Long Beach is really artsy and laid back, with a hip vibe overall. For those of who know me, that sounds like my kind of place.

Blair Field has now become my favorite college venue. First off, it's old and has that old feeling to it. It was built in the 1950's, and is the only California baseball stadium I know to have an actual roof covering all the seats. Second, there's no doubt about who plays there as the Long Beach State Dirtbags have gone to great lengths in honoring their heritage. Banners adorn the concourse as you walk in to the stadium as the outfield view is of the adjoining golf course. It's overall a very nice place to see a game.

In a previous post, I talked about Long Beach maybe playing host to the disaffected High Desert Mavericks franchise. While it's looking like the team is heading to North Carolina instead, I'm here to tell you that I firm in my belief that Blair Field and Long Beach could support Minor League Baseball. Maybe in the future sometime, that will happen. But, for now, the Dirtbags will suffice. Heck, the Dirtbags are a perennial College World Series team, so the talent level is certainly on par with Minor League Baseball.

The Dirtbags ran away from the visiting San Jose State Spartans by a score of 6-2. They finished off a sweep of the Spartans to set up a huge Big West Conference series against their rivals Cal State Fullerton the following weekend.

After the game, I rode down to the Belmont Pier to visit a new brewery, Belmont Brewing Company. I had a beer and a bite to eat overlooking the pier and the oven. While chowing down on my fish and chips, I remembered that when I came down last year, the beach path was under construction. This year, I saw dozens of bikers and walkers plying along a fabulous new path that paralleled the beach. I quickly finished up, mounted my bike, and hit the path.

I'm a sucker for beach paths. Whether it's in Newport or Oceanside, I always try and do a slow beach ride on my bike. The Long Beach path is fantastic because they separate the bikes from the pedestrians, which eliminates the tension of the two groups sharing. But, as I eluded to earlier, the beach in Long Beach is something lacking. Because of all the shipping by the port, a six or seven mile long breakwater was built to control the tides. While this makes the shipping lanes easy, it eliminates all waves from the beach in Long Beach. There's no surfing or body boarding. Unlike in Newport, there aren't hundreds of families with little kids playing in the water. All that is left is almost a lake type of setting where lots of garbage accumulates. Maybe one of these days they'll tear down the breakwater and return Long Beach beach into an actual beach.

I went down the beach, turned around, fought a head wind coming back the other way, and eventually just gave up. All told, I rode about thirty miles in the day, so I was just flat out done with everything. I went to a Starbucks, sat down, ordered a cold drink, and waited to catch the Blue Line back to LA and then the Metrolink back to San Bernardino.

Considering I fell asleep on the train back home, I think I put way too much into this day. While it certainly was a blast, it's taken me almost a whole week just to recover from that one day. Was it worth it? Absolutely. But with my busy professional life, sometimes I need to scale back these crazy days and try to be normal for a change.

After a weekend off for recovery, I'm planning on hitting up my first regular season Angels game down in Anaheim. I haven't been to the Big A since the beginning of April, so you can imagine how excited I am for it.

I'll be abuzz on social media, and I look forward to bringing you all along on my next adventure!

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)