Visit Date: July 9, 2025

There will never be another MLB ballpark like Angel Stadium.  Please don’t take that as a compliment.  It’s not as if the place is bad!  Between the rock feature in left-center, the nice photo ops at the gates, and the way the outfield frames the distant mountainsides, there were plenty of positives to take away.  Will those things be enough to keep this stadium out of my bottom 5-10 ballparks when all is said and done?  Probably not.  Because, as the 4th oldest stadium in the majors, Angel Stadium feels like it’s fighting an uphill battle against the rest of baseball that no renovation will completely solve.

When I first began watching baseball as a kid, it was actually my favorite stadium, and as such, the (then) Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim became my second favorite team behind the Pirates for a short period of time (luckily, that ridiculous name only stuck around for ten years – they should go back to the Anaheim Angels in my opinion).  I even remember buying an Angels hat at the Lids in Broadway at the Beach on our 2007 Myrtle Beach trip, all because of my love for their ballpark.  

What was it that I liked so much about a place I’d never even visited?  It was the California Spectacular, a giant, Disney-designed rockpile in left-center field that features a waterfall, geysers, and fireworks whenever the team hits a home run.  I was in awe of its grandeur.  No other stadium had anything quite like it.  It was this combination of being so visually stunning and unique that firmly placed Angel Stadium as my number one ballpark.

Tastes change in 19 years, though.  My opinions are no longer based around what looks exciting in the MLB: The Show video game.  Instead, I now care a lot more about the overall gameday experience that a ballpark offers, from the amenities both inside and outside, to the way the game is forced to transpire based on the intricate, sometimes overlooked design elements surrounding the field.  While I still love the waterfall, my thoughts are obviously much more nuanced as an adult.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t read glowing reviews of Angel Stadium, but I was going in with an open mind.

When it first opened in 1966, the stadium was devoid of any outfield seating.  Instead, the area immediately beyond the fences served as a parking lot and staging area for ballpark operations.  It was also the home of the Big A scoreboard, a 230-foot giant letter “A” with a halo on top, resembling the team’s logo.  Although it quickly achieved icon-status in Southern California, the Big A was moved to a parking lot (where it remains today) in 1979 when the stadium was retrofitted to hold the Los Angeles Rams football team, who needed a smaller venue than the gargantuan Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.  By Opening Day 1980, Angel Stadium was another cookie cutter, lifeless multi-purpose stadium in a sport already plagued by them.  Gone were the sprawling views of the distant mountains.  Instead, fans were treated to an awkward, trapezoidal, enclosed layout with nosebleed seats in the upper deck that would never sell.  Any sense of character was gone.  Just like that, Angel Stadium became known as one of the worst venues in both professional baseball and football.

Due to dwindling attendance and the resulting television blackouts, the Rams moved to St. Louis after the 1994 season.  Returning to its origins as a baseball-only facility, Angel Stadium was completely overhauled.  The Walt Disney Company, who owned the team at the time, poured in millions of dollars to tear down and replace the previously added outfield seats, construct the California Spectacular water feature, and make facade improvements to help the concourse feel more open.  In doing so, the Angels agreed to stay in Anaheim until 2031.

At the start of this review, I stated that there will never be another ballpark like Angel Stadium.  In part, I said this because this is the last professional baseball venue remaining that spent a considerable amount of its lifetime as a multi-purpose stadium, a concept that was pretty much eradicated by the mid-00s.  But more so, I meant this as a slight to the property immediately surrounding the ballpark.

In a day-and-age where every new stadium project places immense focus on having a surrounding “ballpark district” with restaurants, retail, and residential properties, Angel Stadium is severely behind the times.  Probably my biggest gripe about this entire facility is that, despite being in a commercialized area only a 2.5-mile walk from the gates of Disneyland, the whole place is surrounded by a sea of parking lots.  There is nothing to do in the immediate vicinity, and the stadium suffers as a result.  While the team ownership is looking to change this, that still feels a long way off.  To me, the most important aspects of a ballpark are what’s on the inside.  But for countless other fans, it’s just as crucial that there’s something to do both before you even step foot into the building and long after the final out.  Almost every modern stadium has these kinds of offerings.  But to put it plainly, Angel Stadium is incredibly boring and completely behind the 8-ball.  You will never see any future ballpark in a situation like this, and for good reason.

