Monday, February 28, 2022

How to Be a Red Bulls Fan In Toronto -- 2022 Edition

The New York Red Bulls opened their 2022 season this past Saturday, by beating the San Jose Earthquakes. This coming Saturday, they will visit Toronto FC.

Before You Go. This is Canada, the Great White North. Being early March 5, the traditional Canadian cold could be a factor. According to the Toronto Star website, temperatures will be in the high 30s for most of the day, including gametime. They're also predicting "light snow." Bundle up.

Toronto is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to reset your watch or fiddle with your smartphone's clock.

Make sure you call your bank and tell them you're going. After all, Canada may be an English-speaking country, and a democracy (if a parliamentary one), and a country with a Major League Baseball team, but it is still a foreign country. If your bank gets a record of your ATM card making a withdrawal from any country other than the U.S., it may freeze the card, and any other accounts you may have with them. So be sure to let them know that you will, in fact, be in Canada for a little while.

And, since June 1, 2009, you need a passport to cross the border in either direction. Even if you have a valid driver's license (or other State-issued ID) and your birth certificate, they ain't lettin' you across into the True North Strong and Free. Not even if you're a Blue Jays season-ticket holder living in Buffalo or if you sing hosannas of praise to Wayne Gretzky. You don't have a passport? Get one. You do have one? Make sure it's valid and up to date. This is not something you want to mess with. Canadian Customs officials do not fuck around: They care about their national security, too.

Do yourself another big favor: Change your money before you go. There are plenty of currency exchanges in New York City, including one on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue.

Leave yourself $50 in U.S. cash, especially if you're going other than by plane, so you'll have usable cash when you get back to your side of the border. At last check, on the morning of July 13, 2019, US$1.00 = C$1.27 – or, C$1.00 = US 79 cents. However, since the currency exchanges need to make a profit, the current rate may actually favor Canada.  (I was actually in Canada on the day when it most favored the U.S.: January 18, 2002, $1.60 to $1.00 in our favor.)

The multi-colored bill were confusing on my first visit, although we have those now, too. Most banknotes have not changed since I last regularly did Trip Guides. The $5 bill is still blue, and still features Wilfrid Laurier (Prime Minister 1896-1911). The $20 bill remains green, with the nation's head of state, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. The $50 bill remains red, and features William Lyon Mackenzie King (the longest-serving Prime Minister, 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 1935-1948, including World War II). And the $100 remains yellow, and features Robert Borden (Prime Minister 1911-1920, including World War I).

But the $10 bill has changed. While still purple, it no longer features John A. Macdonald, their 1st Prime Minister (1867-73 and 1878-91). Instead, it features Viola Desmond, the 1st black person, and the 1st woman other than Queen Elizabeth, to appear on Canadian banknotes. She was a businesswoman who, in 1946, challenged racially segregated seating in a movie theater in her native Halifax, Nova Scotia. Essentially, she was Canada's Rosa Parks, 9 years before Mrs. Parks became our Mrs. Desmond.

The tricky part is going to be the coins – and you'll thank me for telling you this, but keep your U.S. coins and your Canadian coins separate, for the simple reason that their penny, nickel, dime and quarter are all the same colors and just about the same size as our respective coins. (To make matters more confusing, as we recently did with our States, they had a Provincial quarter series.)

All coins have Queen Elizabeth's portrait on the front, but she's been Queen since 1952, and depending on how old the coin is, you might get a young woman, or her current 95-year-old self, or anything in between. You might even get a penny or a nickel old enough to feature her father, King George VI. Such a coin is still legal tender, however.

They have a $1 coin, copper-colored, bigger than a quarter, and 11-sided, with a bird on the back. This bird is a loon – not to be confused with the people lunatic enough to buy Maple Leafs season tickets. The coin is thus called the "loonie," although they don't say "ten loonies": They use "buck" for "dollar" the way we would.

In fact, the term is connected to Canada: Their first English settlers were the Hudson's Bay Company, and they set the value of a dollar to the price of the pelt of a male beaver, the male of the species being called, as are those of a deer and a rabbit, a buck. (And the female, a doe.) The nation's French-speakers (Francophones) use the French word for loon, and call it a "huard," but since the Montreal Expos are gone, you probably won't hear that term unless you're a hockey fan and go to see the Rangers, Devils or Islanders in Montreal – or maybe Ottawa, which is on the Ontario-Quebec border and has a lot of French-first-speakers.

Then there's the $2 coin, or "toonie." It's not just two dollars, it's two-toned, and even two-piece. It's got a copper center, with the Queen on the front and a polar bear on the back, and a nickel ring around it. This coin is about the size of the Eisenhower silver dollars we used to have. This is the coin that drives me bonkers when I'm up there.

My suggestion is that, when you first get your money changed before you begin your trip, ask for $1 coins but no $2 coins. It's just simpler. I like Canada a lot, but their money, yikes, eh?

Tickets. Since their establishment in 2007, Toronto FC have been very successful at the box office, regardless of how good they've been on the field. They averaged 24,880 fans per home game in 2019, the last season before COVID, about 80 percent of capacity.

Part of this is due to Toronto's status as an "international city." Large French, Italian, Russian and African communities love to watch soccer, both in the stadium and on TV from around the world at pubs. And, with Ontario still being part of the British Commonwealth, the English pub culture is strong.

Fortunately, this being soccer, sections are set aside for visiting fans. Specific to this stadium, it's the tops of Sections 203 and 204, in the northeastern corner. According to the source I have, tickets for those sections are C$37 -- about US$29.

Getting There. The best way is by plane. (Note that these prices, unlike the preceding, will be in U.S. dollars.) Air Canada runs flights out of Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia International Airport to Toronto's Lester Pearson International Airport (he was Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968 and won the Nobel Peace Prize), and the flight takes about an hour and a half.

Book on Air Canada today, and you can get a round-trip flight for under $700. On an American carrier (including, but not necessarily, American Airlines), it will be more expensive, and it probably won't be nonstop.

Greyhound runs 9 buses a day from Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Toronto Coach Terminal, at 610 Bay Street. (Countries in the British Commonwealth, including Canada, call a local bus a "bus" and an inter-city bus a "coach.") The ride averages about 11 hours, and is $271 round-trip -- although an advance purchase can drop it to $159.  The TCT is big and clean, although a little confusing, as it seems to be two separate buildings. You shouldn't have any difficulties with it. It's one block down Bay to Dundas Street, and turn left to get to the Dundas subway station.
Amtrak, however, runs just one train, the Maple Leaf, in each direction each day between New York and Toronto, in cooperation with Canada's equivalent, VIA Rail. This train leaves Penn Station at 7:15 AM, and arrives at Union Station at 8:06 PM, a trip of 12 hours and 51 minutes. The return trip leaves Toronto at 8:20 AM, reaches the border at 10:22, and gets back to Penn Station at 9:59 PM.
WARNING: This time, Amtrak isn't running a train to Toronto, so this option is out.

So, while Toronto's Union Station, at 65 Front Street West, is one of the world's great rail terminals, and is the heart of the city (it's the centerpoint of the city's subway system, so it's not just in the heart of the city), taking Amtrak/VIA to Toronto is not particularly convenient. Especially since the Maple Leaf is one of Amtrak's most popular routes, and it could sell out. If you still want to try it, it's US$262 round-trip. That's a lot more than Greyhound.
If you're driving, it's 500 miles – well, 492 miles from Times Square to downtown Toronto, and 479 miles from Red Bull Arena to BMO Field. It's 79 miles from downtown to the closest border crossing, the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge at Niagara Falls. (It's 458 miles from Times Square, and 45 miles from the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, to downtown Hamilton, home of the CFL's Tiger-Cats.)

Get into New Jersey to Interstate 80, and take it all the way across the State. Shortly after crossing the Delaware River and entering Pennsylvania, take I-380, following the signs for Scranton, until reaching I-81. (If you've driven to a game of the Yankees' Triple-A farm team, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, you already know this part.) Take I-81 north into New York State. (If you've driven to a game of the Mets' Double-A farm team, the Binghamton Mets, you already know this part.) Continue on I-81 past Binghamton and to Syracuse, where you'll get on the New York State Thruway, which, at this point, is I-90. Continue on the Thruway west, past Rochester, to Buffalo.

What happens next depends on where you cross the border. But first, let's discuss what you should do when you're actually at the border. Because you need to take this seriously. Because Canadian Customs will.

You'll be asked your citizenship, and you'll have to show your passport and your photo ID. You'll be asked why you're visiting Canada. Seeing a Yankees vs. Blue Jays game probably won't (but might) get you a smart-aleck remark about how the Jays are going to win, but they won't keep you out of their country based on that alone.

If you're bringing a computer with you (counting a laptop, but probably not counting a smartphone), you don't have to mention it, but you probably should. Chances are, you won't be carrying a large amount of food or plants; if you were, depending on how much, you might have to declare them.

Chances are, you won't be bringing alcohol into the country, but you can bring in one of the following items duty-free, and anything above or in addition to this must have duty paid on it: 1.5 litres (53 ounces) of wine, or 8.5 litres (300 ounces or 9.375 quarts) of beer or ale, or 1.14 litres (40 ounces) of hard liquor. If you have the slightest suspicion that I'm getting any of these numbers wrong, check the Canada Customs website. Better yet, don't bring booze in. Or out.

As for tobacco, well, you shouldn't use it. But, since President Obama ended the ban on Cuban cigars in 2016, either way over the border, you can bring up to 200 cigarettes, 50 cigars (even Cuban ones), and 200 grams (7 ounces) of manufactured tobacco. Now, travelers may return to the United States with up to US$100 worth of alcohol or tobacco or a combination of both. Products acquired in Cuba may be in accompanied baggage, for personal use only.

If you've got anything in your car (or, if going by bus or train) that could be considered a weapon, even if it's a disposable razor or nail clippers, tell them. And while Canada does have laws that allow you to bring in firearms if you're a licensed hunter (you'd have to apply for a license to the Province where you plan to hunt), the country has the proper attitude concerning guns: They hate them. They go absolutely batshit insane if you try to bring a firearm into their country. Which, if you're sane, is actually the sane way to treat the issue.

You think I'm being ridiculous? How about this: Seven of the 45 U.S. Presidents -- 9 counting the Roosevelts, Theodore after he was President and Franklin right before -- have faced assassins with guns, 6 got hit and 4 died; but none of the 23 people (including 1 woman) to serve as Prime Minister of Canada has ever faced an assassination attempt. John Lennon recorded "Give Peace a Chance" in Montreal and gave his first "solo concert" in Toronto, but he got shot and killed in New York. In fact, the next time I visit, I half-expect to see a bumper sticker that says, "GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, AMERICANS WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE."

(Another note about weapons: I'm a fan of the TV show NCIS, which airs in Canada on Global Network TV. If you are also a fan of this show, and you usually observe Gibbs Rule Number 9, "Never go anywhere without a knife," you need to remember that these are rules for members of Gibbs' team, not for civilians. So, this time, forget the knife, and leave it at home. If you really think you're going to need it -- as a tool -- mention the knife to the border guard, and show it to him, and tell him you have it to use as a tool in case of emergency, and that you do not plan to use it as a weapon. Do not mention the words "Rule Number 9" or quote said rule, or else he'll observe his Rule Number 1: "Do not let this jackass into your country, eh?" And another thing: Border guards, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, most likely will observe a variation on Gibbs Rule Number 23: "Never mess with a Mountie's Tim Hortons coffee if you want to live.")

And if you can speak French, don't try to impress the Customs officials with it. Or the locals, for that matter. You're going into Ontario, not Quebec. (And even if you were going into Quebec, they're not going to be impressed by your ability to speak their first language.) A, People of French descent are a minority west of Quebec (although singers Alanis Morrissette and Avril Lavigne are both Franco-Ontarians); and, B, They can probably speak English, let alone French, and possibly another language or two, better than you can. If you try to speak French in Toronto, you won't sound like you're from Montreal, and you certainly won't sound like you're from Paris. You'll sound like a smartass. That's if you speak French well. If you don't, you'll sound like a damn fool.

When crossing back into the U.S., in addition to what you would have to declare on the way in (if you still have any of it), you would have to declare items you purchased and are carrying with you upon return, items you bought in duty-free shops or (if you flew) on the plane, and items you intend to sell or use in your business, including business merchandise that you took out of the United States on your trip. There are other things, but, since you're just going for baseball, they probably won't apply to you. Just in case, check the Canadian Customs website I linked to above.

Precisely where will you be crossing the border? It could be at the Peace Bridge, built in 1927 to commemorate the U.S. and Canada having "the world's longest undefended border," from Buffalo into the Ontario city of Fort Erie.
After going through Customs, this would take you right onto the Queen Elizabeth Way (the QEW). After the Pennsylvania Turnpike, this was North America's 2nd superhighway, and was named not for the current Queen but for her mother, the wife of King George VI, the woman most people now under the age of 65 called the Queen Mother or the Queen Mum. (You know: Helena Bonham-Carter in The King's Speech.)

This road will hug Lake Ontario and go through the Ontario cities of Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Hamilton before turning north and then east toward Toronto. Toronto's CN Tower is so tall that you may actually see it, across the lake, before you get to Hamilton.

