Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (120 page)

But then, just in the nick of time, James Lee III popped his head out of the park’s modest Rec Center and asked if he could help us find anything. “Are you looking for a contact lens?” James asked jokingly. And when we saw that he was wearing a Dodger hat and Dodger jersey, we figured we had found the right person to talk to about the old park.

And we were right. Before becoming an assistant on the Lindsay Recreation Center staff, James grew up in the shadows of Wrigley in the 1960s. Now he helps manage the Wrigley Little League program and other programs at the Lindsay Center.

James led us about twenty feet to the left of the Rec Center building and showed us where the old home plate
used to be. There was no marker on the ground, just grass. James knew the spot.

While others in the South Central community may prefer to forget all about the Angels’ history in LA, and focus on the hometown Dodgers, James and a handful of other baseball fans still remember. He said the old home plate is currently stored under lock and key inside the large metal storage bin next to the Rec Center building.

“Wrigley was a part of this neighborhood that a lot of people took a lot of pride in,” James said, “and it would be a shame for that to be forgotten.”

We agreed with him and wished him luck.

Then, with our “work” for the morning completed, we moved on to our ulterior motive for visiting the site. With a five-gallon bucket of balls and a thirty-three-inch wooden Louisville Slugger, we headed for the Little League field.

Kevin batted first, while Josh took to the mound and Sean played roving outfielder. Then Josh batted while Sean pitched and Kevin played the field. And then Sean batted while Kevin pitched and Josh shagged.

Then we picked up all of the balls and did it again, rotating the pitching and batting alignment for a variation.

So, you might be wondering: Did we answer the questions raised in the Sluggers’ batting cages in Chicago? Could Josh’s moderately quick bat catch up to Kevin’s moderately quick fastball? Could Kevin’s embarrassingly slow bat connect with Josh’s embarrassingly slow fastball?

Well, after Sean showed us both up, we decided neither of us should be bragging about anything when it comes to playing the game. We’ll stick to baseball writing and backyard Wiffle Ball tournaments, thank you. But just the same, one day we’ll be able to tell our grandkids we took BP at Wrigley Field. We won’t mention, of course, that it was the Wrigley Little League Field in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS,
DODGER STADIUM

I
t’s a difficult concept for us to wrap our heads around, but Dodger Stadium is one of the oldest ballparks still standing. It is a piece of ballpark perfection that staved off the new ballpark wave that swept away many of the old yards. Only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are older than Dodger Stadium, and Dodger Stadium remains one of the few to have avoided the blight of corporate naming that has overtaken the modern era. We now live in a baseball reality where Dodger Stadium, set in a West Coast city that prides itself on being on the cutting edge of entertainment culture and ahead of every conceivable trend that courses through the country, is one of the grand old ballparks in the game of baseball.

Dodger Stadium is as much a part of Los Angeles as the in-ground swimming pool and the movie studio. In L.A., image is everything. And Dodger Stadium provides the local nine with that perfect image of baseball in paradise. Carved into the Elysian Hills in an area known as Chavez Ravine, the stadium stands like a shining beacon on the gloried hill of baseball success. And while no other baseball park in the Majors is built on a hill, the Elysian Hills of L.A. bring to mind that dreamlike ideal of an ethereal ball field in the heavens.

A more ideal setting would be difficult to imagine. The stunningly consistent weather has accounted for less than twenty rainouts in the stadium’s fifty-plus years. The San Gabriel Mountains loom above, snowcapped in the spring and fall, purple under the setting summer sun—and ringing the outfield in an ever-glorious backdrop for the game of baseball. Meanwhile, out in the back of the stadium, a breathtaking view of the downtown L.A. skyline rises from the valley below.

Dodger Stadium is no small and quaint ballpark. It’s a big old pitcher’s park, a ballyard with expansive foul territory and five decks for seating. But still it manages to maintain a feeling of intimacy. The cliché “not a bad seat in the house” is almost applicable, as sight lines are outstanding for nearly every seat. And though it’s completely symmetrical in every way, Dodger Stadium’s wavy-topped Pavilion roof and wonderful views of the action, scenery, and Hollywood stars make attending a game at Chavez Ravine an experience unlike any other in sports.

