Last Updated: September 6th, 2023 by Aaron Gwynn
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We need to talk about the Angels. Angel Stadium of Anaheim underwent major renovations starting in 1996 to bring it into the age of the modern ballpark. The same cannot be said for the team, which remains stuck in the past. This is all despite having perhaps the TWO best players in the entire sport, a giant payroll, and huge sponsorship deals. The updated park is beautiful though, and maybe this year will be the year where they figure it all out!
What’s that Random Rock Pile Out in Center? Oh, It’s Just the Outfield Extravaganza! – via Flickr user Ray S
Things You Shouldn’t Miss
- Try not seeing the Giant Angels A, with its own halo. There’s a reason the park is sometimes called the Big A.
- The Outfield Extravaganza is the name of the rock pile the Angels had installed by the outfield to resemble the California coast.
- Outside the team store on the 100 level, check out the cool little shrine to the Angels’ 2002 World Series win, complete with trophy and memorabilia.
Ways To Save Money
- Take Uber instead of parking. Click here to get a free ride.
- Take a soft cooler of food & drinks with you.
- Stay close by and walk to the stadium. Click here to see our favorite hotel near Angel Stadium.
- Click here to reserve a cheap parking spot in advance.
There are a lot of different parking options, so choose the best in terms of your exit strategy. SpotHero will allow you to do that before you arrive. Use the ART to combine with other attractions.
This is one of the few parks where ushers will ensure you do not move closer to home plate, so make sure you are happy with the tickets you have. SeatGeek can make that easier.
It’s a good thing you can bring in your own food, because there aren’t great options inside or outside the park, and the prices are Disney-high!
Orange County has become more diverse, but it’s still mostly chains and boring food nearby the stadium. The last time I was there I arrived in the area early and had to walk more than an hour to find something edible.
Another note: like most parks since the pandemic began, Angel Stadium has gone cashless, so make sure to bring those cards (or intentionally leave them home and tell your family you forgot ’em)!
Arriving at Angels Stadium
Alternative/Public Transportation to an Angels Game
Truthfully, this place feels more like a football stadium because it is in the middle of nowhere. Transit can get you there if you know what you’re doing, but plan ahead because it can take a while.
You can take the Metrolink Orange line, which will drop you off at the edge of the parking lots if you take the Anaheim – Artic Station stop.
The Anaheim – Artic Station is Made to Repeat the “A” Motif – via Flickr user Ron Reiring
Depending on where you are coming from, the Metrolink will drop you off at the edge of the Angel Stadium parking lot. If you live in town you know where the closest station is, but if you are an out-of-towner you probably want to check for stations near your hotel.
Metrolink will also be running Angel Stadium Express trains on the Orange line from Union Station on weekday game days to facilitate travel.
For a cheap ride to weekday evening games, check out the Angel Express Bus. They pick up and drop off at Goldenwest Transportation Center, but only on weekdays when the game starts at 7:05.
Angel Express Bus Costs Less Than a Beer, and Seniors and Kids Get Major Discounts
Alternatively, you may be at one of the many hotels or attractions services by the Anaheim Resort Transport (ART), a bus service connecting various hotspots in Anaheim. If you are dragging kids from some amusement park (Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, etc) to Angel Stadium, this is your most direct route. Hotel drop-offs are also nice.
A lot of these options are better for weekday games, not weekends. Since there aren’t a lot of great public transportation options, you may need a ride to and from the park. If you haven’t tried Uber before, click here to get your first ride free. Pregame UBER drop-offs enter through Gene Autry Way, and after the game, the rideshare pick-up zone is located in the parking lot, near Gate 1 towards Left Field.
If coming up from the San Diego area, you can take the Pacific Surfliner train which drops you off just a few minute-walk from the park. These trains on game days can be pretty fun and wild too with fans getting ramped up for the game. I have seen some things inappropriate for a pleasant article about a ballpark!
Driving to an Angels Game
Most of the Metrolink stations offer free parking and from there you can ride the train right to the stadium. This is the better option if your palms start to sweat at the mention of navigating through traffic. The cost of the ride may equal out to that of parking, but you have to factor in the cost of your time and of course gas money.
You will undoubtedly receive many opinions when it comes to parking and/or traveling to an Angel’s game. One thing is certain; the Angels have an enormous parking lot surrounding the stadium. The official parking will run you about a tenner, and for most people that is a fair price to pay when you can exit pretty quickly.
If you are going to go that route it is important to consider your exit strategy. One such strategy is to enter the lot via State College BLVD. and park in the front if possible. Typically you can be out of the lot in less than 10 minutes after a game. You really should not be afraid to drive to an Angels game as the ample parking makes it very driver friendly.