The most common route from Buffalo to Toronto, however, is to go north on I-190, the Thruway's Niagara Extension, to Niagara Falls, and over the Rainbow Bridge, past the Horseshoe Falls. After you go through Customs, the road will become Ontario Provincial Highway 405, which eventually flows into the Queen Elizabeth Way.
At the edge of the "megacity" of Toronto (Montreal is also now a "megacity"), the QEW becomes the Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway. ("Big Daddy" Gardiner was a major Toronto politician, and was responsible for getting it built.) The Gardiner does not have numbers on its exits. If you're going for only the game, and are leaving Toronto right afterward (I don't recommend this this: Spend a day in the city), you'll take the Spadina Avenue exit to get to Rogers Centre.

If you make 3 rest stops – I would recommend at or near Scranton and Syracuse, and count Customs, where they will have a restroom and vending machines – and if you don't do anything stupid at Customs, such as fail to produce your passport, or flash a weapon, or say you watch South Park (a show with a vendetta against Canada for some reason), or call Sidney Crosby a cheating, diving pansy (even though he is one) – the trip should take about 11 hours.

Though that could become 12, because Toronto traffic is every bit as bad as traffic in New York, Boston and Washington. As Canada native (Regina, Saskatchewan) Leslie Nielsen would say, I am serious, and don't call me Shirley: Toronto traffic is awful.

Once In the City. Founded as York in 1793, it became the City of Toronto in 1834, the name coming from Taronto, a Native American name for the channel of water between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. There are 2.7 million people in the city, and just under 6 million in the metro area; in each case, making it larger than any in North America except New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- unless you count Mexico to be part of "North America" instead of "Central America," in which case add Mexico City to those that are larger.

Since Canada is in the British Commonwealth, there are certain subtle differences. Every measurement will be in the metric system. Dates are written not as Month/Day/Year, as we do it, but as Day/Month/Year as in Britain and in Europe. So the game will be played, for us, on "March 5, 2022"; but, for them, on "5 March 2022." And it would be written not as "3/5/22," but as "5/3/22."

They also follow British custom in writing time: The 2:00 kickoff is listed as "1400." Those of you who have served in the military, you will recognize this as, in the words of M*A*S*H's Lt. Col. Henry Blake, "all that hundred-hours stuff." And every word we would end with -or, they will end with -our; and some (but not all) words that we would end with -er, they end with -re, as in "Rogers Centre."

Another thing to keep in mind: Don't ask anyone where the "bathroom" is -- ask for the "washroom." This difference was a particular pet peeve of mine the first time I arrived at the Toronto Coach Terminal, although it wasn't a problem in Montreal's Gare Centrale as I knew the signs would be in French.

Every measurement will be in the metric system: Temperatures will be in Celsius, not Fahrenheit; distances will be in "kilometres," not miles (including speed limits, so don't drive 100 thinking it's miles); and gas prices will be per "litre," not per gallon (so don't think you're getting cheap gas, because a liter is a little more than a quart, so multiply the price by 4, and you'll get roughly the price per gallon, and it will be more expensive than at home, not less).

When you arrive, I would recommend buying the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. The former newspaper is local, the latter is national, and both are liberal enough to suit my sensibilities (or, should I say, sensible enough to suit my liberalism). And The Star has a very good sports section, and should do a good job covering the Jays, although, being a hockey city in a hockey Province in a hockey country, you'll see a lot of stuff about the Maple Leafs and nearby minor-league, collegiate and "junior" hockey teams, no matter what time of year it is.

I would advise against buying the Toronto Sun, because it's a right-wing sensationalist tabloid, and every bit the journalistically sloppy rag that the New York Post is. (It also has conservative "sister papers" called the Sun in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, although the Vancouver Sun is not connected.) The National Post, while also politically conservative (and thus a national competitor for The Globe and Mail), is a broadsheet and thus conservative in the sense that it is calmer and more sensible with its journalism.

As if being Canada's national media, culture and finance capital wasn't enough, there's another reason why people outside it, and particularly inside the Province of Ontario, hate Toronto: It's the Provincial capital, its Legislative Building located at Queen's Park, just north of downtown. "Queen's Park" has become slang for the government, or for perceived government corruption.
The Ontario Legislative Building.
It looks more collegiate than political.

If you can get to Union Station after leaving your hotel, you may also be able to get out-of-town papers, including the New York ones, as well as Canadian papers such as the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen.

Toronto's sales tax is 13 percent -- in 2010, this replaced the former Provincial sales tax of 5 percent and the federal GST (Goods & Services Tax) of 8 percent. In other words, the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted Canadians to think he'd killed the hated GST, when, in fact, Ontarians (who only make up 36 percent of the country) are paying pretty much the same taxes that they did before. See how stupid it is to vote for conservative candidates? It doesn't work in any country.

Toronto Hydro Corporation runs the area's utilities. The city is about 47 percent white, 21 percent East Asian, 13 percent South Asian, 9 percent black, 4 percent Middle Eastern, 3 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Aboriginal ("Indian" or "First Nations"). About 47 percent of the population is foreign-born, one of the highest percentages in the world. (For comparison's sake, it's 37 percent in New York City.)

But being multicultural hasn't always meant that Toronto is inclusive. There was a riot against Greeks from August 1 to 5, 1918, in the incorrect belief that Greece wasn't fighting Germany in World War I. And on August 16, 1933, there was the Christie Pits Riot. A baseball game between Harbord Playground, with mostly Jewish and Italian players, and St. Peter's Church, which was supportive of the nascent Nazi movement, was interrupted and ultimately ended by a riot between the teams. 

Union Station is at the intersection of Bay & Front Streets. Bay runs north-south, and divides Toronto's east and west sides, and the street numberings thereof; the lake serves as the "zero point" for streets running north and south, and thus there's no North and South on street names. Bay Street is also Canada's "Wall Street," the center of Toronto's financial district, and is not particularly well-liked by, well, anybody who isn't conservative in Canada. Toronto has no freeway or tollway that serves as a "beltway."

Toronto has a subway, Canada's oldest, opened in 1954 and known as "the Rocket." (I'll bet Montrealers hated that, since it was the nickname of their beloved hockey star Maurice Richard, well before future Blue Jay and Yankee Roger Clemens was even born.) 
Along with Philadelphia, it was 1 of the last 2 subway systems in North America that still used tokens, but they have phased them out in favor of a farecard system, in their case known as the Presto Card. The fare is C$3.00 (US$2.37), and a DayPass is C$13.00 (US$10.26). They also have a streetcar system, on which the Presto Card can be used.
The drinking age in Ontario is 19. Postal Codes in Toronto begin with the letter M, and those in the suburbs with L. The Area Codes are 416 for the city and 905 in the suburbs, with 437 as an overlay.

Going In. BMO Field (pronounced "BEE-moh"), home of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame and Major League Soccer's rather unimaginatively-named Toronto FC, was built in 2007, adjacent to the site of Exhibition Stadium.
Despite the stadium being in Toronto, BMO is short for Bank of Montreal, which, somewhat awkwardly, is also the jersey sponsor for TFC's arch-rivals, CF MontrĂ©al (formerly the Montreal Impact). This would be like if the Red Sox had replaced Fenway Park, and named the new facility BNY Mellon Stadium, as the Mellon Financial Corporation bought out the Bank of New York.

It's a little more than 2 miles west of Union Station. If you're driving in, the official address is 170 Princes' Blvd. Exhibition Stadium was across Prince's Blvd. from BMO Field. Parking is C$14. If you're taking public transportation, use GO, Toronto's commuter-rail service out of Union Station, the Lakeshore West line, to Exhibition stop.

Regardless, you'll likely be entering from the north. The stadium is a horseshoe, open at the north end. Gate 1 is at the northeast corner, Gate 2 is on the east side, Gate 3 at the southeast corner, Gate 3B at the south end (it may have been added later, messing up the sequence, like the New Jersey Turnpike's Exits 6A, 7A, 8A and 15X), Gate 4 on he west side, and Gate 5 at the northwest corner.

The field is aligned (roughly) north-to-south, and started out as artificial turf, but was switched to real grass in 2010. The arrival of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts for the 2017 season resulted in an expansion to 30,991 seats. TFC are thus 1 of 8 MLS teams groundsharing with a pro football team.

BMO Field hosted the 2008 MLS All-Star Game, between MLS All-Stars and London club West Ham United, and the 2010 MLS Cup Final, a neutral-site game in which the Colorado Rapids defeated FC Dallas. Toronto FC has hosted England's Liverpool FC, and Italy's AC Milan and Greece's Olympiacos have opposed each other there.
In 2016, BMO Field hosted the Grey Cup, the CFL championship game, and the Ottawa Redblacks defeated the Calgary Stampeders 39-33. On January 1, 2017, in connection with the 100th Anniversary of both the NHL and the Maple Leafs, it hosted the NHL Centennial Classic, an outdoor game that the Leafs won 5-4 in overtime over the Detroit Red Wings. It hosted a record crowd for the facility, 40,148.
North America won a joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup. BMO Field was chosen as 1 of Canada's 2 sites, the other being BC Place in Vancouver.

On October 15, 2019, BMO Field hosted Canada's 2-0 win over the U.S., their 1st win over our team since 1985.

Food. Toronto is an international city, and you would expect its sports venues to have good food. The north end of the stadium, the open end, is dominated by the Budweiser King Club, open only to season-ticketholders, Open to all are the RealSports Barbecue Pit, Hero Certified Burgers, Toronto-based pizza franchise Pizza Pizza, and Sal's Poutinerie (if, that is, you can eat poutine without spitting that foul stuff back out).

The east stand has Taste of Italy and Footy's Footlongs (hot dogs). The south end has another RealSports Barbecue Pit, another Sal's Poutinerie, and an El Jimador bar. The west stand has another Sal's Poutinerie and a Taco FC stand. The west stand also has an upper deck, which has a Pizza Pizza stand.

Team History Displays. It took TFC from their founding in 2007 until 2015 before they first made the MLS Cup Playoffs, although they won the Eastern Conference Championship and reached the MLS Cup Final the last 2 seasons. Each time, they faced the Seattle Sounders at home, losing in 2016 and winning in 2017. They also won the Supporters' Shield for best regular-season record in MLS in 2017.

They have won the Voyageurs Cup, given to the winners of the Canadian Championship -- effectively, Canada's version of England's FA Cup -- 7 times: In 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 (meaning they "did the Double" that season) and 2018; and finished runners-up in 2008, 2014, 2019 and 2021. They reached the 2020 Final, but it was canceled due to the COVID epidemic.
But TFC's Canadian Championship achievements become less impressive when you remember that the 3 MLS teams -- themselves, CF MontrĂ©al and the Whitecaps -- get byes to the Semifinal. And that it's only been running since 2008, and, except for Vancouver in 2015, either Toronto or Montreal has won it every time.

Their chief rivalry is with Montreal, known as the Canadian Classique, or, for the highway linking the cities, the 401 Derby. Toronto leads the series 26-17 with 11 draws. Toronto has won the season series 8 times to Montreal's 5. There is, as yet, no trophy given to the winner of individual games or the season series.

Because the trillium is the State Flower of Ohio and the Provincial Flower of Ontario, the Crew and Toronto FC play each other for the Trillium Cup. Each team has won it 7 times, with TFC having won the last 3.
TFC recently established a Wall of Honour, to show their championships, and to establish something akin to a team hall of fame, although these achievements are for being named to MLS' midseason All-Star Game or its postseason "Best XI."

There are 7 players thus far honored. Oddly, 2 of them are longtime members of the U.S. national team. And some of the others are better known for what they did in their native countries. They are:

* 4, Michael Bradley, American centreback, since 2014, All-Star in 2014, '15 and '17.
* 7, Ronnie O'Brien, Irish midfielder, the team's 1st All-Star, in 2007 (plus 3 times for FC Dallas, with whom he made the Best XI in 2004 and '05).
* 10, Sebastian Giovinco, Italian forward, 2015-18, All-Star all 4 seasons with TFC, Best XI in 2015.
* 11, Jim Brennan, Canadian defender, 2007-10, All-Star in 2008 on his home field. 
* 14, Dwayne DeRosario, Canadian midfielder, 2009-11, with a return in 2014, All-Star 7 times, every year from 2006 to 2012, including with other teams, Best XI 6 times, including 2009, '10 and '11 with TFC. He is arguably the greatest soccer player Canada has ever produced.
* 17, Jozy Altidore, American forward, 2015-21, All-Star in 2015 and '17.
* 18, Jermain Defoe, English forward, 2014 only, All-Star that season.
Stuff. There is no team shop, for either the Argos or TFC, at BMO Field. There are 9 souvenir stands located in the stadium, and Real Sports Apparel, located at Gate 1 of the Air Canada Centre, sells items related to all 5 Toronto major league sports teams, not just the Leafs and the Raptors.

At the dawn of the 2013 season, Tim Drodge published Toronto FC: Soccer's Big Red Machine. According to Amazon.com, that book is now out of print. But the title win led to a collaboration between The Athletic's Toronto correspondent Joshua Kloke and TFC (and USA) star Michael Bradley: Come On You Reds: The Story of Toronto FC, published in 2018.

During the Game. You will find fans from around the world at TFC home games. They may have brought their "ultra" traditions with them. But Canada prides itself on the politeness of its people. Which of these prevails on a given day is a crapshoot.

The best advice I can give you is to be on your best behavior. So don't sing, "You can shove your CN Tower up your ass!" like you do when TFC come to Red Bull Arena. And don't make any remarks about Canada's head of state, Britain's Queen Elizabeth: Many won't care, a few might. Saying something about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might not have an effect, as he's from Montreal; but why take the chance? If you want to boo their players, that's fine. But keep the "You suck, asshole!" chants to a minimum.

