This former Simi Valley High Pioneer and Long Beach State 49er feels right at home in Orange County—both as a key part of the Angels’ stellar rotation of starting pitchers and as a regular California dude who just likes to, you know, hang out.
I love body boarding. I’m still trying to learn surfing. I do that in the off-season. I like golf, too. That’s more of an off-season and spring-training activity.
During the season, when we’re at home, I’m pretty much just hanging out at the house. Sometimes, I’ll go to Hawaiian Gardens and play some poker, but that’s about it.
The game days I pitch, I try to get as much rest as possible. Then I like to go to Hector’s Subs in Long Beach and get myself a California turkey sandwich. That’s been my pre-game ritual since I was in college at Long Beach State. Then I go back home, hang out, watch some TV and try not to think about the game too much.
If I’m not pitching, it is just another day, really. You know you don’t have to get mentally prepared to pitch, and that’s a relief, especially if you’ve had a good game the night before. If you’ve had a bad one, you think about it for four days.
When I go out to eat, I like Mahé in Seal Beach a lot. I go there quite a bit. A couple of other places I really like are Mutt Lynchs, a pizza joint in Newport Beach, and Riley’s on Second Street in Belmont Shore.
• Hawaiian Gardens Casino, 11871 Carson St., Hawaiian Gardens, (562) 860-8890; www.hawaiiangardenscasion.net.
• Hector’s Sandwiches, 1831 Ximeno Ave., Long Beach, (562) 498-7700.
• Mahé, 1400 Pacific Coast Hwy., Seal Beach, (562) 431-3022; www.eatatmahe.com.
• Mutt Lynchs, 2300 W. Oceanfront, Newport Beach, (949) 675-1556; www.muttlynchs.com.
• Riley’s Belmont Shore, 5331 E. Second St., Long Beach, (562) 856-1612.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.