The term is akin to Subway Series which refers to meetings between New York City baseball teams The Yankees and The Mets.

[5] The rise of Southern California as a major region of the United States brought about a significant economic rivalry between neighboring Los Angeles and Orange counties.

To many living outside of Southern California, the entire region is often simply referred to as "LA", associating Los Angeles and Orange counties with the same stereotypes and preconceptions.

This can be somewhat misleading, though, because the older, more urban, cities of northern and central Orange County (Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Buena Park, etc.)

These older Orange County cities are much less homogeneous than the south, and the income levels and demographics represent this.

In recent years, coinciding with the postseason success of the Dodgers and the growing postseason drought for the Angels, gameday experiences for each team have drastically changed (with a Dodgers game costing much more money to attend than an Angels game)[7] because of this the economic situations of each fanbase have experienced a sort of role reversal.

The first pre-season series was played at Dodger Stadium, at the time the home ballpark of both teams April 6–7, 1963.

The exhibition Freeway Series has mostly persisted since its 1969, with only occasional skipped years in 1972, 1980 and 2000-02 pre-seasons,[14] the latter of which was the result of bad blood that developed between the teams' front offices following the Dodgers' late cancellation of the 2000 pre-season Freeway Series to play the New York Yankees, which left the Angels to scramble to find a last minute replacement club to play.

As of the 2011 season, however, the Angels' out-of-town scoreboard in right field still lists the Dodgers by their pre-2005 "LA" abbreviation instead of "LAD".

"[24] The Dodgers and their fans, including Chairman Bob Daly and former manager Tommy Lasorda, rooted for the eventual champions and attended their games in Anaheim.

History was made in 2014 when two MVPs were chosen from the same metropolitan area with the Angels outfielder Mike Trout winning the American League MVP and Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw winning National League MVP for the year.

This occurred again in 2019 when the Angels' Trout and Dodgers' Cody Bellinger won their league's respective MVP awards.

[27][28] Another recent point of contention between the two fanbases occurred on December 9, 2023, when Angels’ star Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers for $700 million.