On Sunday, a Dodgers fan wrangled a live opossum by its tail in Angel Stadium’s upper deck. The moment, which occurred during the Angels’ 10-1 loss in the finale, went viral for obvious reasons. Social media users had a field day.

The Angels suffered back-to-back sweeps: a road loss in Cleveland (6-14 over three games) and a Freeway Series rout by the Dodgers (31-3 overall). And now, their fans had to face a rodent in the stadium.

The viral clip showed a fan wearing a Kiké Hernández gold World Series collection jersey manhandling an opossum while standing behind the last row of seats in Section 534 near the right-field foul pole. The fan grabbed it by its tail and held it aloft like a trophy. 

As the stadium security arrived with a cardboard box, he dropped the trophy inside it. But then he lost his footing and flattened another fan wearing a Mike Trout jersey. Many saw it as a fitting punctuation mark on the Angels’ disastrous week. 

But the humiliation didn’t end there. Angel Stadium has been going through a tough time for a few weeks now. According to the New York Post, there was a rat incident earlier in April. And it was on a much larger scale. Inspectors discovered rodent droppings in at least five different locations. 

Orange County Public Health found a structural ceiling gap; they closed Section 432 for sanitization before the Mets series. And it was much worse than a series defeat at the hands of the cross-city rivals.

The opossum incident crystallizes what Angels fans have endured for years — a franchise choosing cosmetic fixes over structural safety. 

A report, constant oversight, and lack of responsibility expose Angels’ accountability issues

Built in 1966, Angel Stadium hasn’t seen major upgrades since 1997-98. Walt Disney Company briefly owned it then. 

In the last 30 years, Angel Stadium has deferred necessary maintenance, while other franchises have made major improvements. The Dodgers have spent around $500 million on structural upgrades alone in the last decade. The Angels have seen some cosmetic upgrades but almost no comprehensive architectural updates. 

A California State Audit report revealed a 25-year gap in maintenance and oversight since their last major upgrade. Some reports suggest that the stadium now requires hundreds of millions to address several minor issues that have accumulated because of constant oversight by the authorities. 

And that’s exactly where it becomes more complicated. There is a disagreement between the Angels’ ownership and the city of Anaheim regarding who should pay for the upgrades. Since neither the city nor Arte Moreno has agreed to cover the bills, the stadium is stuck in a legal loophole. 

There has been significant fan backlash, and some have even threatened to avoid concessions. But so far, the baseball diehards haven’t found a solution. 

The Angels are struggling with a 16-31 record, glued to the bottom of the AL West. The six-game losing streak hasn’t given them much hope. But the opossum incident during the Dodgers series highlighted much bigger concerns than the seasonal outcomes.