My Los Angeles Sports Odyssey-Part 1. Los Angels Coliseum, Staples Center and Angel Stadium

Los Angeles. The City Of Angels. The second most populated city in all of America. Always seemed out of reach to this life long New Yorker. I have always wanted to visit the city that the Red Hot Chili Peppers sang about in "Under The Bridge", but something called money always got in the way. As in I never really had it. It started to look like I would never make my way down to Cali.

Then, this wonderful thing called Twitter came into my life. I found myself tweeting all the time and in time, I started making friends through twitter. It was great. I was tweeting stuff that no one else, save me, cared about. I met like minded individuals on Twitter. I started making Yankees friends, Jets friends, Knicks friends, Islanders and Devils friends, fellow card collectors would tweet with me. It was fantastic.

The one day, she tweeted her way into my life.

This wonderful, gorgeous Yankees fan became a friend and in time, we started sending personal messages to each other talking about the Yankees, Avengers, each others lives and other stuff. Messages led to texting, then to phone calls. We spent so much time talking on the phone. One day, I knew I had too meet her.

Plans were made and I soon found myself on a plane toward Los Angeles. Since I was going to out in L.A., I knew I had to check out the sports arenas and stadiums. This was a dream come true for me. I would finally see all the stadiums and areas I had only seen on T.V. This sports geek was beside himself with excitement.

The first day I was there, I got to see 2 major house of sports for Los Angeles.

First up was the Staples Center. Home to the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks. The arena opened in 1999 and still has the look of a brand new arena. Oh look, there is a L.A. Kings banner greeting me. And here I am, still sore about last years Stanley Cup. Great way to greet a visitor.

I think the statues are of Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson. I'm sure we will see a Kobe statue out there soon. How about statues of Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain? I also think Marcel Dionne and Wayne Gretzky should get one also.

Next up is a personal house of horrors for this Jets fan. The Los Angeles Coliseum. Teams like the Dodgers, Chargers, Rams and Raiders have called this home at one time or another. I have watched the Jets play the Raiders at the Coliseum on T.V. many a time and it usually wasn't pretty. This National Landmark has hosted Super Bowls, World Series and the Summer Olympics. It's currently the home of the USC Trojans.

The next day we took a drive over to Anaheim so I could check out Angels Stadium of Anaheim. Growing up watching the Yankees play the California Angels (and yes, I still call them the California Angels), it's a place I have always wanted to visit and now I was going to.

As We got closer, we could see the famous A that used to be on top of the scoreboard. It now sits in the parking lot entrance, greeting fans.

And we arrived.

There was no game. The Angels were in Chicago that day, I think. But we took the opportunity to look a round a bit.

I used to think those giant caps were kind of corny, but after seeing them in person, I kind of like them now.

Yes, I know, the chicken legs need a tan.

After taking pictures, we went inside the gift shop for some swag to take home to commemorate my firt visit to The Big A. All I have to say is, a whole lot of red. And I'm a Devils fan.

And here is what I wound up taking home

Just 2 pins and a couple of pocket schedules for the collection. I actually wanted to pick up a bobblehead of Mike Trout, but I was afraid of it breaking on the way back to NY, so I went light.

Come to think of it, why didn't I go into the Staples Center's team shop and get some swag from there? I guess I didn't think of it.

That is part one of my trip and tour of various LA Sports meccas. Tomorrow, I will be part 2, Dodger Stadium.

The Start Of A New Collection: Pocket Schedules

I recently embarked on starting 3 new collections; 2 for the Yankees PC and one of a player that never played a game for the Yankees. Today, I am going to discuss my new Yankees pocket schedule collection.

Collecting pocket schedules is something I have thought about collecting, but never really pursued them the way I would an autograph or a bobble-head. I always picked up a pocket schedule when I went to a Yankees game or was in a team store. I would pick it up, look it over then just casually put it aside, never really looking at it again.

I remember as a kid eagerly awaiting the release of the Preliminary schedules the Yankees would release in February. I remember going to Yankee Stadium with my buddies to pick up these larger schedules that would give you the dates of games, price of admission and would hawk their season ticket packages. As a kid, I would always look for the SGA dates, but those were never released on the preliminary schedules. I always saved them until my mom would tell me they were clutter and toss them out. I wish I still had them.

I have always wanted to collect yearbooks and programs, but with the prices on those being a bit high, I realize that pocket schedules fit my budget and also gave you a glimpse into where the team was at that point in their history. It's pretty cool looking through them, seeing where the team was on my birthday, what they gave out that year and the price of tickets at that point. The prices have skyrocketed from when I started going to games, I can tell you.

