Daft Funk's West Coast Musings

By Rich Funk

Hailing from the midwest and now living in the paradise of San Diego, I'm still getting acclimated to baseball on the west coast. From time to time, I'll be updating on things I learn and my impressions of baseball here on the left side of the country.

I've been in California for just over 2 years, with time split between LA and San Diego. So I guess I should start with every impression and experience I have with west coast baseball.

- I've been to Dodger Stadium a few times. The first time was an interleague game against the Mariners. The matchup was Derek Lowe against Felix Hernandez. The Bad: I was cheering for the Mariners solely because King Felix was on my fantasy team. Every time I cheered for him, the Dodger fan in front of me would give me a dirty look. One time he said "If you don't like the home team, why would you come to their game?" What kind of thing is that to say? You can't go to a road game? The Good: After the game, they let us go onto the field and see some free concert by this shitty band called the Pink Spiders. They sucked, but you aren't able to go onto the field and walk around in a historic stadium every day.

- Living with an A's fan, it's easy to hate the Angels. But even before that, I never cared for them. I thought it was cool in 2002 when they beat the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, but other than that, I never really had any strong felings when it came to the Angels. They're one of the most vanilla teams in the majors. Even their superstars (Vlad, Garret Anderson) are boring as hell.

- At first, I felt bad for Giants fans. I mean, they have to put up with a front office that employs a bunch of guys that can start collecting Social Security by the All-Star break and waste a ton of money on guys like Zito and Aaron Rowand. Now Rowand is a good player and a great guy to have in the clubhouse, but you don't spend $50 million on a player when you aren't going to compete for at least 4 of those years. But then I remembered how Giants fans annoy me because of their love for Barry Bonds. "You have to support your players no matter what!" Bullshit. I hated Sosa as soon as he became an asshole, so at least for me, that's not true.

- I have yet to go to any Padres games. I'll be there for 2 of the Cub games later this year. I hear that PETCO Park has fantastic fish tacos. I see the Padres as the NL version of the Angels: even their best players just seem...boring. Oh, and Jake Peavy will have Tommy John surgery sometime within the next 2 years. Just watch him throw the ball. That delivery is nothing but elbows and shoulders flying around in ways that no one should.

- The Padres are playing the Astros as we speak. Chris Young is a pretty tall dude. He seems like one one of those guys that will always look about 5 years older than he actually is. I have to hate the guy because he tried to punch out Derrek Lee last year, but he sure is good. Because he had such a crappy second half because of injury last year, people forget just how awesome his first half was. How many earned runs did he give up in May of 2007 in 6 starts? 5...total. How about in 5 June starts? 5 total. How about in 4 Juky starts? Just one. And he gets it done with a fastball that usually sits around the 89-91 MPH range. Being tall must be a good thing for a pitcher.

So what's next for me to immerse myself into west coast baseball? I'll be picking a favorite team first of all. I'm going to break down each team in a number of categories and see who comes out on top and that shall be my new favorite team of interest. I may not become a hard core fan per se, but they will be the main focus of my attention. So be on the lookout for that.

And again, apologies to Seattle, but I'm all out of time.