While the design of the exterior of the stadium is pretty lackluster, one positive is the two giant Angels hats that sit outside the home plate entrance.  These, along with the full-sized brick infield in front of them, provide a great photo opportunity as you enter.  If you ever find yourself at Angel Stadium, I would highly recommend you utilize this gate to enhance your overall experience.

The concourse experience here was a bit hit-or-miss.  There are plenty of decent concession stands and I thought the team stores were pretty solid too.  The upper deck was pretty run-of-the-mill, while the 100-level felt a bit like a dungeon at times since you couldn’t really see the field at all from here.  The 200s were the sweet spot, which I’ll touch on shortly.  

However, one dislike I have with Angel Stadium is that the ushers will not allow you to so much as enter the 100s seats located within the infield (and maybe even further down the lines) unless you have a ticket in those spots.  This applies to pre-game too, even if you simply want to take a couple pictures.  Now, as a PNC Park usher myself, I get why the policy is in place; these tickets cost a good bit of money, so you don’t want just anyone stumbling down there.  At the same time, this is the only stadium I’ve been to so far that has completely roped off any access to these sections for the entire duration of the gameday experience.  For a team that often struggles to put butts in seats, I felt this policy was unnecessary.  You should want people to be closer to the action.  It helps to build connections with the players and can keep you more invested in the game.  I get that not everyone can afford these kinds of seats, but preferring them empty is an indictment on the team ownership and the product on the field.

As an aside, the ushers here wear these goofy straw boating hats as part of their uniforms.  They instantly made each person look 20 years older than they were.  It was hard to take them seriously.  I doubt I’ll ever feel so fortunate that we get regular old baseball caps to wear to work at Pirates games.

The 200-level at Angel Stadium is an ideal place to buy tickets because it is the only concourse that wraps completely around the stadium, including the outfield.  You can also see the field at all times on this level (which was not the case on the other floors), so it was a nice spot to do a lap during the game without missing out on the action.  Even though our seats were in the upper deck at only about $7 each, we spent most of our time in the 200s.  The upper level seats down the foul lines felt miles away from the field, but for that price, it’s obviously great value that is pretty much unmatched.  Not many things in Southern California come cheaper than that!  And there were so many empty seats below us that it was easy to slide in somewhere else.  Not that I encourage that behavior…

While I typically enjoy outfield seats, I wouldn’t recommend sitting there in Angel Stadium.  Besides the spot directly next to the foul pole, the left field seats are situated pretty far back from the fence due to the bullpens.  Meanwhile, the right field seats are situated above an 18 foot wall and seemingly never end, stretching back nearly 40 rows to the scoreboard.  Despite all these seats, though, the outfield here feels like there’s actually too much unutilized space, with empty gaps scattered throughout.  While the California Spectacular is excellent, they dropped the ball everywhere around it.

One final, questionable choice in the Angel Stadium outfield is the decision to move the home run line in right field down to 8 feet, even though the wall remains 18 feet high.  The team said that this was to “increase the fan experience” and create a more equitable environment for pitchers and hitters.  But are the fans really better off when dozens of home runs don’t even have to make it over the top of the wall anymore?  We saw this occur at least once or twice at our game.  It felt cheap and unearned.  In the end, I’m pretty convinced that this decision was made to benefit the bats of Shohei Ohtani & Mike Trout more than anything else.  With time, I hope it gets reversed.

While there are plenty of criticisms to go around, I think Angel Stadium offers a good fan experience overall.  It doesn’t knock your socks off by any means, but it gets the job done.  Tickets are accessible to the everyday fan, concessions are diverse & plentiful, and the stadium feels relatively easy to get to, even on foot.  In a sport with so many amazing, unique, and memorable venues, however, there isn’t a whole lot that stands out.  In the next decade, this place desperately needs to adapt, or it may ultimately face its demise.  Opportunity awaits to more fully integrate Angel Stadium into the surrounding community of Anaheim.  There is so much untapped potential in the endless horizon of parking spots.  Will team ownership and local government officials finally come together to create a long-awaited ballpark village and give this place the jolt it needs before it’s too late?  Only time will tell.

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Thank you for visiting Small World Travel Blog!  We hope you enjoyed this seventh review in our MLB Stadium Tour series.  Please consider subscribing for more content like this!  If you’ve been to Angel Stadium before, what was your experience like?  Do you think a sea of parking lots still serves a valuable purpose for modern ballparks?  Let us know in the comments, along with which stadium you’d like us to review next!