This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger's Angels Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Angels’ rivalry with the Dodgers in the Freeway Series is not lost on interim manager Phil Nevin.

Nevin experienced it firsthand as a player with the Angels in 1998, which was the year after Interleague Play was introduced. He saw action in one of those games at Dodger Stadium on June 25, 1998, and went 1-for-3 with a double and two RBIs in a 3-2 win. He also had extensive experience playing against the Dodgers during his five years with the Padres from 1999-2004, playing in 88 games against Los Angeles, batting .279/.351/.474 with 14 homers and 59 RBIs.

“This is a special place, Dodger Stadium,” Nevin said. “My only year with the Angels, we came here and played in the Freeway Series. There’s a little something added to it as a player. But we’re trying to approach it like it’s any other game.”

Nevin, 51, grew up near Anaheim, as he attended nearby El Dorado High School in Placentia and Cal State Fullerton. But he admitted he was a Dodgers fan growing up because that was his dad's favorite team. So, he has many fond memories of Dodger Stadium, including winning the CIF-Southern Section 5A division championship there as a high school senior in 1989. He was even selected by the Dodgers in the third round of the 1989 Draft but decided to turn down a reported $150,000 signing bonus so he could play both baseball and football at Cal State Fullerton.

“My dad was a huge Dodgers fan, as well as myself,” Nevin said. “My dad would come home from work at like 5:30 and we’d have dinner and we could get in the car around 6:15 from Orange County and I’d sit in the back of the truck. So, a lot of things have changed. If you left at 6:15 from Placentia these days, you wouldn’t see much of the game. But my CIF title game was here and I played in a lot of games with the Padres here. I have a lot of fond memories at this place.”

Nevin, though, said his favorite memory at Dodger Stadium came when he was the Giants’ third-base coach in 2017. It was the last year of legendary broadcaster Vin Scully’s career and Nevin had the chance to go up to the press box to meet him.

“I learned the game from Vin Scully,” Nevin said. “I went to bed at night listening to him on the radio. I kept score of the games just listening to him because he painted such a great picture of the game. I really learned a lot of baseball stuff from Vin Scully. So just getting to meet him in his place of work was probably my fondest memory here.”