Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (122 page)

The ballpark hosted four All-Star Games. The first televised game in baseball history was played at Ebbets on April 26, 1939, between the Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds. And the Dodgers and Reds played a nineteen-inning scoreless tie there on September 11, 1946.

During the 1940s and 1950s, baseball in New York blossomed into its halcyon years, as the Yankees seemed to be forever playing either the Dodgers or the Giants for the world championship. During the twenty-year span of the two decades, a New York team played in fourteen World Series, and in eight of those years both teams competing in the Series were from New York. During this time, the Dodgers thrived, advancing to the World Series seven times. But despite all the Dodgers’ NL pennants, the Yankees were always at the World Series waiting for them, to snatch away the final glory.

In 1941 Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen dropped a third strike that would have ended Game 4 of the World Series; instead, his blunder set the stage for a Yankee comeback win. Had Owen held onto the ball the Dodgers would have evened the series at two games apiece, but instead the Yankees took a three-games-to-one lead. The pitcher who threw that dropped ball, Hugh Casey, admitted years later that he had thrown a spitball, taking some of the heat off Owen.

Brooklyn owner Branch Rickey had the guts in 1947 to undo what never should have been done in the first place. He searched the country for a player—a very special player—who would have the physical skills, as well as the mental strength and fortitude of character, to cross the hatred of the color line and integrate baseball for the first time since the unofficial owners’ agreement had barred African Americans from playing in the Major Leagues in 1898. The player he found was Jack Roosevelt Robinson.

Behind the clutch hitting of shortstop Pee Wee Reese, the power of Duke Snider, and the excellent all-around play of Robinson, “Dem Bums” from Brooklyn reached the World Series in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, but lost to the Yankees in every one of those years.

The year 1952 ended particularly cruelly for Brooklyn as a quick second baseman named Billy Martin saved Game 7 of the World Series for the Yanks. Down 4-2 with two outs in the seventh and the bases loaded, Robinson hit a pop-up behind the mound. Reliever Bob Kuzuva and infielder Joe Collins couldn’t locate the bloop as Dodgers runners came rushing around the bases. At the last second Martin made a spectacular diving catch, just inches from the ground.

Dodgers fans could do nothing but shout back their mantra “Wait till Next Year!” But even the most die-hard fans of the beloved losers must have started to suspect that “next year” might never come. For a city that seemed to have less and less going for it, the Dodgers and their losses became symptomatic of its troubles. The Dodgers were doomed, born losers. Even their name “Dodger” seemed a bit on the shady side.

But “next year” finally came for Brooklyn in 1955. Snider knocked a three-run shot into the second-level grandstands of center field to win Game 4 of the Series against the Yanks. Sandy Amoros caught a well-hit Yogi Berra drive to the left-field corner in Game 7 to preserve a 2-0 lead. The blue-collar losers from Brooklyn went on to beat the perennially winning Yanks, and people all over Brooklyn, the city that couldn’t buy a break, celebrated wildly and drank themselves silly in the madness of the Flatbush night. There is a famous photograph in which a bartender holds up a newspaper that reads “WE WIN” in bold and brazen ink on the front page of the
Brooklyn Eagle.
But perhaps more importantly, the toasting Dodgers fans all have glasses of beer raised in celebration. This photo symbolizes what it meant to a city of three million people, the fourth largest in America, for their bums, their lovable losers whose ballpark was built on a dump, to at last slay the mighty dragon and defeat the team that boasted all the talent that money could buy.

But even in victory, the Dodgers found a way to lose. When they failed to repeat as World Series champs, losing to the Yankees in seven games in 1956, the end was near. The long-standing Dodger mantra “Wait till Next Year” was changed by Brooklyn writer Roger Kahn to “Wait till Last Year.” Brooklyn would forever look backward at their Dodgers. Kahn’s 1972 best-seller
Boys of Summer
is a classic text of the era that chronicles the Brooklyn Dodger teams of the 1950s.

O’Malley, after failing in his attempts to obtain funding for a new ballpark from city officials, made arrangements to move the Dodgers out of Brooklyn. The move of the Braves to Milwaukee had preceded the Dodgers’ migration west and had proved that it was financially lucrative to do so. O’Malley saw little chance of remaining competitive in Brooklyn without the new ballpark he deemed necessary to increase revenue for the team. There were massive protests and scathing articles written. But the last game was played at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957, witnessed by just 6,702 fans. So hurtful was the team’s impending departure that the rowdiest and most loyal fans in baseball couldn’t bear to show up. When asked to list the three most notorious villains of the twentieth century, Brooklyners chose Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Walter O’Malley.

In moving to L.A., O’Malley transformed that old Brooklyn soul from one of bums and perennial losers to clean-cut winning boys of summer. These new Dodgers were no longer allowed to be called “Dem Bums” by the newspapers. That moniker died in Brooklyn alongside Ebbets Field. An all-American image in Dodger Blue was crafted, one more suitable to Los Angeles, and along with it, a tradition of winning World Series.

L.A.’s Memorial Coliseum, as horrible a spot to view a baseball game as ever was retrofitted, was where the Dodgers awaited the building of their Elysian ballpark on the hill. The Dodgers played at the Coliseum from 1958 to 1962, and though it was fairly awful, it seated plenty. The farthest seats were more than seven hundred feet from home plate. In 1958 the L.A. Dodgers drew 1.85 million fans, some 600,000 more than the Brooklyn Dodgers had drawn the year before.
The Coliseum seated well over ninety thousand per game, as opposed to only thirty-two thousand at Ebbets.