Like all other teams, Dodger fans come in every conceivable variation and type. Much press has been given to the “gang” element in parts of the stadium, and much blame has been laid at the feet of the owners for cutting security. We did not experience this drop in security. Sure, there are pockets of fans willing to fight anyone not wearing the local blue and white. There’s a rough element that shows up seemingly every night in the Pavilion seats to do little more than pick fights with opposing fans—especially when the Giants are in town. Make no mistake: It can be quite a dangerous situation in these seats, as well as in various sections of the upper deck. You might think you’re watching the movie
Colors,
and there’s a strong debate as to whether the team has actually marketed to the gang element the way the L.A. Raiders did in the 1980s. One thing’s for sure: Security has been beefed up and trained in anti-gang tactics to keep the peace once again in the wake of a near-deadly incident on Opening Day 2011 when a Giants fan was nearly beaten to death in the parking lot after the game. Meanwhile, the Angels draw more and more fans in Anaheim, while attendance at Dodger Stadium has lagged.

But most of the ballpark gives off the kind of vibe one might expect: easy-going and fairly lukewarm in the expression of fanaticism. Most Dodger fans don’t yell much, with the exception of “that guy” who came to the park by himself and is drunk by the third inning. But you’re going to find “that guy” in any ballpark. Most fans wait in traffic for three hours to get to the park, and by the time they do arrive, all they want to do is relax, enjoy the game under the stars and chill out.

Josh:
My students say “Chill-ax” … you know, “chill and relax combined.”

Kevin:
Why? Why do you even try?

Josh:
What’d I say?

Dodger Stadium is rarely full when the first pitch is thrown, or when the last out is made. Many fans arrive “fashionably late” and leave early—blaming traffic for both breaches of fan decorum. Aside for their lack of punctuality, there is no shortage of other reminders that this ballpark is pure Hollywood. You’ll see fans arriving with dress shirts and sunglasses (even during night games) and trophy wives on their arms who could care less about the game. These fans spend all game long gabbing on their cell phones (probably to their agents). Seeing and being seen are important parts of the experience—just as is the case in all other parts of L.A.

Still, Dodger Stadium is well maintained. It is repainted every season to keep any blight from fans’ eyes. During the game, the ballpark is kept more immaculate than Josh’s bathroom. There is no cleaner or better maintained facility in all of sports.

The grounds outside the park are immaculate as well. In addition to a grounds crew that tends the field, the Dodgers keep on the payroll a full-time crew of gardeners who care for the three-hundred-acre site, which comprises ubiquitous palm trees, lush bushes, and flower beds that surround the twenty-one landscaped and terraced parking lots. This obsessive attention to the sparkling image of the ballpark is a very L.A. phenomenon, and is as important to the team as Vin Scully’s velvet voice.

Winning quickly became the norm after the Dodgers moved west in 1958. Dodger Stadium transformed the team’s attitude from “Wait Till Next Year” to pennants and world championships accumulated at a rate exceeded only by the New York Yankees. The Dodgers have hosted nine World Series since moving to Los Angeles, and the Blue Crew has won five of them. Team owner Walter O’Malley was the man responsible for moving the club out of Brooklyn. After a four-year wait for new digs following the move, during which time the Dodgers played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Dodger Stadium opened on April 10, 1962, with the home team falling to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3. The huge stadium seated fifty-six thousand, but was built to be expandable to eighty-five thousand should the team ever decide to continue the decks all the way around the outfield.