The rivalry with Montreal may actually be nastier than Maple Leafs-Canadiens, and certainly more so than Argonauts-Alouettes in the CFL. During the 2016 season, a section of TFC fans -- the Inebriatti (more about whom later) insist it was not them, and the evidence backed them up -- raised a tifo (banner) showing a woman in Montreal blue kneeling before a man in Toronto red (the opposite colors from hockey and football), suggesting that she was, um, providing him with a naughty service. The perpetrators were identified, and their season tickets revoked.

In 2017, Montreal got its revenge, hanging a banner reading "FUCK TORONTO." Again, the guilty parties were identified and punished.

Since you're in Canada, there will be two National Anthems sung, and the club holds auditions rather than having a regular singer. "The Star-Spangled Banner" will probably be sung by about half of the few hundred Metro Fans who show up, but "O Canada" will be sung by the home fans with considerable gusto, which is part of BMO Field having one of the most-mentioned atmospheres in the league.

When I'm at a sporting event where the opposing team is Canadian, I like to sing "O Canada" in French. Montreal Canadiens fans like this when I do it at the Prudential Center. Fans of the other Canadian NHL teams just think it's weird. When I did it in the 2 games I've been to at Rogers Centre, the Jays fans simply thought I was a twat. But then, they root for the Jays, and I root for the Yanks, so I'd rather have their opinion of me than my opinion of them. 

From 2013 to 2016, TFC's mascot was -- I swear, I am not making this up -- a live bird of prey named Bitchy the Hawk. Unlike Challenger the Eagle, Bitchy is not trained to fly around the stadium. Rather, she was chosen as, effectively, a scarecrow, to scare off the seagulls that fly off Lake Ontario and the Toronto Islands, infamous for having plagued the area when Exhibition Stadium stood, by scavenging for food and... doing other things.

The seagulls don't know that she's spent all her life in captivity: They think she's a wild bird of prey. At the other end of safety, she was kept indoors at night, as Toronto's skyscrapers are known to have nests of great horned owls, who would be a threat to a tamed hawk.
I told you I wasn't making it up.

Bitchy was retired, not due to age -- at 17, she was a bit old for a bird of prey -- but because the Argonauts objected to having her in the stadium.

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) owns TFC, the Maple Leafs, the Raptors, their respective development clubs: Toronto FC II, the Toronto Marlies and Raptors 905; and their respective arenas and practice facilities: BMO Field, the Air Canada Centre, the Coca-Cola Coliseum (formerly the Ricoh Coliseum), the Ford Performance Centre, the OVO Athletic Centre and Downsview Park. They have has since sold Maple Leaf Gardens to Ryerson University. MLSE have acknowledged the international nature of their city, and actively encourage "fan culture" at TFC. The result is perhaps the most intense fan base in Major League Soccer.

The oldest active group is U-Sector, named for their old section, Section U at Varsity Stadium, where they supported the Toronto Lynx from their establishment in 1997 until TFC came along in 2007. They now sit in Section 113, in the southeast corner.

The Red Patch Boys, named for the nickname of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division of World War II, sit in Section 112, which they call The Bunker, next to U-Sector in 113. They are a supporters' group for both TFC and the Canadian national team, making them a counterpart to our American Outlaws. 
Red Patch Boys in 112, U-Sector in 113

Original 109 sit in Section 109, on the east stand, and are noted for being TFC's traveling support. Formerly known as SG111 and SG114 after their seating sections, the Inebriatti -- Italian for "The Drunks" -- are in Section 114 behind the south goal. Their motto is, "We are not a fan club." Like Italian ultras, they wave flags and launch smoke. The Tribal Rhythm Nation unites local fans from the African, Latin American and Caribbean communities, and are noted for their drumming. They sit in Section 118, in the southwest corner.

Since TFC are known as the Reds, like Liverpool FC (whom they hosted in Summer 2014), and apparently chose the simple "FC" name in honor of LFC, they have borrowed Liverpool's "Oh When the Reds" chant to "When the Saints Go Marching In." They sing a version of Depeche Mode's "I Just Can't Get Enough," and adapted a classic footie chant to become "Toronto 'Til I Die." Despite their Canadian pride, they sing a song titled "Yankee General" for their Captain, U.S. star Michael Bradley.

After the Game. As I said, some of these people may have cut their teeth as sports fans in English or European soccer. But we're not talking about hooligans here. If you behave yourself on the way out, most likely, they will, too.

There's a Medieval Times a 5-minute walk west of BMO Field, but I wouldn't recommend that as a place to go for a postgame meal -- even if it's open. Most likely, you'll have to go back downtown, unless you're driving in and right back out after the game, in which case you'll get something on the road.

I can find no reference to a bar or restaurant in Toronto where New Yorkers are known to gather. Supposedly, local Giants fans watched NFL games at the Sports Centre CafĂ©, at 49 St. Clair Avenue West, off Yonge Street (St. Clair stop on the subway), but that went out of business due to COVID.

I would advise avoiding Jack Astor's, a smart-alecky-named chain of Canadian restaurants that includes one at 144 Front Street West, about halfway between Union Station and the Rogers Centre. I ate there the last time I was in Toronto, and the food and service would be mediocre at half the price. They had only 1 location in the U.S.: Not surprisingly, in nearby Buffalo, at the Walden Galleria east of downtown. But that went under due to COVID.

The Loose Moose Tap & Grill is at 146 Front Street West, 2 blocks from the stadium. There, as they say, you'll "eat like a king then party like a rock star!" You'll be dining like a typical Torontonian, rather than with guys likely to jump into the Monty Python "Lumberjack Song." (If you've never seen that sketch, let me put it this way: Don't ask, and I won't tell.) 

Actually, your best bet may be, as Vancouver native Cobie Smulders of the TV series How I Met Your Mother would put it, "the most Canadian place there is": Tim Hortons. (Note that there is no apostrophe: It's "Hortons," not "Horton's," because Quebec's ridiculous protect-the-French-language law prohibits apostrophes and the company wanted to keep the same national identity.)

They have a 62 percent share of the Canadian coffee market (Starbucks has just 7 percent) and 76 percent of the Canadian baked goods market. They also sell sandwiches, soup, chili, and even (some of you will perk up faster than if you'd drunk their coffee) New York-style cheesecake. It's fast food, but good food. I rate them behind Dunkin Donuts, but ahead of Starbucks.

Tim Horton, a defenceman (that's how they spell it up there) for the Maple Leafs, and businessman Ron Joyce started the doughnut/coffee shop chain in 1964, while in the middle of the Maple Leafs' 1960s dynasty. He played a couple of years for the Rangers, then went to the Buffalo Sabres and opened a few outlets in the Buffalo area. He was still playing at age 44, and the only thing that stopped him was death. Specifically, a 100-MPH, not-wearing-a-seat-belt crash on the Queen Elizabeth Way over Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines, Ontario. (In other words, if you're driving or taking the bus from New York to Toronto, you'll pass the location.)

Joyce, whose son Ron Jr. married Horton's daughter Jeri-Lyn, joined with Dave Thomas of Wendy's and merged the two companies in 1995, becoming its largest shareholder, with even more shares than Thomas. Although the companies have since split again, it was mutually beneficial, as Wendy's gained in Canada and Timmy's poked their heads in the U.S. door.

There are now over 4,800 Tim Hortons locations, including one at Toronto's Union Station, several on Canadian Forces Bases around the world, and over 500 in the U.S. – and they're heavily expanding in New York, including 3 in the Penn Station complex alone (despite Horton himself only briefly having played for the Rangers upstairs at the "new" Madison Square Garden). 

If your visit to Toronto is in the European soccer season (which starts again in August), the original local "footie pub," the Duke of Gloucester at 649 Yonge Street, went under due to COVID. But you can still cheer on your club of choice in one of these places:

* Arsenal: Midtown Gastro Hub, 1535 Yonge Street, at Heath Street. Line 1 to St. Clair.

* Liverpool: Madison Avenue Pub, 14 Madison Avenue, at Bloor Street. Line 1 to Spadina.

* Manchester City: Opera Bob's, 1112 Dundas Street West, at Ossington Avenue. Line 505 to Ossington.

* Chelsea: Fox on John, 106 John Street West, at Adelaide Street. Line 504 to John Street.

* Manchester United: Firkin On Bloor, 81 Bloor Street East, at Church Street. Line 1 to Bloor.

* Everton: The Queen and Beaver, 35 Elm Street, at Bay Street. Line 1 to Dundas.

* Tottenham Hotspur: Scotland Yard, 56 The Esplanade, at Church Street. Line 1 to Union Station.

* West Ham United: The Dog & Bear, 1100 Queen Street West, at Dovercourt Road. Line 505 to Dundas.

* Aston Villa: The Wheatsheaf Tavern, 667 King Street West, at Bathurst Street. Line 504 to King Street.

* Newcastle United: Queen Anne Restaurant and Bar , 287 Richmond Street West, at Peter Street. Line 501 to Queen and Peter.

* Celtic and Barcelona: The Pint Public House, 277 Front Street West, at John Street. Union Station, a block from the Rogers Centre.

* Bayern Munich: International Sports Bar, 2480 Cawthra Road, Mississauga. Line 1 to Bloor-Yonge, then Line 2 to Islington, then Bus 1 to Dundas & Cawthra.

* Juventus: Toronto Azzurri Village, 4995 Keele Street, at Chimneystack Road. GO Transit Barrie Line to York University.

* AC Milan: The Mills TapHouse & Grill, 9100 Jane Street, across from Vaughan Mills shopping mall. Line 1 to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, then a 2-block walk north to Smart Centres Bus Terminal, and take Bus 20 to Vaughan Mills Terminal.

Sidelights. Being the largest and most influential city in Canada, Toronto is loaded with tourist traps. This has been spoofed in "The Toronto Song," a bit by the Edmonton-based comedy trio Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. (It's often cited incorrectly, including by myself, in previous editions of this piece, as being by the Arrogant Worms. It's not obvious that 3DTB are from Edmonton until the end of the song, by which point they've said everything in Ontario sucks, as do all the other Provinces, except, "Alberta doesn't suck – but Calgary does.")

They're not far off.  Toronto is much cleaner than most American cities: U.S. film crews, trying to save money by filming there, have had to throw garbage onto the streets so it would look more like New York, Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles, and then they have to do it again between takes, because the street-sweepers clean it up that quickly. But the city does have slums, a serious homeless problem, ridiculous rents, never-ending lakefront high-rise construction (mirroring Mayor Mike Bloomberg's similar projects in New York), and their share of metalheads, punks, Goths and chavs.

I wouldn't call now-long-parted Mayor David Miller a dork, as 3DTB did, although his predecessor, Mel Lastman, was often a Canadian version of Rudy Giuliani. With better hair. You may have heard about recent Mayor Rob Ford: He was a crook, an alcoholic and a crackhead, who was just barely able, through legal action, to keep his office. Alas, cancer prevented him from running for re-election, and he recently died. The current Mayor is John Tory, and his conservatism makes him aptly-named.

Torontonians can't quite decide whether they want to be Canada's New York (national media, culture and finance capital, home of the CBC and CTV, and Bay Street is their "Wall Street"), Canada's Chicago (a gritty blue-collar "drinking town with a sports problem"), or Canada's L.A. (movie-filming center.) Actually, Montreal is Canada's New York, Hamilton its Chicago, and Vancouver its L.A.

Toronto is... Toronto is something else. Scientists have yet to figure out what. But check out these locations:

* Hockey Hall of Fame, 30 Yonge Street, blocked by Yonge, Front, Bay and Wellington. If you go to Toronto and you don't go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, they should deport you from Canada and never let you back in. This place is great, and the actual Stanley Cup is there.
Well, 2 of them are, the original bowl that was so damaged that they replaced it in 1970, plus some of the bands with old-time winners on it, and a display copy. The one that gets awarded every year is also stored there in preparation for its annual awarding, then gets to go wherever the winning team's players want to take it for almost a year.

You'll also see why Canadians call hockey jerseys "sweaters": They used to be sweaters, as you'll see in the display cases. You'll also see why they're not sweaters anymore: Holes where they were eaten by moths. Hockey eventually got that right.

They also got the location for their Hall of Fame right: While it's not clear where hockey was invented, and the NHL was founded in Montreal, they put their Hall of Fame in an easily accessible city, unlike baseball (hard-to-reach Cooperstown, New York is not where baseball was invented), basketball (Springfield, Massachusetts is where it was invented, but it's a depressing town), and pro football (Canton, Ohio is where the NFL was founded, but it's so drab and bleak it makes Springfield look like Disney World… Sorry, Thurman Munson). Union Station stop on the TTC subway.

* Rogers Centre. Originally known as the SkyDome, for its retractable roof, and opening in June 1989, the building was renamed the Rogers Centre in 2005, for the new corporate owner of the Jays, Rogers Communications, founded by the late Ted Rogers and featuring several cable-TV networks, most notably Rogers Sportsnet (although TSN, The Sports Network, ESPN's Canada version, is the more popular).
The official address is 1 Blue Jays Way. The subway doesn't go to the dome. The closest stop is the one for Union Station. And the city's famed streetcars are no help, either. It's a great city for public transportation, unless you're going to Rogers Centre or the CN Tower, which are only the 2 biggest tourist attractions in the city, and right next-door to each other. (When SkyDome opened in 1989, somebody called them a sperm-and-egg pairing.) I'd say they're the 2 biggest tourist attractions in the Province of Ontario, or even the entire country, but, as I said, you'll have to pass Niagara Falls.
Rogers Centre hosted the Argos for 27 seasons, and hosted 4 Grey Cups. It hosted the Vanier Cup, the National Championship of Canadian college football, from 1989 to 2003, and again in 2007 and 2012. It also hosted a few Buffalo Bills "home games," and the International Bowl, once won by Rutgers. With the new grass field coming in, the stands will be fixed in place, so, no more football. The NBA's Raptors played there from their 1995 debut until the 1999 opening of the Air Canada Centre. The Three Tenors -- Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and JosĂ© Carreras -- sang there on January 4, 1997.

