First off, I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas holiday. I was unfortunately severely under the weather this year, thus I wasn’t as active as I would have liked. Nasty cold really struck me out, then punched me in the face, what a jerk this one was. I’m finally on the mend and part of my mending is being creative and writing and sharing my recent trip to California and some beautiful baseball experiences.

So last week, I found myself back in Anaheim, CA for work (ABF Freight). The weather was predictably nice – sunny skies, low humidity, winds variable – great weather for checking out baseball fields and experiences. After flying into Santa Ana’s John Wayne Airport, I picked up a rental car and headed just south to the campus of the University of California, Irvine. My destination – Anteater Ballpark.

After parking in the lot behind the left field fences, I took a rather long approach to gaining access to the field. I’ll explain this later. After “mountaineering” up a steep hilly incline, I found my way on the back side of the third base stands and navigated myself over to the front gate area. The gates were open, landscapers were working on the field, and I made my way inside to take a few photos. When some in this great country were shoveling snow and ice off their cars, this field was being mowed and raked and attended to like there was a 12 pm baseball game or something. Location, location, location.

The University of California, Irvine Anteaters play at Cicerone Field there in Irvine, CA. Notable alumni from the program including Brady Anderson, Doug Linton, and Dylan Axelrod, according to Baseball Almanac. I didn’t see any statues or memorials around the front gate area, nor behind home plate or near the press box. The only tribute I could find was the number 19 circled on the right field padding. I took this photo of the field from right field, from the grassy area and realized two things…

Number 1, this would be an awesome park to see a baseball game. I loved all the grassy areas where blankets, lawn chairs could be set up – sort of like a Cape Cod Baseball League game. Number 2, there was a entrance to the field about 10 feet from where I parked my car. Instead of taking a left to walk right into the park, I took a right, walked down to the street, then traversed up a steep incline, wound up walking about 1 mile out of the way. Oh well, it was a nice day and I will not apologize for my adventurous self. I will admit that the way back to the car was far, far easier then the journey to the field.

It was an awesome adventure getting to and exploring Anteater Ballpark at Cicerone Field, home of the University of California, Irvine Baseball team. Really nice layout, tons of great views of the field from just about every spot I stopped at. I loved the huge grassy area in right field, reminded me of all those Cape Cod League games I attended over the years back in New England. The field was in ready to play condition, sun was shining, geez it must be tough be a baseball junkie living in Southern California!!! Anyway, it was another incredible SoCal baseball experience for me. One of two I experienced that Sunday. Stay tuned for Trip #2, you are going to be blown away by that field and that school. Here is a hint…