Thursday, August 10, 2006 |
The Landlocked Loyalties Of The Inland Empire
Riverside and San Bernardino counties have reached a combined population of about 4 million, but we have no team of our own to rally behind. Instead, my home turf has become Southern California's baseball battleground as refugees from the coastal real estate market continue to pour in. Dodger Blue flows into Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana and other San Bernardino County 'burbs. Angels-obsessed Orange County exiles are overtaking Corona and the western edge of Riverside. And then comes a curveball: San Diegans are pushing north into Riverside County, bringing with them their oft-tested faith in the Padres....
No matter how many people move here, the coastal counties will always consider the I.E. to be a minor-league region. And it is, quite literally. The Inland Empire is home to four of SoCal's five minor-league baseball teams in the California League — in Adelanto, Lake Elsinore, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino. They're all just single-A clubs, and the best players can be plucked away at any time.
To draw fans to these low-stakes games, folksy fun becomes as important as hits and runs. My favorite team, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, features dinosaur mascots strutting their stuff atop dugouts, and fans from the stands are drawn into all sorts of kooky contests. The players are so poor that the audience passes a hat to collect money when someone hits a homer; most live with host families to avoid paying rent. And yet these guys sure look as if they're having more fun than those scratch-and-spit soreheads in the major leagues.
Seems to me that the Angels are in a better position to exploit the IE market, as it's probably easier to get to the Big A.
The author laments that the I.E. is viewed a minor-league region. In fact, it will remain as such unless and until a major commercial center develops. As long as those outlying areas consist of nothing more than housing tracts interspersed with shopping centers and the occasional office park without any financial center or urban core, they'll never be "major league."
: 8/10/2006 02:07:00 PM
But $710K is nothing to sneeze at. It's a lot more $$$ than I've ever had in my hands at one time.
: 8/10/2006 03:53:00 PMAs an Angel fan formerly of the IE (what a ridiculous moniker), I find mildly annoying and tiresome the hyper-self-conscious tone of the oped.
: 8/10/2006 05:20:00 PM : 8/12/2006 09:20:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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