* Exhibition Place. The Canadian National Exhibition is kind of a nationwide "State Fair." It was on the grounds, off Princes Boulevard, that Exhibition Stadium, or the Big X, stood from 1948 to 1999. It was home to the Blue Jays from 1977 to 1989 and the CFL's Argonauts from 1959 to 1988. It hosted only one MLB postseason series, the 1985 ALCS, which the Jays lost to the Kansas City Royals.
It hosted 12 Grey Cups, although only one featured the Argos, and that was the 1982 game, won by the Edmonton Eskimos over the Argos in a freezing rain, with the fans chanting, "We want a dome!" The SkyDome/Rogers Centre project soon began, and Exhibition Stadium never hosted another Grey Cup. It hosted the Vanier Cup in 1973, 1974 and 1975. It hosted Soccer Bowl '81, which ended 0-0, and then the Chicago Sting beat the New York Cosmos 2-1 on penalties. It was demolished in 1999, and BMO Field was built on the site.

* Varsity Stadium and Varsity Arena. The home of the athletic complex of the University of Toronto, it includes the 3rd Varsity Stadium on the site, replacing one that stood from 1911 to 2002 and the one before that from 1898 to 1911. It only seats 5,000, but its predecessor could hold 21,739, and hosted more Grey Cups than any other facility, 29, from 1911 to 1957.
Old Varsity Stadium

The Varsity Blues have won the Yates Cup, emblematic of supremacy in Ontario college football, 25 times from 1898 to 1993; the Vanier Cup in 1965 and 1993; and, as with their hockey team, they were once much bigger, or perhaps the competition was much smaller, they won the 1st 3 Grey Cups, in 1909, 1910 and 1911, and a 4th in 1920. 

Unlike Exhibition Stadium, the Argos won 9 of their 16 Grey Cups at home at Varsity Stadium: 1914, 1921, 1937, 1938, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950 and 1952. (They also won at Sarnia in 1933, Vancouver in 1983, Winnipeg in 1991, Hamilton in 1996, Edmonton in 1997 and Ottawa in 2004.) It hosted the Vanier Cup from its inaugural game in 1965 to 1972, and again from 1976 to 1988.
Varsity Stadium was home to the various Toronto teams in the original version of the North American Soccer League: The Toronto Metros from 1971 to 1975, the Toronto Metros-Croatia (having merged with the club named Toronto Croatia) from 1976 to 1978, and the Toronto Blizzard from 1979 to 1984.

Despite winning the Soccer Bowl, the NASL title, in 1976, and reaching the Final again in 1983 and 1984, they went out of business after the 1984 season, as did the entire League the following year. Varsity Stadium was the location of the one and only visit to Canada thus far by North London soccer giants Arsenal, a 1-0 over a team called Toronto Select on May 23, 1973. And it hosted what turned out to be the last NASL game, the 2nd leg of Soccer Bowl '84, with the Blizzard losing 3-2 to the Chicago Sting.

It hosted the 1969 Rock 'n Roll Revival Concert, as shown in the film Sweet Toronto, featuring John Lennon and his Plastic Ono Band (of course, with Yoko Ono, but also with Eric Clapton), the Doors, Alice Cooper, and founding fathers of rock Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent. This was the concert where a live chicken was thrown at Cooper from the seats, and he threw it back, thinking it could fly, but it died, thus beginning his legend.

Next-door is Varsity Arena, built in 1926 and seating 4,116 people. The Varsity Blues have won 10 National Championships in hockey: 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977 and 1984. They used to be much bigger, including serving as the Canadian team at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, winning the Gold Medal. The Arena was also the home of the Toronto Toros of the World Hockey Association in the 1973-74 season.
The current Varsity Stadium, with its blue running track,
and Varsity Arena behind the press box

Museum stop on the Yonge-University Line, or St. George stop on the Yonge-University or Bloor-Danforth Lines.

* Rosedale Park, Scholfield and Highland Avenues. This was the 1st home of the Argonauts. They played here from 1874 to 1877, again from 1908 to 1915, and again in 1919. This is where the 1st Grey Cup game was held, on December 4, 1909. The University of Toronto defeated the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, 26-6. There's now a soccer field on the site of the original stadium.

Unfortunately, the closest subway stop is Summerhill, on the Yonge-University Line, and you'll have to walk a roundabout path to get there. If you really want to see it, you may want to take a cab.

* Maple Leaf Gardens, 60 Carlton Street, at Church Street. Home of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs from 1931 to 1999, this was arguably the most famous building in Canada. The Leafs won 11 Stanley Cups while playing here: 1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967 – and they haven't been back to the Finals since.
The Gardens (always plural, never "The Garden" like in New York and Boston) also hosted the 1st NHL All-Star Game, a benefit for injured Leafs star Ace Bailey in 1934, one of the Canada-Soviet "Summit Series" games in 1972, and the 1st Canada Cup in 1976, where Leafs star Darryl Sittler stole the show.

On November 1, 1946, the 1st NBA game was held at the Gardens, with the New York Knicks beating the Toronto Huskies, who folded after that first season of 1946-47. It hosted the Beatles on all 3 of their North American tours (1964, '65 and '66), and Elvis Presley in 1957 – oddly, in his early period, not in his Vegas-spectacle era. Keith Moon's last concert with The Who was there, on October 21, 1976.

The Gardens hosted 2 fights for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. On December 4, 1961, Floyd Patterson defended the title by beating Tom McNeeley. (McNeely's son Peter would later lose to Mike Tyson.) And on March 29, 1996, Canadian champion George Chuvalo went the distance, but still lost, against Muhammad Ali.

But somebody who doesn't give a damn about history, only money, decided the Gardens was obsolete, and the Leafs moved into the Air Canada Centre in 1999.  A plan to turn the arena into a shopping mall and movie multiplex, as was done with the Montreal Forum, was dropped because of the way the building was built: Unlike the Forum, if the Gardens' upper deck of seats was removed, the walls would collapse.

Fortunately, it has been renovated, and is now the Mattamy Athletic Centre at the Gardens, part of the athletic complex of Ryerson University, including its hockey team, with its seating capacity reduced to 2,796 seats, down from its classic capacity which ranged from 12,473 in the beginning to 15,726 at the end, with a peak of 16,316 in the 1970s.
A recent interior photo, set up for curling

The Ryerson Rams have never won a significant hockey title. They had a football program, but it was canceled in 1964, and has never been revived.

So, while the old Madison Square Garden, the old Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, and the Olympia are gone, and the Montreal Forum has been converted into a mall, one of the "Original Six" arenas is still standing and being used for hockey. It also has a Loblaws supermarket. College stop, on the Yonge-University Line.

* Mutual Street Arena, bounded by Mutual, Shuter, Dundas and Dalhousie Streets. This arena stood at this location from 1912 until 1989, when condos were built there, and was the home of the Toronto Blueshirts, National Hockey Association Champions and Stanley Cup winners 1914, and the Maple Leafs from 1917 to 1931.

The Leafs were known as the Toronto Arenas when they won the first NHL Championship and their first Stanley Cup in 1918, and the Toronto St. Patricks when the won the Cup in 1922. Conn Smythe renamed them the Maple Leafs, after the city's minor-league baseball team, when he bought them in 1927. Queen or Dundas stops on the Yonge-University Line.

* Air Canada Centre, 40 Bay Street. "The Hangar," the home of the Maple Leafs and the NBA's Toronto Raptors since 1999 (the Raptors played at the SkyDome 1995 to 1999, with a few games at Maple Leaf Gardens), it is a modern, 18,800-seat facility with all the amenities, built between Union Station and the Gardiner Expressway. Union Station stops on the Yonge-University Line and the GO and VIA Rail systems.

* Hanlan's Point. This was the home of Toronto baseball teams from 1897 to 1925, and was the site of Babe Ruth's 1st professional game, on April 22, 1914, for the Providence Grays, then affiliated with the Red Sox, much as their modern counterparts the Pawtucket Red Sox are. The Grays played the baseball version of the Maple Leafs, and the Babe pitched a one-hitter and homered in a 9-0 Providence win.
Unfortunately, Hanlan's Point is on one of the Toronto Islands, in Lake Ontario off downtown. The stadium is long gone, and the location is only reachable by Ferry.

* Maple Leaf Stadium, at Stadium Road (formerly an extension of Bathurst Street) and Queens Quay West (that's pronounced "Queen's Key"). Home to the baseball Maple Leafs from 1926 to 1967, it was demolished a year later, with apartments built on the site.
The Leafs won 5 International League Pennants here, and it was the first sports team owned by Jack Kent Cooke, who would later own the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, and the NFL's Washington Redskins. Take the 509 Streetcar from Union Station to Queens Quay West at Dan Leckie Way.

The Raptors' D-League team, named Raptors 905 for the Area Code of Toronto's suburbs, plays at the Hershey Centre. 5500 Rose Cherry Place (named for the late wife of hockey coach-turned-broadcaster Don Cherry), in Mississauga, 16 miles west of downtown. It takes 3 buses to get there. The Orangeville A's of the National Basketball League of Canada play at the Orangeville Athlete Institute. 207321 Ontario Provincial Route 9, in Mono, about 50 miles northwest of downtown.

* York Lions Stadium. In April 2019, the Canadian Premier League, Canada's attempt at a "top flight" soccer league, began play, including York United FC. They play at York Lions Stadium, home of York University. TFC II plays in the United Soccer League One, the 3rd tier of overall North American soccer. They play at the BMO Training Ground at Downsview Park, with some games at BMO Field.
* Woodbine Racetrack. Opening in 1956 and remodeled in 1993, this is the only horse racing venue outside the United States that has hosted the Breeders' Cup, doing so in 1996. It is home to the Canadian Racing Hall of Fame and the annual Canadian International Stakes. 555 Rexdale Blvd., about 14 miles northwest of downtown. Hard to reach by public transit.

* Fort York, Bathurst Street and Front Street West. You should see at least one place that doesn't have anything to do with sports. With the recent Bicentennial of the War of 1812, this place has become more interesting. 

In that war, the 2nd and last time the U.S. seriously tried to take Canada away from the British Empire, the U.S. Army, led by Zebulon Pike (for whom the Colorado Peak was named), burned the fort and what was then the city of York, now Toronto, on April 27, 1813. However, Pike was killed in the battle. In revenge, the British burned Washington, D.C. 

509 Streetcar to Fleet Street at Bastion Street. Essentially, Fort York is Canada's Alamo. But not their Gettysburg: That would be Lundy's Lane, in Niagara Falls, and I recommend that you make time for that as well.

* Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queens Park at Bloor Street West. "The ROM" is at the northern edge of Queen's Park, which includes the Ontario provincial Parliament complex and the University of Toronto, and is, essentially, next-door to Varsity Stadium. It is Canada's answer to New York's Museum of Natural History. Museum stop on the Yonge-University Line, or St. George stop on the Yonge-University or Bloor-Danforth Lines.

* Canada's Walk of Fame. This consists of stars embedded in sidewalks, similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, except the honorees – 168, including 149 individuals and 14 duos or groups, since the most recent induction in 2016 – are from all walks of life. It is centered on the sidewalk in front of Roy Thomson Hall. 60 Simcoe Street at King Street. St. Andrew station.

The inductees include 30 athletes, but only 1 is a soccer player: Christine Sinclair, a forward from the Vancouver area, the current Captain of the women's national team, who plays her club soccer for the Portland Thorns. She has represented her country at 4 Women's World Cups, topping out (so far) at 4th place in 2003, her 1st appearance; and 3 Olympics, winning 2 Bronze Medals.

(Canada's men's team has made only 1 World Cup, in 1986, and did not advance to the knockout stage, although they played well enough to not embarrass themselves. As part of the joint hosting for 2026, they have been granted automatic qualification.)

* CN Tower, 301 Front Street West at John Street. It rises 1,815 feet above the ground, but with only its central elevator shaft and its 1,136-foot-high observation deck habitable, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) ruled that it is not a "building," and thus was never a candidate for the title of "the world's tallest building." From 1975 until Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai in 2007, it was officially listed as "the world's tallest freestanding structure."

The CN stood for Canadian National railways, but with their bankruptcy and takeover by VIA Rail, the CN now stands for Canada's National Tower.

Like the Empire State Building, at night it is lit in colors (or "colours") for special occasions, with its standard colors being the national colors, red and white. Admission is C$55.00 -- US$43.40, making it much less expensive than the Empire State Building's $77.00. It's next-door to the Rogers Centre and accessible via a skywalk from Union Station.

Toronto has quite a few very tall actual "buildings." First Canadian Place has been the nation's tallest building since it opened in 1975, 978 feet high, northwest corner of King & Bay Streets. There are 7 other buildings in excess of 700 feet, including, sadly, one built by Donald Trump and named for himself.