Plenty of misinformation surrounds the Dodgers’ move to Chavez Ravine. Rumors that the police evicted poor Mexican-American families that were living in the area at the behest of the Dodgers organization are simply not true. The L.A. police did forcibly drag people out of their homes, but these heinous acts were committed with the city’s intention to build housing at Chavez Ravine, and occurred long before the land was sold to O’Malley. This is not to say that the land was obtained from the primarily Spanish-speaking owners by purely altruistic means. Dirty pool was played during the
Battle of Chavez Ravine
—the decade-long struggle for O’Malley to acquire the land from resistant homeowners. We
suggest reading
City of Quartz,
by Mike Davis, for an excellent account of the times, but in essence, the real estate purchasers used Spanish-speaking agents to offer cash to the local homeowners, then continually lowered their pricing offers to drive fear up and the price of property down.

Captain Emil Praeger, an esteemed sea captain from New York, was the man chosen as the architect and engineer of the stadium. His original designs of the ballpark consisted of translucent tubes for visitors to walk through, but the tubes never saw the light of day. It was the first multilevel tiered stadium built without support columns, so every seat had a clear view of the field. The Vinell Construction Company of Los Angeles built the structure at a cost of $23 million. O’Malley and his partners paid for all of it, making Dodger Stadium only the second ballpark to be entirely privately funded during the twentieth century. Yankee Stadium was the first (1923) and AT&T Park in San Francisco was the only other (2000).

Early on, Dodger Stadium was dubbed by some the “Taj Mahal of baseball,” but some critics pejoratively called the stadium the “Taj O’Malley.” One obvious Opening Day gaffe was that the foul poles were installed completely in foul territory instead of lined up with the foul line (we’re left to wonder why they don’t call them fair poles if they belong in fair territory). For the first season, special dispensation from the league had to be granted for the unorthodox placement until they could be moved. Another early blunder: In a city where drinking water can be as precious as gold, no water fountains were installed at the park for fans that first season.

The Dodgers shared their new digs with the expansion Los Angeles Angels during the 1962–1965 seasons. Dodger Stadium was quietly called “Chavez Ravine” when the Angels played, so they did not have to continually publicize the name of their landlord and in-town NL rival. Despite the fact that they had to share their stadium with an expansion team, 1962 was a glorious year for the Dodgers, as they won 102 games and finished in a tie for the National League lead with their archrivals, the San Francisco Giants. On October 3, 1962, the two teams squared off in a one-game playoff at Dodger Stadium to decide who would represent the NL in the World Series. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the Giants rallied with four runs in the ninth to post a 6-4 win, but the crowd of 45,693 gave the Dodgers an MLB record-setting attendance total of 2,755,184 for the year. Earlier in 1962, Jackie Robinson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Aptly, since Dodger Stadium has always been a pitcher’s park, overpowering hurlers have led the boys in blue to their success. In 1963, left-hander Sandy Koufax posted a 25-5 record alongside an ERA of 1.88 en route to winning the MVP, Cy Young, and MVP of the World Series after the Dodgers swept the Yankees in four straight games. In the final game the Dodgers managed only two hits, but Koufax pitched a complete game to beat the Yanks 2-1.

During the 1960s the Dodgers also had Don Drysdale and Johnny Podres in their rotation, as well as a fearless closer in Ron Perranoski. Koufax was the ace, however, and proved it in 1965 when the Dodgers captured another World Series as residents of Dodger Stadium. After a tough battle with the Minnesota Twins, the Dodgers prevailed in seven games, behind two complete-game shutouts by Koufax. In the finale he tossed a masterful 2-0 gem. Then almost mythically, after leading the NL in wins again the next season with twenty-seven, in 1966 Koufax, seemingly in the prime of his career, and with two World Series rings and MVPs to his credit, bowed out of baseball, exiting the game at the top of his form. His early retirement confounded many critics and fans at the time. Though he cited worsening arthritis and pain in his pitching elbow, he was still better than anyone else in the game. Five years after retiring, Koufax became the
youngest man to be elected to the Hall of Fame, at the age of thirty-six in 1972. And yet, there’s no statue of Sandy outside Dodger Stadium. Many Dodgers fans think there should be; the sentiment is so strong that one fan has started an online petition. If you agree, you can sign your name as a backer of the cause at
www.baseballsavvy.com/index.html
.