Free parking near Angel Stadium can also be had around the stadium if you don’t mind walking a little further. For me that is not a big deal, but if you have little kids or you don’t like to walk more than 10 minutes to the stadium, I would do one of the first two options.
The area across Orangewood Ave. has several side streets where free parking can be had. This is a more feasible option for a night game, but keep an eye out for any street signs or meters to make sure you are not parking illegally.
Check Out the Residential Area Just Past Orangewood Ave for Free Parking
A final parking option worth mentioning, and it is a pretty good one, is SpotHero. This is a site where you can pay for parking ahead of time at various places, and have a reserved spot. It is nice because you know precisely where you are headed and you don’t have the stress of searching around.
No really, sorry guys. It’s Just A Rock Pile – via Flickr user Ken Lund
Best Food At & Near Angel Stadium
Save Money on Food
Some fans will tailgate before the game in the official Angels parking lot. They have pretty restrictive rules about tailgating, and you aren’t supposed to have alcohol nor a charcoal grill. So, keep that in mind if you plan to bring food with you. You may want to have red Solo cups for your drinks, and food that is ready to go.
They will officially let you bring in sealed bottles of water with you, and depending on the security person they might also let you slide by with a sealed non-alcoholic beverage. Besides that, they typically let you bring your own snacks and food into the stadium. This is perfect if you are bringing a bunch of kids with you, because little snacks add up at ballpark prices!
Food You Shouldn’t Miss at Angel Stadium
The food at Angel Stadium is nothing spectacular. The concessions are run by Aramark, so it is pretty typical fare. They do have vegan hot dogs available for all of you veggie lovers, and they can be found pretty much across the stadium. At best there are a couple of meh options if you get the hunger:
1. Smoke Ring BBQ: The original location is by Gate 1, but there’s now an Express cart by section 237. Various BBQ and comfort food options. The brisket sandwich is your best bet, though the Legends Dog is supposedly impressive.
2. Chronic Tacos: you’re in southern California so if you couldn’t get good nachos, you’d have the right to be angry. Chronic Tacos has you covered. Head up to section 223 to get custom made nachos, taco bowls, and burritos.
3. Other options include poke bowls, ice cream sundaes, and pretty good slices of pizza.
Chronic Tacos Presents the Made-to-Order Nachos You Crave
Angel Stadium Seating Chart
We’ve created the seating chart of Angel Stadium above to help you better understand some of our recommendations below. Feel free to download this image and use it, we just ask that you credit Ballpark Savvy and link back to the page where you found the image.
Cheap Angels Tickets
At this point, nearly every Major League team has some kind of variable pricing model where depending on how in-demand a game is, the ticket prices you’ll pay at the gate may go up or down.
Sometimes pricing varies from day to day, other times it is a more formal “tiered” structure where when they are playing a big draw team like the Yankees or Dodgers, you’ll pay a premium price compared to a perennial bottom-dweller who might be in the “budget tier.”
So rather than focusing on specific prices and sections which tend to change fairly often, I want to talk about general rules and strategies for getting the best deals on tickets.
1. Compare 3rd Party Sites
SeatGeek is a big time ticket comparison site that lets you compare a bunch of different ticket brokers, marketplaces, etc., and find the best price for the game you want to go to. They also have a tool that projects whether ticket prices will go up or down – AKA whether you should buy now or wait.
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Click here to view Angels tickets on SeatGeek.
There’s a Reason They Call It the Big A – via Flickr user Ken Lund
2. Buy Last Minute
If you’ve bought tickets online before, you’ve heard of StubHub. What you may not know however is that with the rise of print-at-home and tickets on your mobile phone via the Ballpark App that you can usually buy tickets right up to a couple of hours before game time.
Save $5 On Last Minute Tickets: I recently learned about the Gametime app and it’s legit. Save BIG on last minute tickets. Click here to get the app and you’ll get $5 off your first order.
As someone who has sold a fair share of tickets on StubHub, I also know that sellers are encouraged to set a declining price for their tickets. This means they’ll set a starting price and then their lowest acceptable price, and StubHub will auto-magically lower the price of those tickets as the event date gets closer.
So in many cases, a game that isn’t sold out will have plenty of below face value deals on StubHub that you can snatch at the last minute and then either print at home, or just use the App on your phone to get scanned into the game.
3. Avoid Craigslist
It’s not to say that you can’t find ticket deals on Craigslist, you can. It is just more of a peace of mind, a safety issue. I’m a Craigslist kind of guy, but I also know it’s easy to get screwed buying baseball tickets there.