Being outside the U.S., there are no Presidential Libraries in Canada. The nation's Prime Ministers usually don't have that kind of equivalent building. Of Canada's 23 Prime Ministers, 15 are dead, but only one is buried in Toronto: William Lyon Mackenzie King, who led the government off and on from 1926 to 1950, longer than anyone, and is buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. 375 Mount Pleasant Road, Yonge Street Line to St. Clair, then 74 Bus.

There have been plenty of TV shows set in Toronto, but most Americans wouldn't know them, so I won't list their filming locations. Probably the most familiar, due to its being shown on PBS, is Degrassi Junior High and its related series. Recently, ABC aired the Toronto-based cop series Rookie Blue.

Because Toronto has a lot of surviving Art Deco structures from the 1920s and '30s, it's frequently used as a filming location for period-piece movies, including the movie version of Chicago (despite Chicago also having many such buildings survive).

There were also several scenes from the U.S. version of Fever Pitch (which, being a Yankee Fan, I consider to be a horror film) that were shot in Toronto. One is the scene of the barbecue in the park: In the background, a statue can be seen. It's Queen Victoria. I seriously doubt that there are any statues of British monarchs left in Boston.

*

Toronto is an international city, and they love their soccer. But it's also in Canada, and the famed politeness will, hopefully, balance out the passion. Have fun, but be respectful, and they will be as well. 

Sunday, February 27, 2022

How to See the Knicks Or Nets Play the Los Angeles Clippers -- 2022 Edition

The Brooklyn Nets played away to the Los Angeles Clippers on December 27. But since traveling for this game might have involved Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I didn't do a Trip Guide for it at that time. Instead, I'm doing it for the New York Knicks' visit, this coming Sunday, March 6.

Before You Go. Unlike the Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas, the Los Angeles area has very consistent weather. It's a nice place to visit. If you don't mind earthquakes. And mudslides. And wildfires. And smog.

Check the weather forecast on the Los Angeles Times' website before you, so you'll know what to bring. Currently, the weather forecast for Sunday is for the mid-60s in daylight, and the mid-40s at night. As usual, no rain is expected. But the mid-40s is really cold by L.A. standards.

So you might want to not bring a Winter coat to Newark/JFK/LaGuardia Airport/Penn Station/Port Authority. If you're driving in, leave the Winter coat in the back seat once you get past the Rocky Mountains.

Los Angeles is in the Pacific Time Zone, which is 3 hours behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

If you want to take a side trip into Mexico, it's about 140 miles from downtown L.A. to the Tijuana border station. You will need a passport. GoToBus runs buses from Los Angeles to Tijuana, $44 and 4 hours, 45 minutes each way. If you drive in, you will need Mexican driving insurance, which you can probably buy at the Mexican consulate, either in New York or Los Angeles. For the moment, $1.00 = 20.50 pesos, while 1 peso =  a shade more than a nickel.

Tickets.  The Clippers were averaging 19,068 fans per home game in 2019-20, a sellout. before COVID shut everything down. And, with their recent success -- if what they have had thus far can be called "success" -- tickets might be tough to get.

As you might guess, with their much lesser history, Clippers tickets have a much lower demand than Laker tickets, and thus have much lower prices. Seats in the 100 level are $150 between the baskets and $58 behind them. In the 200 level, they're $88 between and $45 behind. In the 300 level, they're $25 between and $20 behind.

Getting There. It's 2,791 miles from Times Square in New York to City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. In other words, if you're going, you're flying.

After all, even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days' worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don't get pulled over for speeding, you'll still need over 2 full days. Each way.

But, if you really, really want to drive... Take Interstate 80 West across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. Just before leaving Nebraska for Colorado you'll get on Interstate 76, and shortly before reaching Denver you'll get on Interstate 70 West. You'll take that all the way to its end in Utah, where you'll take Interstate 15 South. You'll go through a short strip of Arizona before getting into Nevada (where you'll see the Strip, Las Vegas), before getting into California.

Assuming you're not going to a hotel first (and you really should), you'll get off I-15 at Exit 109A, and get on Interstate 10 West, and almost immediately onto U.S. Route 101 North, the San Bernardino Freeway.  Take that road's Exit 3 to State Route 110, the Pasadena Freeway, and that will get you into downtown L.A.

Given an average speed of 60 miles an hour, you'll be in New Jersey for an hour and a half, Pennsylvania for 5:15, Ohio for 4 hours, Indiana for 2:30, Illinois for 2:45, Iowa for 5:15, Nebraska for 6 hours, Colorado for 7:15, Utah for 6 hours, Arizona for half an hour, Nevada for 2 hours, and California for 3 and a half hours hours; for a total of 46 hours and 30 minutes. Factor in rest stops, you'll need more like 3 full days. And, remember, that's just one way. And if you end up using Las Vegas as a rest stop, well, you might end up missing the game and end up, yourself, as as one of those things that "stays in Vegas."

If you take Amtrak, in order to make the Sunday night game, you'll have to leave New York's Penn Station on Thursday afternoon, on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40. You'd reach Union Station in Chicago at 10:12 AM Central Time on Friday, then leave at 2:50 PM on the Southwest Chief, reaching Union Station in Los Angeles at 8:00 AM Pacific Time on Sunday.

Round-trip fare is $626, so it really doesn't pay to take the train for 64 1/2 hours, as opposed to a plane for 7. Union Station is at 800 N. Alameda Street, at Arcadia Street. Union Station on Metro.
Los Angeles' Union Station

Greyhound takes even longer, about 68 hours, changing buses twice, $690 round-trip, but it could drop to as little as $489 with advanced purchase. The station is at 1716 E. 7th Street, at Lawrence Street. Metro doesn't go anywhere near it, but the Number 60 bus will get you downtown. 

Flights to L.A. will be relatively cheap this time of year, and you might even get a round-trip nonstop flight for a little over $300. The LAX2US bus will take you, as its name suggests, from Los Angeles International Airport to Union Station, taking 45 minutes and costing $8.00; from there, bus and subway connections can be made to downtown. 

Once In the City. Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spain as a Catholic mission, and means "The Angels" -- hence that was the name of the Pacific Coast League team, and the subsequent American League team: The Los Angeles Angels. The city continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and is now just under 4 million people, making it the 2nd-largest city in North America, behind New York. (Unless you count Mexico, and thus Mexico City, as "North America" instead of "Central America.")
The metro area has about 18.6 million people, and may soon end up passing New York and all others in that regard. The streets aren't quite north-south and east-west, as, like on the islands of Manhattan and Montreal, they're kind of on a diagonal. The "centerpoint" of the city, where east-west and north-south addresses begin, is 1st Street and Main Street, at the northwestern corner of which is the iconic City Hall. Numbered streets have east-west addresses.

I call the Art Deco, marble-fronted City Hall, at 200 N. Spring Street, and at 453 feet the city's tallest building between 1928 and 1964, "iconic" because it's been used in popular culture many times: You've seen it, even if you couldn't identify it before now.

Its image is embossed on Los Angeles Police Department badges, as seen on the 1951-59 TV series (and its 1967-70 revival) Dragnet. (I can't prove it, but I suspect that show star-creator Jack Webb chose 714 as the badge number for Detective Sergeant Joe Friday in honor of Babe Ruth and his career home run total.) It stood in for the Metropolis Daily Planet building on the 1952-59 TV series The Adventures of Superman. Many other L.A.-set TV series and movies have included shots of it.
City Hall

The Los Angeles Times is the leading (most-circulated) newspaper in the Western United States, and has long been known for a great sports section. The legendary columnist Jim Murray has been dead for some time now, but if you watch ESPN's Around the Horn, you'll recognize the names of Bill Plaschke and J.A. Adande.

The sales tax in the State of California is 7.5 percent, in the City of Los Angeles 9 percent. ZIP Codes in Los Angeles start with the digits 900 and 901, and the suburbs 902 through 918. The original Area Code was 213, but it is now used only for Downtown, and 323 now overlays it. 310 and 818 are used for the Western suburbs, 562 for the Southern suburbs, and 661 and 747 for the Northern suburbs. Despite its extensive freeway network, Los Angeles does not have a "beltway." The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water (LADPW) runs the electricity and the water.

The population of the City of Los Angeles is about 47 percent Hispanic, 32 percent white, 11 percent Asian, and 10 percent black. For the County of Los Angeles, it's roughly the same: 47 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 9 percent black.

Los Angeles has been plagued by racial strife since the beginning. People remember the Watts Riot of 1965 and the South Central Riot of 1992. But there was also the 1871 Los Angeles Anti-Chinese Riot, the 1907 Pacific Coast Race Riots, the 1929 Exeter Riot, the 1943 Zoot Suit Riot, the 1975 Chaffey High School Race Riot, the 2006 Fontana High School Riot, the 2006 California Prison Riots, and the 2008 Locke High School Riot.

A single ride on a bus or subway is $1.75. A bag of 10 tokens (yes, like Philly and Toronto, L.A. uses tokens, although they also use TAP farecards) is $17.50 (no savings). A 1-day pass is $7.00, and if you're going for more than 1 game, a 7-day pass might help, at $25.

Yes, since 1990, L.A., that most car-designed of American cities, has had a subway. They call it Metro Rail, and it has Red, Blue, Green, Gold, Purple and Expo lines. (Expo? It goes from Los Angeles all the way to Montreal? No.)
Going In. The Crypto.com Arena -- known until this past Christmas as the Staples Center -- is part of the L.A. Live complex, 2 miles south (well, southwest) of downtown, which also includes, among other buildings, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Microsoft Theater, and a movie theater.
Exterior view, under the old name

They might as well name it after a cryptocurrency: The arena is already expensive enough to make people go bankrupt.

The arena has a mailing address of 1111 S. Figueroa Street. If that address sounds familiar, it's because the L.A. Coliseum is at 3911 S. Figueroa, about 2 1/2 miles south. It is accessible by Pico Station on Metro Rail's Blue and Expo Lines.
Lakers setup

If you drive in, parking is $10 for most events. You're most likely to enter the arena via Figueroa Street, on the arena's east side. The court and rink are laid out east-to-west -- or, more precisely, southwest-to-northeast.
Clippers setup

The arena opened in 1999, and the Lakers, Clippers and Kings moved in immediately. The WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks did not do so until 2001. It is 1 of 10 arenas currently hosting both an NBA team and an NHL team; and, at least through the 2023-24 season, it is the only arena hosting 2 NBA teams.

It's hosted 8 NBA Finals, 4 WNBA Finals, 2 Stanley Cup Finals, 3 NBA All-Star Games, 2 NHL All-Star Games, the Pacific-10/12 Basketball Tournament, boxing, "professional wrestling," "ultimate fighting," figure skating, the Grammy Awards and the Latin Grammys on multiple occasions, Michael Jackson's memorial service in 2009 (he had been rehearsing there for his tour that his death canceled it), and the 2000 Democratic Convention, which nominated Al Gore for President and Joe Lieberman for Vice President.

On 3 occasions, Vitali Klitschko fought for the WBC edition of the Heavyweight Championship of the World at the Staples Center, as the arena was then known. On June 21, 2003, he was knocked out by Lennox Lewis. But after Lewis vacated the title by retiring (there hasn't been an undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World since), Klitschko was awarded the title by knocking Corrie Sanders out there on April 24, 2004. On September 26, 2009, he won a decision over Chris Arreola.

Just as Yankees-Mets is called the Subway Series (even though a true Subway Series can only happen in a World Series), and Dodgers-Angels is called the Freeway Series, a Lakers-Clippers game is called the Hallway Series, since the Crypto.com Arena is the only building in NBA history where 2 teams have groundshared.

The Clippers want out of the building, and began trying to get a new arena built, in Inglewood, near the Forum and the new Rams and Chargers stadium. If all goes well, they could open there for the 2024-25 season. It has been named the Intuit Dome.

Food.  Los Angeles is an international city, and the concession stands at the Crypto.com Arena Center reflect this. But L.A. is also a city where individuality clashes with conformity, and this can be seen in the chain restaurants serving the place:

* California Pizza Kitchen, outside Section 109.

* Camacho's Cantina (Mexican), 117.

* Dave's Dog House (as if there really was such a thing as a "gourmet hot dog"), 102.

* Deli & Dash, 115.

* Goose Island (Chicago-style hot dogs by Hebrew National, and Fritos chips), 108.

* Ludo Bird (a French theme), 119.

* McDonald's (you know what they serve), 114.

* Outtakes (sandwiches), 104.

* Tap Haus (German-style beer & bratwurst), 113 and 118.

* Wetzel's Pretzels (including hot dogs with pretzel buns), 103.

Team History Displays. Only the banners for the host team on a given night are shown on that night. The Clippers have now won Pacific Division Championships in 2013 and 2014, the 1st 1st-place finishes in franchise history. But they've also announced that they won't hang banners for them, just as the Lakers don't hang banners for sub-league titles.

The Clippers -- the Buffalo Braves from 1970 to 1978, the San Diego Clippers from 1978 to 1984, and the Los Angeles Clippers since 1984 -- don't have any retired numbers, despite their franchise now playing its 52nd season, being in its 44th season in Southern California, and its 38th season in Los Angeles.

Only 2 Hall-of-Famers played more than 2 seasons for them: Bob McAdoo, in Buffalo (1972-76); and Bill Walton, who played for the team in his native San Diego and made the move to L.A. where he previously played for UCLA. But he was injured for most of his time with the Clippers (1978-85). 

