LA Galaxy Opening Match at the Rose Bowl

I'll bet you're looking forward to reading a nice story about the opening match at the Rose Bowl between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, right? Well, I'm sorry to burst your anticipation balloon, but you ain't gonna read about the game in THIS column. So get over it already.

It's not that I don't want to write about the game, it's just that I DIDN'T GET TO SEE VERY MUCH OF IT! So instead of reading about the game itself, lucky you, you get to read about the events leading up to, but not necessarily including, the match on April 13, 1996.

Game time 7:00pm, Los Angeles time. Let's work backwards to determine a good departure time. Let's see. hmmm. Vehicle = truck. Route = Freeways. From San Diego to Los Angeles International Airport, under average traffic conditions on a Saturday, using the dogpool lane, barring major catastrophies (natural or otherwise), a good estimate would be 14 hours. Well, that would be two hours in human time.

From L.A.X. to the Rose Bowl, maybe 30 minutes allowing for traffic conditions near an event that might bring in 15,000 fans, but certainly not more than 28,000 fans, the official Sell Out number... a number that cannot be over sold since it is printed in all of the media guides, right?

Let's do some math. Two hours + 1/2 hour (human time) = 2 1/2 hours. Now if we subtract 2 1/2 hours from 7:00 we have 4:30pm, right?

So if we theoretically leave for the match at 3:30pm, we will have an extra hour to allow for bad traffic, or late starts, or doggie rest stops, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Here is the real life story of "Samster and her pals go to L.A. to watch soccer."

3:30pm We all intend to meet in the parking lot in San Diego.
3:45pm We all actually meet in the parking lot in San Diego, and depart.

5:45pm Right on time. We pass L.A.X. One and a half hours to kick off. No problem.

5:55pm We hit traffic on Highway 110 to Pasadena.

6:00pm We begin to consider that traffic may be a factor, and that getting there right on time may be tight.

6:15pm Traffic is beginning to bite. This is a good point to mention that we are supposed to meet some friends at the Will Call box office to give them tickets.

6:30pm We concede that we are not going to meet our friends on time. So we are shootin' for "before kickoff."

6:55pm Doesn't look like we are going to make it before game time.

7:00pm Kickoff.

7:15pm We get cut off by a bad driver. This gives me something to focus on for the rest of the journey. I imagine scenarios involving my teeth and his butt.

7:30pm We watch hundreds of fans sprinting past the truck in an attempt to catch the game. We laugh. 7:41pm Brainstorm: Let's listen to the radio broadcast.

7:46pm We find the broadcast on the Mexican channel. It sounds funny. All I can hear is something like: "Despuesdela mediocanchabarrio sdeleMeolala aldefrente deazulconpportero sconnegrosvacas........ GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Gol. Cobiones."

8:00pm The first half just ended. We discuss at which point we turn around and go back home.

8:05pm We can actually see the parking lot.

8:10pm We park the truck. We hear the second half start.

8:18pm We finally locate the Will Call office. Our friends are not there. Neither are their tickets. We learn later that it took four tries with four different ticket window people for our friends to convince them to give up the tickets. We now have tickets in hand.

8:20pm We stand in a mass of people, probably about 200, waiting to go in one gate, with one ticket taker. Andi says let's go to another gate. We do.

8:25pm We actually get into the Rose Bowl. My pals go take their seats while I go with some bozo who has to deliver a package to the press box. The press security are really slow, and equally unhelpful.

8:30pm Delivery is complete, our tickets are on the other side of the Rose Bowl.

8:36pm We take our seats. There are fifteen minutes left in the game.

8:37pm I realize that there are more than 28,000 people in attendance.

To top it all off, after the game there were thousands of loud bangs and bright lights. I started shaking... The good news is that there were nearly 70,000 fans there. Perhaps soccer has finally made an impact in the USA. Let's hope so. Next game I'm leaving at 6:00am. See ya next month. Ciao for Now.


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