I don't have many in my collection right now, just 9 schedules, 6 of them are Yankees . I am pretty sure I have more somewhere, but here are the ones I have right now:

1970 Yankees Schedule. This I just picked up of eBay for a low price. I had seen other 1970 schedules go for as much as 20.00 and that was a price I was looking to avoid. I got this one for under 5 bucks and the seller included a 1966 Topps Yankees Team Card which I need for my Yankees card PC.

2004 Yankees Schedule. I had this one in a drawer with some other pocket schedules. The condition is not bad, but not great. There's fraying on the top of it. When I can, I will replace this one.

2007 Yankees Schedule. Another which falls into a less than perfect conditioned schedule. 

2008 Yankees Schedule. As with the others, the condition is not the greatest. Fraying on the bottom of the schedule this time. This season is near and dear to my heart. I got to the Futures Game for All Star Weekend and got to enjoy my final few times in a place I considered my second home. I am not ashamed to say I cried while watching the Yankees take the final lap around the Stadium as Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" played in the background. I miss that place to this day.

2009 Yankees Preliminary Schedule. Without a doubt this is in the worst shape of all my schedules. Would actually be in perfect shape if not for all the water marks on it. The good thing about collecting pocket schedules is that these are all easily replaced at a great price. 

2013 Yankees Schedule. Picked this one up at the Yankees team store recently. The Yankees have started printing up multiple schedules with different players on the cover. I have this Jeter.

And this Teixeria, which I keep in my Teixeria PC Binder along with the 2008 Braves Schedule with Tex on the cover. I also picked up an Andy Pettitte Schedule which I forgot to scan. 

I also have a few non-Yankees pocket schedules:

2012-13 New York Knicks Schedule with Carmello Anthony, Tyson Chandler and Amar'e Stoutmire on the cover. Grabbed this at MSG when I was in the area. I also grabbed a 2012-2013 New York Rangers schedule which is definitely for trade. 

2009 Staten Island Yankees Schedule. I was a season ticket holder with them for 5 years and this is the only schedule I managed to pick up. I will pick up this years when I take in a game, for sure.

2007-08 New Jersey Devils Schedule. It's beat up, that's for sure. But I won't be replacing it as it's from my very first Devils game. I have been a fan since the 1990-91 season and never made it out to the Meadowlands to see a game, but went to the celebration they had for the 2002 Stanley Cup, go figure. I had this schedule in my pocket the whole game and it came out in pretty bad shape because of it. Because of the sentimental value, it will stay in my collection. 

My goal with my Yankees pocket schedule is to collect from 1970 seasons to present day, same with the Jets and Knicks. With the Devils, I'll start with their first season and move on from there. I just need to find pocket pages that fit them as the nine pocket pages are too small for the current schedules.

I am looking forward to add to my pocket schedule collection. I think it's a fun and cheap way to enjoy your teams history as well as they are cool to look through. If you also collect schedules, leave the link to your collection in the comments below. I would love to look at your collection.

New Teixeria Additions

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge Mark Teixeira fan. So much that he is the focus of one of my player collections. I'm currently collection Tex, Tino Martinez and Roberto Clemente for baseball, Wayne Chrebet for football, Mike Bossy and Martin Brodeur for hockey and David Lee and Patrick Ewing for basketball. A lot of player collections, I know. But it makes collecting that much more fun because you not just limited to cards. There are other stuff like bobble heads, figurines, magazines and other oddball items you can add to your collections.

Right now, my Teixeria collection stands at 281 different cards in my collection. I believe there are a few more that I'm sitting on that I haven't scanned yet, so that number may grow. My goal is to have 400 different Teixeria cards by the end of 2013. I believe that's a goal I can easily attain if I keep spending money, lol. 

Here are the newest additions:

These are from different members in my Team Collectors community

My buddy Kerry sent me these Tex cards as well as a Braves schedule with Teixeria on it's cover

I'm hoping Tex will be back this season. The wrist injury he suffered while hitting off a tee while with Team USA seems to be more serious than initially thought. The Yankees will need his bat nd glove at first base if they have a shot at repeating as AL East Division Champions. Maybe one day I will post my favorite Teixeira cards in my collection. I just wanted to update this blog as I have not done so in a while, concentrating on other things. With baseball season coming soon, I will be posting more often on here. Hopefully, it will be a great season for Tex and the Yankees.