Their other Hall-of-Famers? In Buffalo, Moses Malone played 1 season (1976), Adrian Dantley played 1 (1976-77), and Jack Ramsay coached 4 (1972-76); in San Diego, no others; and in Los Angeles, Jamaal Wilkes (1985), Dominique Wilkins (1994) and Grant Hill each played 1 season, while Paul Pierce played 2 (2015-17). Cotton Fitzsimmons coached 1 season in Buffalo (1977-78), Larry Brown coached 1 in Los Angeles (1992-93), and Bill Fitch 4 in Los Angeles (1994-98).

The only people associated with the Clippers to make the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players in 1996 were Elgin Baylor, the Lakers star who later served as the Clippers' longtime general manager (1986-2008); and Walton. Those 2 were also named to the 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players, as were Pierce, Chris Paul (6 seasons, 2011-17), Kawhi Leonard (2 seasons, 2019-21). Paul and Leonard are still active, and thus ineligible for the Hall of Fame.

The Lakers' and Sparks' banners are covered up with large photos of Clipper players during Clipper games. This decision was made in 2013-14. The season before, the Celtics, coached by Doc Rivers, got slaughtered by the Clippers, and Celtic trainer Eddie Lacerte, who knows the effect the banners in Boston have, said that the Lakers' banners had a similar effect, even though the Lakers' players weren't even in the building. When Rivers became Clippers coach, he ordered the Laker and Spark banners covered by the pictures of Clipper players, to introduce a sense of pride, as if to say, "Hey, it's our building, too."
Outside the arena, at the Star Plaza, are statues of Lakers figures Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Chick Hearn; Kings figures Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille and Bob Miller; and Oscar De La Hoya, who boxed in L.A. many times, and remains a hero of the Mexican-American community. West 11th Street, on the north side of the arena, has been renamed Chick Hearn Court.

The "Hallway Series" with the Lakers is a very lopsided rivalry, and not just in terms of team achievement. The Lakers lead it 104-60. That's all in the regular season: The Clippers have made the Playoffs 13 times in Los Angeles, 16 overall, and have never played the Lakers.

The arena has a banner for a musical performer. It's not Michael Jackson, who lived in Los Angeles for most of his adult life, and whose 2009 public memorial service was held there. It's Taylor Swift, who was famously born in 1989, after Jackson first began to be thought of as weird. But there is a reason for the banner: Like Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden and Bruce Springsteen at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia, she has sold the arena out more than any other singer.

Stuff. The Team LA Store at the Crypton.com Arena not only sells items connected with the 4 teams playing there, but also the baseball Angels and soccer's Galaxy. They also have outlets at Angel Stadium in Anaheim and the Gals' home, Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.

Contrary to its image as a city whose "idea of culture is yogurt," there is a Los Angeles literary tradition. Much of it is in the "hard-boiled detective story," as pioneered by Raymond Chandler through his creation of the private eye Philip Marlowe. Writers influenced by the city include Nathanael West, Charles Bukowski, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, Bret Easton Ellis and (he counts, especially with the "hard-boiled" part) Quentin Tarantino. And the Los Angeles Times has produced many fine sportswriters.

But as for books about the Crypto.com Arena's teams? The vast majority of them have been about the Lakers. In 2013, Josh Anderson published their installment in the NBA's On the Hardwood series. I could find no Clippers or Sparks videos.

During the Game. A November 13, 2014 article on DailyRotoHelp ranked the NBA teams' fan bases, and listed the Clippers 12th, citing how they've stuck with the team through the rare thick and the mostly thin.

This is not a Dodger-Giant game, or a USC-UCLA game, or a Ram-49er game, or a Raider-anybody game. The Lakers have rivalries with the Clippers, the Golden State Warriors, the Phoenix Suns, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Boston Celtics. The Clippers, really, only have a rivalry with the Lakers. But fans of the Crypto.com Arena's teams are not going to go out of their way to cause trouble for fans of the Knicks or Nets. Behave yourself, and they'll behave themselves.

Sunday's game against the Knicks is not a promotion. Both L.A. NBA teams hold auditions for National Anthem singers. Both teams use a fight song titled "Roll With It," bearing no resemblance to the 1988 chart-topper of that title by Steve Winwood.

The Clippers' mascot is Chuck the Condor. I don't know why their mascot is a condor, or why he's named Chuck, or why he wears a crash helmet. (Birds are supposed to be able to fly, and then land safely.) I do know why he wears uniform Number 213: It's for L.A.'s Area Code.
Jack Nicholson, sitting courtside with his familiar shades on, is the Lakers' most famous fan, although lots of celebrities sit nearby. Billy Crystal, being short and silly, is a Clippers fan. So is Arsenio Hall. So is singer Fergie, who sang the National Anthem last week when the Clippers served as the host team for the NBA All-Star Game. (Yeah, I know: Pink sang the Anthem at the Super Bowl, and had the flu, and was terrific; Fergie was fine, and she blew it. And not because of talent, either.)

According to a recent New York Times article, there is not one place where the Clippers are more popular than the Lakers. Not in the City of Los Angeles, not in the County of Los Angeles, not in Orange County, not even in the Clippers' former home of San Diego (City or County). In fact, there are places in Southern California where the Chicago Bulls, as a holdover from the 1990s, have almost as many fans as the Clippers -- but not, despite all LeBron James achieved, the Miami Heat.

After the Game. Los Angeles has had crime problems throughout its history. However, if you stick to downtown, you should be all right. Again, because New York and New Jersey don't factor into L.A. rivalries these days, no one is likely to rough you up, as long as you don't antagonize anyone.

The L.A. Live complex includes sports bar The Yard House, seafood restaurant Rock 'n Fish, and Wolfgang Puck's Bar & Grill. (Rosa Mexicano has permanently closed due to COVID.) 800 W. Olympic Blvd.

Between this building and the arena is gastropub Tom's Urban, at 1011 S. Figueroa Street. Mexican restaurant El Cholo is a block away at 1037 S. Flower Street. If you like steak, and you have a jillion dollars in your bank account, The Palm Restaurant is at 1100 S. Flower Street. If you like Starbucks, and you have $15 in your pocket, there's one 3 blocks away at 600 W. 9th Street.

Santa Monica is home to both the local havens for the Yankees and the football Giants. Yankee Fans gather at Rick's Tavern On Main, at 2907 Main Street. West 4th & Jane is owned by a New Yorker and is an L.A.-area haven for Met fans. 1432 4th Street, Santa Monica. Bus R10.

New York Giant fans meet at O'Brien's Irish Pub, at 2226 Wilshire Blvd. Both are about 17 miles west of downtown L.A. Bus 733 goes directly there from City Hall. The local Jets fan club meets at On the Thirty, at 14622 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, 13 miles northwest. Metro Red Line to Universal/Studio City station, then transfer to Bus 750.

If your visit to Los Angeles is during the European soccer season (which we are now in), the best soccer bar in the L.A. area is The Fox & Hounds (that's plural), 11100 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Metro Red Line to Universal/Studio City, then Bus 150 or 240 to Ventura & Arch.

Sidelights. The Los Angeles metropolitan area, in spite of not having Major League Baseball until 1958, has a very rich sports history. And while L.A. is still a car-first city, it does have a bus system and even has a subway now, so you can get around. You'll need it if you want to visit L.A. during the 2028 Olympics, which it has now been awarded.

* Dodger Stadium. Home to the Dodgers since 1962, it has hosted 12 Pennant winners and 5 World Series wins: 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988 and 2020.

Public transportation in L.A. is a lot better than it used to be, with the addition of the Metro -- and now, the Dodger Stadium Express bus. It will pick up fans at the Patsaouras Bus Plaza adjacent to the east portal of Union Station and continue to Dodger Stadium via Sunset Blvd. and Cesar Chavez Avenue. Service will be provided starting 90 minutes prior to the beginning of the games, and will end 45 minutes after the end of the game. Service will be provided every 10 minutes prior to the start of the game and run approximately every 30 minutes throughout the game. Dodger tickets will be honored as fare payment to ride the service. Those without a ticket will pay regular one-way fare of $1.50.

Because of its proximity to Hollywood, Dodger Stadium can be seen in lots of movies, including Superman Returns, where the Big Red S safely deposits a distressed airliner on the field. But while it filled in for Anaheim Stadium in The Naked Gun (Reggie... must kill... the Queen), Rookie of the Year had a scene set at Dodger Stadium, but because they were filming all in Chicago, they used the White Sox' Guaranteed Rate Field as a stand-in for Dodger Stadium.

It hosted an NHL Stadium Series game in 2014, a local rivalry game, with the Anaheim Ducks beating the Los Angeles Kings 3-0. The Beatles played their next-to-last concert at Dodger Stadium on August 28, 1966, before concluding their last tour up the coast at Candlestick Park the next night. It didn't host another concert until 1975, when Elton John sold it out on back-to-back nights (wearing a sequined Dodger jersey designed by Bob Mackie), and then not again until the Jacksons' 1984 Victory Tour. Pope John Paul II delivered a Mass there in 1987, and the Three Tenors held a concert there, telecast worldwide, on July 16, 1994, in conjunction with the World Cup. During a 2008 concert, Madonna brought on Britney Spears (they didn't kiss this time) and Justin Timberlake as guests.

1000 Vin Scully Avenue (formerly Elysian Park Avenue), Los Angeles. Too far to walk from the nearest subway stop, and while there is a Dodger Stadium Express bus, it only operates on Dodger home game days.

* Site of Wrigley Field. Yes, you read that right: The Pacific Coast League's Los Angeles Angels played at a stadium named Wrigley Field from 1925 to 1957, and the AL's version played their first season here, 1961.

The PCL Angels were a farm team of the Chicago Cubs, and when chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. bought them both, he built the Angels' park to look like what was then known as Cubs Park, and then named this one, and then the Chicago one, Wrigley Field. So this ballpark was Wrigley Field first. The Angels won 12 PCL Pennants, the last 5 at Wrigley: 1903, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1916, 1918, 1921, 1926, 1933, 1934, 1947 and 1956. Their rivals, the Hollywood Stars, shared it from 1926 to 1935. It hosted a U.S. soccer loss to England in 1959 and a draw vs. Mexico the next year.

Its capacity of 22,000 was too small for the Dodgers, and the AL Angels moved out after one season. Torn down in 1966, it lives on in ESPN Classic rebroadcasts of Home Run Derby, filmed there (because it was close to Hollywood) prior to the 1960 season.

Mickey Mantle was a fixture, but the only other guy thought of as a Yankee to participate was Bob Cerv (then with the Kansas City A's). Yogi Berra wasn't invited, nor was Moose Skowron, nor Roger Maris, who had just been acquired. And while Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Gil Hodges were on it, and all did briefly play for the Mets, the Mets hadn't gotten started yet, so no one on the show will be wearing a Met uniform.

This Wrigley Field hosted 2 fights for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, both won by the defending Champions: Joe Louis knocking Jack Roper out in the 1st round on April 17, 1939; and Floyd Patterson defeating Roy Harris by decision on August 18, 1958.

42nd Place, Avalon Blvd., 41st & San Pedro Streets. Metro Red Line to 7th Street/Metro Center station, transfer to Number 70 bus. Be careful: This is South Central, so if you're overly nervous, you may want to skip this one.

* Gilmore Field. Home to the Hollywood Stars, this 13,000-seat park didn't last long, from 1939 to 1957. The Stars won 5 Pennants, the last 3 at Gilmore: 1929, 1930, 1949, 1952 and 1953. A football field, Gilmore Stadium, was adjacent, and was home to the Los Angeles Bulldogs of the 1936-37 version of the American Football League. CBS Television City was built on the site. 7700 Beverly Blvd. at The Grove Drive. Metro Red Line to Vermont/Beverly station, then either the 14 or 37 bus.

* Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Probably the most famous building in the State of California, unless you count the HOLLYWOOD sign and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge as "buildings." The University of Southern California has played football here since 1923. The University of California at Los Angeles played here from 1928 to 1981, when they inexplicably moved out of the Coliseum, and the city that forms their name, into a stadium that could arguably be called USC's other home field.

The Coliseum was the centerpiece of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games. It was home to the All-America Football Conference's Los Angeles Dons from 1946 to 1949, the NFL's Rams from 1946 to 1979 and the Raiders from 1982 to 1994, and to a number of teams in other leagues, including the AFL's Chargers in 1960 before they moved down the coast to San Diego. The Rams moved back in 2016, and will remain there through 2019, before moving into their new stadium.

The Dodgers played here from 1958 to 1961, including winning the 1959 World Series, while waiting for Dodger Stadium to be ready. But the shape of the field led to a 251-foot left-field fence, the shortest in the modern history of baseball.

They got the biggest crowd ever for an official baseball game, 92,706, for Game 5 of the 1959 World Series; 93,103 for Roy Campanella's testimonial, an exhibition game against the Yankees on May 7, 1959; and the largest crowd for any baseball game, 115,300, for a preseason exhibition with the Red Sox on March 29, 2008, to celebrate their 50th Anniversary in L.A.

A crowd of 102,368 on November 10, 1957, for a rivalry game between the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, stood as a regular-season NFL record until 2005 (when a game was played at the larger Estadio Azteca in Mexico City). Ironically, the first Super Bowl, held here on January 15, 1967 (Green Bay 35, Kansas City 17) was only 2/3rds sold. Super Bowl VII (Miami over Washington) was
sold out. Officially, the Coliseum now seats 93,607.

Because of its closeness to Hollywood, many movies with a football theme have filmed at the Coliseum. It also stood in for Baltimore's Memorial Stadium when Billy Crystal made 61*, about the 1961 Yankees.