Remember when I mentioned selling on StubHub? When you list tickets there, all you need to know is the barcode number from that ticket along with the other details on section, row, etc. – So when I sell tickets I never mail them to the buyer, they just print them at home and my actual tickets become void.
If I was a shady character, I could go sell those void tickets to an unsuspecting buyer on Craigslist for cash. The tickets look real, they are “real” in a sense – but what that buyer will find out is when they go to enter the stadium, the ticket scanner will say “thou shalt not enter thy game.”
Don’t be that buyer.
Stick to buying tickets from SeatGeek, StubHub, or directly from the team. You can still get deals and you never have to worry about being scammed.
Best Value Seats at Angel Stadium
Fans will tell you that the ushers at Angel Stadium take great pride in there job of making sure you sit where your ticket says. Many will not even let you down on the lower level to take a picture without a ticket for that section. So the long-standing tradition of cheap ballpark goers of moving down to better seats can be difficult at this ballpark. If you get there really early enough though, sneak down to the LF home run seats because you’ll get a ton of free baseballs.
That being said, it becomes debatable when you start discussing where the best values in Angel Stadium are. If you are going to a day game it might be worth a little extra to sit in the Terrace box seats. I would shoot for section 206 where you are under an overhang so you avoid the sun, and you get an excellent view of the scoreboard. If it were me, I would go with upper deck seats down either line. Angel Stadium is known for exceptional views from anywhere in the park, and for my money, I would rather pay less for a bird’s eye view. Keep in mind that the sun is absolutely killer in the upper deck though, so try to stay out of the far RF corner where you will be blinded for a few innings before the sun fully sets.
Sitting Behind the Plate on the Upper Decks Isn’t Too Bad – via Flickr user Andrew Wippler
If I am not going to really splurge and sit right behind the plate, many other seats are pretty equal as far as the quality of view if it’s not a sellout. I find that sitting up high and down the lines can provide a nice breeze and a little bit of breathing room from other fans.
Where to Stay While Visiting Angel Stadium
My favorite way to travel to a baseball game is to stay as close to the stadium as possible and walk or take an Uber so I don’t have to fool with parking in a strange place. So many ballparks have great hotels within walking distance making it easy to stay nearby.
I use Tripadvisor to find a hotel with good reviews near any ballpark. I prefer this option over any other because I actually search for the park I am visiting and Tripadvisor gives me hotels, restaurants, and other attractions near there. Angel Stadium is located in Anaheim and the city is packed with stuff to do and see.
Obviously, there are a lot of hotels in Anaheim, but I can search for Angel Stadium here and get the 10 Closest hotels to Angel Stadium and then pick what I want based on ratings and prices. This saved me a lot of time and I didn’t end up getting ripped off on the price or end up in a sketchy place where I didn’t feel safe.
The closest hotels do not always come with the lowest cost but you get what you pay for when it comes to accommodations. Remember that you aren’t paying for parking or transportation.
Towneplace Suites by Mariott Anaheim Maingate is half a mile away. You can walk to the game in about 10 minutes. This is a good location if you are visiting Disneyland while you are in town also. Breakfast included so throw some of those snacks in your bag for later!
Embassy Suites by Hilton Anaheim Orange is also an easy 10-minute walk from the Angels. Breakfast is included here too. Breakfast is included and the rooms are huge. There is also a really nice pool making for a real California vacation.
Free Stuff at Angel Stadium
1. Main Entrance – the main entrance to Angel Stadium has all the flash that one would expect from Disney-town. A set of massive bats holds up the actual Angel Stadium sign, setting up a photo op. Posters of past and current players look like promotional ads for Topps baseball cards. And the gigantic pair of gaudy red baseball caps are just tacky enough… to melt even the coldest of visitors’ hearts.
It’s Hard Not to Be Impressed by the Entrance – via Flickr user Ken Lund
2. Statues of a Different Kind – unlike most ballparks, which immortalize either players, owners, or broadcasters in bronze, the Angels chose two different models. Outside on the first base side, a statue of former Angel Rod Carew’s daughter, Michelle, is immortalized for her courageous battle against leukemia. Outside on the third base side is a statue of team founder and old crooner Gene Autry tips his hat to his adoring fans.
3. Parking lot coupons and free samples! Not sure how policed this is by the Angels themselves, but every time I’ve been to a game there has been awesome free stuff in the parking lot-drinks, candy, toys, stickers and other weird SoCal stuff! If you don’t mind wandering around a bit, chances are you’ll get some good swag.
4. Free wifi! That’s sumthin’ at least.
5. The Angels take part in the Designated Driver programs as well, so sign up for free soda and other perks!