It’s More Than Just a Ballgame for These Fans : National pastime: It’s peanuts and pennants, cheers and children . . . and it’s under way at Anaheim Stadium.

ANAHEIM —  The first crack of wood against cowhide hadn’t even sounded yet and already Marlene Sharlow was thrilled.

“I just walk into the park and get excited,” the 65-year-old Anaheim resident said as she settled into her seat along the third-base line, score book ready and pencil in hand. “It feels like family. For the next six months I’ll run my life around baseball.”

Sharlow, a season-ticket-holder who has missed only two home games in 13 years, wasn’t the only excited baseball fan at Angel Stadium on Saturday evening. She was joined by thousands of others who waved pennants, snacked on peanuts and chattered as they waited for the season’s inaugural home game to begin--the second of the Freeway Series against cross-town rivals the Dodgers. Saturday’s game before an estimated 55,000 people was the Angels’ opportunity to play on home turf and to even the series after a Dodger victory Friday.

For longtime Angel fan Anne Carter, who trouped out from Yorba Linda early enough to arrive at the stadium two hours before the opening pitch, a victory for the home team was a foregone conclusion.

“Naturally we’re going to win tonight,” she said as the gates rolled open with a roar and the familiar creak of metal turnstiles sent an excited buzz through the waiting crowd.

But fans of the team from “that city to the north” couldn’t agree less. And despite being swamped on all sides by aficionados sporting Angels sweat shirts, caps and jackets, they weren’t afraid to let their true colors shine a very Dodger-looking blue.

“They can outnumber us, but we’re going to win,” said Dave Oneslager, 41, of Bellflower, who was decked out in blue and white to match his wife in her Dodgers jersey and their two children. “This may be the Freeway Series, but the Dodgers are going to the World Series. And we’re going to be sitting right in the middle of the Angels (crowd) and rooting it out tonight.” First, though, came the pregame hot dogs and peanuts, and then, as the crowd settled in, a salute to U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf.

The crowd fell silent as 7-year-old Christopher Parker of Cypress sang the national anthem. The red-haired, freckled second-grader beamed as the stadium erupted into thunderous applause at the end.

“I can sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ too,” he bubbled afterwards.

Kathleen Mattivi of Tustin, a stadium usher for five years, smiled at Christopher as he skipped past.

“I really love baseball season--it really is the American sport,” she said. “I’m not supposed to watch the games, because I’m supposed to be working, but I cheer the Angels on anyway. I can’t contain myself.”