It has hosted 20 matches of the U.S. soccer team -- only Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington has hosted more. The U.S. has won 9 of those games, lost 7 and drawn 4. The North American Soccer League's Los Angeles Aztecs played their 1977 and 1981 seasons there.

In 2018, wanting the money from selling naming rights, but not wanting to ruin the brand name that "The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum" has become, or to insult the veterans of the City and the County of Los Angeles by taking the name off, the Coliseum Commission sold naming rights to the field, but not the stadium. It is now United Airlines Field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Banc of California Stadium and site of Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Next-door to the Coliseum, the Sports Arena opened in 1959, and hosted the Democratic Convention the next year, although John F. Kennedy gave his acceptance speech at a packed Coliseum, debuting his theme of a "New Frontier."
The Sports Arena, shown with its proximity to the Coliseum

The NBA's Lakers played there from 1960 to 1967, the NHL's Kings their first few home games in 1967 before the Forum was ready, the NBA's Clippers from 1984 to 1999, the American Basketball Association' Los Angeles Stars from 1968 to 1970, the World Hockey Association's Los Angeles Sharks from 1972 to 1974, the 1968 and 1972 NCAA Final Fours (both won by UCLA, over North Carolina and Florida State, respectively, even though it was then USC's home court), USC basketball from 1959 to 2006, and UCLA basketball a few times before Pauley Pavilion opened in 1965, and again in 2011-12 due to Pauley's renovation.
Due to its closeness to the Hollywood studios, the Sports Arena was often used for movies that need an arena to simulate a basketball or hockey game, a fight (including the Rocky films), a concert, or a political convention. Lots of real rock concerts were held here, and Bruce Springsteen, on its stage, called the building "the joint that don't disappoint" and "the dump that jumps."

It jumps no longer: It was torn down to make way for Banc of California Stadium, a 22,000-seat soccer-specific stadium for MLS expansion team Los Angeles Football Club, which began play in 2018. Angel City FC of the National Women's Soccer League just began play there as well.

3900 Block of S. Figueroa Street, just off the USC campus in Exposition Park. The California Science Center (including the space shuttle Endeavour), the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the California African American Museum are also there, and the Shrine Auditorium, former site of the Academy Awards, is but a few steps away. Metro Rail Expo Line to Expo Park/USC. Although this is on the edge of South Central, you will probably be safe.

* Galen Center. In 2006, USC basketball finally had a home it owned, and at which it had first choice of scheduling -- ironic, considering their having first choice at the Coliseum infuriated the Rosenblooms of the Rams, the Hiltons of the Chargers, and Al Davis of the Raiders, and made the Spanoses of the Chargers decide not to use it until the Inglewood stadium opens.
Seating 10,258, it is named for Louis and Helen Galen, bankers and longtime USC fans who donated $50 million, which turned out to be 1/3rd of the building's cost. The Jim Sterkel Court is named for a USC basketball player who died of cancer. On May 10, 2014, the vacant WBC Heavyweight Championship was awarded there when Bermane Stiverne knocked Chris Arreola out there.

3400 S. Figueroa Street, 5 blocks north of the Coliseum, and to the east of USC's main campus. 

* Rose Bowl. Actually older than the Coliseum by a few months, it opened in 1922 and, except for 1942 (moved to Durham, North Carolina for fear of Japanese attack right after Pearl Harbor), it has hosted the Rose Bowl game every New Year's Day (or thereabouts) since 1923. As such, it has often felt like a home away from home for USC, Michigan and Ohio State. UCLA has used it as its home field since the 1982 season.

At the Rose Bowl stadium, the Rose Bowl game has hosted 20th Century de facto, and 21st Century actual, games for college football's National Championship in the seasons of 1954-55, Ohio State over USC; 1962-63, USC over Wisconsin; 1967-68, USC over Indiana; 1968-69, Ohio State over USC; 1972-73, USC over Ohio State; 1991-92, Washington over Michigan; 1997-98, Michigan over Washington State; 2001-02, Miami over Nebraska; 2003-04, USC over Michigan; 2005-06, the thriller won by Texas over USC; 2009-10, Alabama over Texas; and 2013-14, Florida State over Auburn.

It hosted 5 Super Bowls: XI, Oakland over Minnesota; XIV, Pittsburgh over the Rams (despite almost a home-field advantage for the Rams); XVII, Washington over Miami; XXI, the Giants over Denver; and XXVII, Dallas over Buffalo. Super Bowl XIV remains the all-time biggest attendance for an NFL postseason game, 103,985.

The Rose Bowl hosted the 1983 Army-Navy Game, with Hollywood legend Vincent Price serving as the referee. The transportation of the entire Corps of Cadets, and the entire Brigade of Midshipmen, was said to be the largest U.S. military airlift since World War II.

It's hosted 18 games of the U.S. soccer team, and several games of the 1994 World Cup, including a Semifinal and the Final. It also hosted several games of the 1999 Women's World Cup, including the Final, a.k.a. the Brandi Chastain Game. The Aztecs played their 1978, 1979 and 1980 seasons there, and the Los Angeles Galaxy played there from their 1996 inception until 2002. It also hosted the 1998 MLS Cup Final. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup.

Rose Bowl Drive & Rosemont Avenue. Bus 485 from Union Station to Pasadena, switch to Number 268 bus.

Before there was the Rose Bowl stadium, the Rose Bowl game was played at Tournament Park in Pasadena, from 1902 to 1922. 644 Wilson Avenue in Pasadena. Also use Bus 485.

* Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion. Following their 1964 National Championship (they would win it again in 1965), UCLA basketball coach John Wooden wanted a suitable arena for his ever-growing program. He got it in time for the 1965-66 season, and it has hosted 9 more National Championships, making for 11 banners. Wooden coached 10: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1975. Jim Harrick added the 11th in 1995.

The building was named for an oil magnate who was also a Regent of the University of California system, whose donation to its building went a long way toward making it possible. Edwin Pauley was a friend of, and appointee to several offices by, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, but the student protests of the 1960s led him to switch sides and support Ronald Reagan for Governor.

Pauley Pavilion was the site of the 2nd debate of the 1988 Presidential campaign, where CNN anchor Bernard Shaw asked the question that shattered the campaign of Governor Michael Dukakis – not that the Duke helped himself with his answer. Oddly, Dukakis chose to hold held his Election Eve rally there, despite being a Bostonian. (In contrast, Boston's JFK held his Convention in the Coliseum complex but his Election Eve rally at the Boston Garden.)


Metro Purple Line to Wilshire/Normandie station, switch to Bus 720, then walk up Westwood Plaza to Strathmore Place. "Westwood" is the name of the neighborhood that UCLA is in; Wooden was known as "the Wizard of Westwood."

A few steps away is Drake Stadium, the track & field facility that was home to 1960 Olympic Decathlon champion Rafer Johnson and another UCLA track star you might've heard of, named Jackie Robinson. On the way up Westwood Plaza, you'll pass UCLA Medical Center, now named for someone who died there, Ronald Reagan. (Wooden, Michael Jackson and John Wayne also died there.) The UCLA campus also has a Dykstra Hall, but I'm 99 percent sure it wasn't named after Lenny Dykstra.

* The Forum. Home of the Lakers and the Kings from 1967 to 1999, built by their then-owner, Jack Kent Cooke, who went on to sell them and buy the NFL's Washington Redskins. Known from 1988 to 2003 as the Great Western Forum, after a bank. The Lakers appeared in 14 NBA Finals here, winning 6, with the Knicks clinching their last title over the Lakers here in 1973.  The Kings appeared in just 1 Stanley Cup Finals here, in 1993, losing it to the Montreal Canadiens.
The Forum is now owned by the Madison Square Garden Corporation, thus run by James Dolan, which means it's being mismanaged. Elvis Presley sang here on November 14, 1970 and May 11, 1974. The Forum is not currently being used by any professional team, but was recently the stand-in for the Sunshine Center, the arena in the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine. 3900 W. Manchester Blvd. Hollywood Park Racetrack is on an adjacent site. Metro Silver Line to Harbor Transitway station, switch to Number 115 bus. (Be careful, this transfer is in South Central.)

* SoFi Stadium. This mammoth structure opened in 2020, on the site of Hollywood Park Racetrack (1938-2013), near the Forum, as the new home of the Rams and the Chargers. Seating 70,240, it has a retractable roof.

It just hosted Super Bowl LVI, won by the Rams on their new home field; and will host the College Football National Championship Game for the 2022-23 season. If the U.S. ever gets to host another World Cup (the next available one is 2026), it would likely be a site, possibly even for the Final (as the Rose Bowl was in 1994), although, as a New York/New Jersey guy, I would hope it would be at the Meadowlands. 3883 W. Century Blvd. in Inglewood. Same conveyances as for the Forum. (UPDATE: SoFi Stadium was selected as a venue for the 2026 World Cup, and it might host the Final.)

Hollywood Park Racetrack stood at the site from 1938 to 2013. Citation, the 1948 Triple Crown winner, won his last race there in 1951, becoming the 1st horse to win over $1 million. It hosted the Breeders' Cup in 1984, 1987 and 1997.

Before the Rams, the Los Angeles Buccaneers were admitted to the NFL in 1926, but were a "traveling team," and never played a game in Los Angeles. They were made up of players from California colleges, but were based in Chicago. The Los Angeles Wildcats of the 1937 version of the American Football League were the same deal, a traveling team made up of West Coast athletes, naming them for George "Wildcat" Wilson of the University of Washington. Both teams folded the next year.

That same year, Abe Saperstein would found a basketball team in Chicago, but, like the Bucs and the Cats, make them a traveling team, and name them for a place that wasn't their real home: Since they were all-black, he named them the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Clippers plan to move for the 2024-25 season, to the Inglewood Basketball and Entertainment Center. (It will almost certainly sell the naming rights before then.) It will be located just south of SoFi Stadium, and seat 18,000. This will be the first time in the franchise's history -- in Buffalo, San Diego, or the Los Angeles area -- that the Clippers will control their own venue.

* Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Home of the Angels since 1966, and of the Rams from 1980 until 1994, it was designed to look like a modernized version of the old Yankee Stadium, before that stadium's 1973-76 renovation.

The football bleachers, erected in 1979, were demolished in 1997 and replaced with a SoCal-esque scene that gives the place some character. Unfortunately, the old "Big A" scoreboard that stood in left field from 1966 to 1979 was moved out to the parking lot, and now stands as a message board.

It was known as Anaheim Stadium from 1966 to 1997, and Edison International Field of Anaheim from 1998 to 2003. 2000 E. Gene Autry Way at State College Boulevard. Metrolink's Orange County Line and Amtrak share a train station just to the north of the stadium.

* Honda Center. Previously known as the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, it is across the railroad, the Orange Freeway and Katella Avenue from Angel Stadium. It has been home from the beginning of the franchise in 1993 to the NHL's Anaheim Ducks – known from 1993 until 2006 as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and I still tend to call them the Mighty Dorks and the Mighty Schmucks. The NCAA held its hockey Final Four, the Frozen Four, there in 1999. 2695 E. Katella Avenue. Anaheim Metrolink stop.

* Anaheim Convention Center. With the Angels having opened house in Orange County in 1966, prospective owners of teams in other sports began to consider the area. This complex opened in 1967, and includes a 7,500-seat arena.

That year, it became the home of a charter team in the American Basketball Association, the Anaheim Amigos, who couldn't even come close to filling the small capacity, averaging just 1,293 fans per home game. I've been to many a high school basketball game with more attendees than that. So the team moved up the freeway to the L.A. Sports Arena, and became the Los Angeles Stars. They were no more successful there, and moved to Salt Lake City, where, as the Utah Stars, they won the 1971 ABA title.

The ACC was home to the Anaheim Oranges of World Team Tennis in 1978, the California Surf of the indoor version of the old North American Soccer League in 1979-80, the wrestling matches of the 1984 Olympics, and the Big West Conference basketball tournaments (men's and women's) from 2001 to 2010. But if you don't count the ABA, then it's hosted exactly 1 major league sporting event ever, and then only as an emergency: On May 3, 1992, with the South Central riots still raging mere blocks from the Sports Arena, the Clippers moved Game 4 of their Playoff series with the Utah Jazz to the ACC, and won 115-107.

The Los Angeles Kings have never played at the Anaheim Convention Center. Nor have the Sacramento Kings. But the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, sang here on April 23 and 24, 1973 and November 30, 1976.

The ACC is now the largest exhibit facility on the West Coast. 800 W. Katella Avenue, across the street from Disneyland, about 2 miles west of Angel Stadium, and about 2 1/2 miles west of the Honda Center. Bus 50 goes down Katella between the venues.

* Titan Stadium. On the campus of California State University, Fullerton, this 10,000-seat facility is better known for soccer, having been used for NCAA Tournament games, U.S. Open Cup matches by the Los Angeles Galaxy, and 8 games by the U.S. national team -- which is undefeated there, winning 4 and drawing 4. 800 N. State College Blvd. Metrolink Blue Line from L.A. to Buena Park, then Number 24 bus. Or Number 57 bus from Angel Stadium.

* Dignity Health Sports Park. Formerly the Home Depot Center and the StubHub Center, this 30,500-seat stadium has been home to MLS' Los Angeles Galaxy since it opened in 2003, and Chivas USA from its formation in 2004 until it went out of business in 2014. From 2017 to 2019, it was the home field of the Los Angeles Chargers.

Aside from the regular-season title of the Western Conference in 2007, Chivas USA, a subsidiary of the legendary Guadalajara, Mexico-based Chivas, won nothing. But the Gals -- yes, they get that feminized nickname -- have won more MLS Cups than any other team, 5: 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2014, all but the 1st while playing here. They also won the CONCACAF Champions League, in 2000, and the U.S. Open Cup in 2001 and 2005.

It's hosted the MLS Cup Final in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2014. It's hosted 12 games by the national team, most recently a win over Canada on February 5, 2016, winning 8, losing 2 and drawing 2. It hosted 6 games of the 2003 Women's World Cup, including the Final, in which Germany beat Sweden. The football team of San Diego State University used it for the 2021 football season, while their new stadium was built on the site of Jack Murphy Stadium.

18400 Avalon Blvd. in Carson, adjacent to Cal State-Dominguez Hills. Public transport is difficult. You'd have to take 2 buses: First, the 910 or 950 Silver Line from downtown to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center, then the 246 San Pedro-Point Fermin line. That will get you to the corner of Avalon Blvd. and Victoria Street, the northwestern corner of the stadium's property.

* Veterans Memorial Stadium. This 11,600-seat stadium, opening in 1948, was the home field for the football program at California State University at Long Beach, a.k.a. Cal State-Long Beach, CSU-Long Beach or Long Beach State, from 1955 until the program was folded in 1991.

On April 28, 1957, it was the site of the 1st game for the U.S. soccer team against Mexico on home soil. Of the 10 previous meetings, starting at the 1934 World Cup, 1 (the 1st ) was in Italy, 1 was in a tournament in Cuba, and the rest were in Mexico City. It was a qualifier for the 1958 World Cup, and it didn't go so well: About 12,500 fans attended, most of them Mexicans coming over the border or Mexican-Americans choosing heritage over homeland, and Mexico won 7-2. Aside from that 1st match in 1934, the U.S. would not beat Mexico until 1980.

Like the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, it is locally known as simply "The Vet." 5000 E. Lew Davis Street, about 19 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Not easy to get to by public transportation: Bus 910 or 950 to Harbor/Century Transitway Station, then Metro Green Line to Lakewood Blvd., then Bus 266 to Lakewood & Michelson, then Bus 112 to Clark & Lew Davis.

* Murdock Stadium. This 12,127-seat stadium on the campus of El Camino College was home to the NASL's Los Angeles Aztecs in 1975 and '76. It also hosted CONCACAF Gold Cup games, 2 in 1985 and 1 in 1989, and a game in the 1991 North American Nations Cup. The U.S. was the home team in all of them, winning 2, drawing 1 and losing 1. 16007 Crenshaw Blvd, in Torrance, 15 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bus 45 to Figueroa/Harbor Freeway Station, then Bus 2 to Redondo Beach Blvd, then a half-mile walk west.

* Gersten Pavilion. This 4,156-seat arena opened in 1981 as the home court for Loyola Marymount University, best known for their 1990 postseason run that included the death of Hank Gathers. For this reason, it is known as Hank's House. 1 LMU Drive. Bus 733 to Venice & Lincoln, then Bus 3 to Manchester & Loyola.

* Site of Naud Junction Pavilion. Naud Junction was the site of a warehouse built by Edouard Naud, including a signal tower at Alameda and Ord Streets. It lasted until 1940, when Union Station was built.

From 1905 to 1913, the site also included the Naud Junction Pavilion, also known as the Pacific Athletic Club. At this building, 4 fights for the Heavyweight Championship of the World were held, all successful defenses for Champion Tommy Burns: Against Marvin Hart, from whom he'd won the title the year before, on February 23, 1906; against Fireman Jim Flynn on October 2, 1906; against Light Heavyweight Champion Philadelphia Jack O'Brien on November 28, 1906; and against O'Brien again on May 8, 1907.

* Santa Anita Park. Opening on Christmas Day 1934, the West Coast's premier thoroughbred horse racing track annually hosts the Santa Anita Derby, one of the warmup races for the Triple Crown. It has also hosted the Breeders' Cup more times than any other track. How many times, Ed Rooney? "Nine times!": 1986, 1993, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016.

It's yet another location which, due to its proximity to Hollywood, has frequently served as a filming location for its usual subject: The Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races and the original version of A Star Is Born in 1937, and The Story of Seabiscuit in 1949. Seabiscuit had famously won his last race there, the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap. The ill-fated 2012 TV series Luck was also filmed there.

It also includes statues of several horses, including Seabiscuit, John Henry and Zenyatta; and jockeys such as Johnny Longden, Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr. 285 Huntington Drive in Arcadia, about 13 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Metro Gold to Arcadia.

* Hollywood Bowl. This 17,376-seat outdoor amphitheater in the Hollywood Hills, with the HOLLYWOOD sign in the background, is one of the best-known concert venues in the world. Opening in 1922, it should be familiar to anyone who's seen the original 1937 version of A Star Is BornDouble Indemnity, Xanadu, and Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Beatles played here on August 23, 1964, and again on August 29 & 30, 1965. Jazz icon Miles Davis played what turned out to be his last concert here on August 25, 1991. 2301 N. Highland Avenue. Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland Station, then walk almost a mile up Highland.

Since Los Angeles is home to Hollywood, and has been where countless TV shows and movies have been filmed, and too many to list have been set, I won't make this long post any longer than it has to be by listing them.

* Academy Award ceremony sites. The Oscars have been held at:
** 1929, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (7000 Hollywood Blvd.).
** 1930-43, alternated between the Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd.; and the Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Avenue, downtown.
** 1944-46, Grauman's Chinese Theater (more about that in a moment).
** 1947-48, Shrine Auditorium, 665. W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles (Metro Silver Line to Figueroa/Washington, transfer to Number 81 bus). Elvis sang here on June 8, 1956.
** 1949, Academy Award Theatre, at Academy headquarters on Melrose Avenue.
** 1950-60, Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles.
** 1961-68, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, which also hosted the legendary televised rock concert The T.A.M.I. Show in 1964, 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica (Number 10 bus from Union Station).
** 1969-2001, alternating between the Shrine Auditorium and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Avenue, downtown;
** 1988-2001, Shrine Auditorium again.
** 2002-present, Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak Theatre, which also hosts American Idol), 6801 Hollywood Blvd (Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland).

All of these buildings still stand, except the Ambassador, which was demolished in 2005. The site of a legendary nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, and filming site of a lot of movies, the last movie filmed there was Bobby, in honor of the building's real-life most tragic event, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968. (Directed by Emilio Estevez, one of its stars was his father Martin Sheen, who may be the only actor ever to play both Jack and Bobby Kennedy, although, already 65 years old, he didn't play Bobby in this film.)

In addition to the above, Elvis sang at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on June 7, 1956; November 14 and 15, 1972; and April 25, 1976 (300 E. Ocean Blvd.); the Pan Pacific Auditorium on October 28 & 29, 1957 (7600 Beverly Blvd near CBS and the Gilmore stadiums, 1935-89); and the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino on November 12 & 13, 1972, and May 10 & 13, 1974 (1949-81, demolished, 689 S. E Street, 58 miles east of downtown L.A.).

Oh yeah: He also sang at NBC's Burbank Studios, a complex which also includes, among other things, the studio where Johnny Carson from 1972 to 1992, and Jay Leno from then until 2014, hosted The Tonight Show. Elvis taped his "Comeback Special" there on June 24 and 25, 1968. 3000 W. Alameda Avenue. Metro Red Line to North Hollywood, then Bus 501 to Alameda & Olive.

The Los Angeles area is home to a few interesting museums, in addition to those mentioned at Exposition Park. The Getty Center is an art museum at 1200 Getty Center Drive, off I-405. The Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way, was founded by the Singing Cowboy and Angels founder-owner to celebrate and study the Western U.S. and Native Americans. (Metro Red Line, Hollywood/Western.) Also at Griffith Park, the Griffith Observatory, at 2800 E. Observatory Avenue, should be familiar from lots of movies (including Rebel Without a Cause) and TV shows.

The Hollywood section of town (not a separate city) has a few interesting sites, and the studio tours may be worth it, but do yourself a favor and skip the tours of stars' homes. You're probably not going to see any of the celebrities. You've got a better chance of seeing one back home on the streets of New York.

And you don't need to see the 44-foot-high HOLLYWOOD sign, which was erected in 1923 to read HOLLYWOODLAND and reduced to its current version in 1949. You might remember the shot of it in the ESPN film The Bronx Is Burning, when the Yankees went out to L.A. to play the Dodgers in the 1977 World Series, their shot of the sign was accurate: In 1977, it was falling apart, a genuine ruin. A year later, it was restored, but it's still no big deal up close. It was meant to be seen from afar. Besides, there's no public transportation to the site, anyway.
Grauman's Chinese Theater, with its cemented signatures and footprints of stars, is the centerpiece of the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the legendary intersection of Hollywood Blvd. & Vine Street (6931 Hollywood Blvd., also at the Hollywood/Highland Metro stop).

Grauman's Chinese Theater

* MacArthur Park. Yes, there is a real park with this name, that inspired that very long song with seemingly drug-inspired lyrics, on which no one is neutral: You either love it (as I do), or you absolutely hate it.

Songwriter Jimmy Webb used to take his girlfriend Susan Horton there for picnics -- hence the cake that was left out in the rain with its sweet green icing flowing down. She ended up leaving him and marrying someone else, inspiring him to write the song, recorded and turned into a huge hit by Richard Harris in 1968, and again 10 years later by Donna Summer. (Harris said the name 3 times in his recording, but always getting it wrong, calling it "MacArthur's Park." There's no apostrophe-S on the end. Summer also added the apostrophe-S.)

Their relationship also inspired Webb to write "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Where's the Playground Susie" by Glen Campbell, and "The Worst That Could Happen" by Johnny Maestro's later group, the Brooklyn Bridge.

The worst that could happen in MacArthur Park now, you don't want to know: Since the 1980s the park has been a magnet for gang violence, as recently as 2007 being the site of an incident known as the May Day Melee. So if you like the song, go ahead, visit it in daylight, but not at night.

It's bounded by 6th, Park View, 7th and Alvarado Streets, with Wilshire Blvd. cutting through it, and it has its own Metro Rail station, Westlake/MacArthur Park on the Purple Line.

John Wooden and Gene Autry, the "Singing Cowboy" who was the founding owner of the team now known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, are both buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery. 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, 11 miles northwest of downtown. Not easily reachable by public transportation.

Among the sports-themed movies set and/or filmed in or around Los Angeles is the 1976 kids' baseball film The Bad News Bears, whose home field was Mason Park, 10500 Mason Avenue in Chatsworth, 29 miles northwest of downtown (Bus 92 to 1st & Olive, then Bus 164 to Victory & Woodman, then Bus 158 to Mason & Devonshire); and the basketball hustlers' film White Men Can't Jump, filmed at the courts at the Boardwalk in Venice Beach (Bus 733). 

If you're interested in American history, especially recent history, Southern California is home to 2 Presidential Libraries. Richard Nixon's is not far from Anaheim, built adjacent to the house where he was born in 1913 at 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd. in Yorba Linda, Orange County. Metrolink Orange County Line from Union Station to Fullerton, then Number 26 bus to Yorba Linda.

Nixon's "Western White House" at San Clemente can be reached by I-5 or by Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner to San Juan Capistrano (the former Spanish mission where, as the song goes, the swallows return on the first day of spring), and then transferring to the Number 191 bus. However, the house, which Nixon called La Casa Pacifica, is privately owned (not by the Nixon family), and is not open to the public. So unless you're a major Tricky Dick fan, I'd suggest skipping it, as you'd only be able to stand outside it.

Ronald Reagan's Library is at 40 Presidential Drive in Simi Valley in Ventura County, about 45 miles west of downtown L.A. (Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, about 130 miles west of Chicago.) Unfortunately, the Reagan Library is next to impossible to reach without a car. Reagan's Western White House, Rancho del Cielo outside Santa Barbara, is owned by a private foundation that can be contacted for tours.

The Reagans lived together at 668 St. Cloud Road, in the Bel Air section of L.A., until Ron's death in 2004. Nancy continued to live there until her death earlier this year. 668 St. Cloud Road, in Bel Air. Metro Red Line to Vermont & Sunset, then Bus 2 to Sunset & Bel Air, and then nearly a half-hour walk. It's been remarked that the ranch was his home, whereas anyplace they lived in "Hollywood" was her home.

The tallest building in Los Angeles, and the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, is the newly-completed Wilshere Grand Center, at 1,100 feet, at 900 Wilshere Blvd. at Figueroa. It surpassed the 1,018-foot Library Tower, a.k.a. the U.S. Bank Tower.

However, the two most famous tall buildings in Los Angeles are 444 S. Flower Street, at 5th Street, famous as the location for the law firm on L.A. Law; and the aforementioned City Hall, at 200 S. Spring Street at Main Street. The courthouse seen in so many L.A.-based TV series and movies, and infamous from the 1994-95 O.J. Simpson trial, is at 111 N. Hill Street downtown.

Did I forget anything important? Oh yeah, Southern California's original tourist destination, outside of the Hollywood studios. Most people I've talked to who have been to both Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World outside Orlando, Florida have said that the Florida one is a LOT better. Anyway, the address is 1313 S. Harbor Blvd. in Anaheim, and if you're staying in Los Angeles, just drive down I-5. Public transportation is possible, but it's a mile and a half from the closest bus stop to Disneyland's gates.

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So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Knick or Net fans in going coast-to-coast, and enjoy the New York-Los Angeles matchup, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Southern California. Even if it is, you know, Southern California.