Fifty years after the Dodgers moved to L.A., a promotional stunt reopened the Coliseum for baseball during the spring of 2008 so that the Dodgers could host the Red Sox for a Saturday night spring training game in late March. The game drew 115,300 fans, making for the largest crowd ever to watch a baseball game. The distance from home plate to the left-field foul pole was just 201 feet, and a sixty-foot-high screen ran across left field toward center to keep liners in the yard. Clearly, this was never imagined to be more than a one-time thing, just a stunt.

In its proper day, the Coliseum set World Series attendance records in 1959 when the Dodgers defeated the Chicago White Sox in six games. In the 1963 World Series the Dodgers swept the Yankees in four games. Clearly, the facelift of the old Dodger Bums was complete.

Since claiming their fifth World Series title in 1988, the Los Angeles Dodgers have seen some of the greatest players of the game play at Dodger Stadium. Hideo Nomo, the first Japanese-born star to join the big leagues, came to America first as a Dodger, then after leaving, returned to the team. Pitching phenom Pedro Martinez and perennial All-Star Mike Piazza also came up through the legendary Dodgers farm system. More recently, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier and Clayton Kershaw have showcased the good work being done in the Dodgers outposts from Albuquerque to Rancho Cucamonga.

Kevin:
You just like saying Cucamonga, don’t you?

Josh:
Guilty as charged.

The McCourt years proceeded to turn many fans off. While the Angels offered a super-friendly fan environment a short drive away, Dodger fans feel, and rightfully so, that McCourt, out of sheer ineptitude, took a team that should be considered the Yankees of the West Coast (market size, television revenue, etc.) and squandered those advantages. The fans have let their feet do their talking. In 2009 the Dodgers ranked first in all of baseball in attendance, averaging 46,440 per game. In 2010, they dropped only slightly to third, averaging 43,900. And then, in 2011, the McCourt ousting, the Dodgers dropped all the way to, averaging just coinciding with eleventh north of thirty-six thousand per game. Certainly McCourt made some interesting decisions, culminating in MLB taking the Dodgers into receivership in 2011. We can only hope that brighter days lie ahead for this once-proud franchise and fan base.

Despite having the most seats of any ballpark in baseball, Dodger Stadium nonetheless boasts some of the best sight lines. Because the Stadium is completely symmetrical in every way, it’s not hard to figure out where the good seats are. But there are a few caveats at Dodger Stadium, so follow the guide below to maximize your visit.

Interestingly, Dodger Stadium has always held exactly fifty-six thousand due to a conditional use permit that limits its capacity. For every seat upgrade that has placed new seats at field level, an equal number of seats have been removed to keep the total at fifty-six thousand.

The first point to remember is that nowhere in baseball is it more imperative to purchase a seat on the level in which you intend to sit. Ushers at Dodger Stadium are very kindly and polite, but they will only allow you to access the level of the stadium for which you have a ticket. Kevin tried his smooth-talking techniques on more than a few, but to these ushers it was like he was trying to talk his way into an exclusive Hollywood club. This means that unless you are skilled at the very dangerous practice of stadium-level hopping (please do not try this), you’ll do yourself a favor by purchasing a ticket for the tier in which you intend to sit. You can then perhaps do some seat hopping on that particular level.

Dodgers fans may arrive fashionably late, but they traditionally show up for games whether the Dodgers win or lose. Finishing in third place is considered a poor year for the Boys in Blue, so they are usually at least competitive. This means that seat hopping in the early innings is likely to get you pinched. So wait until the relative safety of the fourth inning, unless traffic on the 101 is particularly heavy.

Also beware of calling the ticket line by phone, as the ticket office charges a $2.25 per ticket handling charge.

Josh:
There are more than thirty different price points for seats at Dodger Stadium.

Kevin:
Yeah, it’s damn confusing. So what’s your point?

The seats in the Dugout Club, a section between the dugouts added in 2000, are undoubtedly better than their Stadium Club counterparts. Both have access to their own clubhouse, where if you can afford it you can talk to other members of the club, and basically
be
in the club. Sounds like a real good time to us. The only way to get these seats is to contact Premium Seating at (323) 224–1320.

Kevin:
Hello, premium seating. Yes,
Brangelina
and
Bennifer
and I were looking to go to a game.

Josh:
Wha’d they say? Wha’d they say?

Kevin:
They hung up.

Apparently you have to be dating a high-level Hollywood exec or your last name has to be Lasorda or Garvey to sit in the Inner Field Box Seats (Field Aisles 1–41), because we couldn’t even find pricing for them. When we asked about them we were taken to a special room and strip searched. Not really, but purchasing these seats is out of the question. Middle Field Box Seats (Field Aisles 42–49) are pricey, but excellent. Outer Field Boxes (Field Aisles 50–57) are less pricey (but still too much in our opinion) and less excellent. Much less excellent are Aisles 54–57, which all have foul-pole obstructions to some degree. When you’re paying this much for seats, foul poles should not block anything.

Inner Loge Box Seats (Loge Aisles 101–147) were also unavailable to us, unless we were willing to rent wheelchairs and angle for handicapped seating. While Josh toyed with the idea for a moment, we decided that it would be better not to spend the hefty sum of cash required. Middle Loge Box Seats (Loge Aisles 148–157) are worth the three dollars more than they charge for Outer Field Boxes. But the Outer Loge Box Seats (Loge Aisles 158–167) don’t seem worth the price. If you can get into Aisles 158–159, then these seats are a better bargain than the Inner Reserved Seats, which are two more levels up. Aisles 164–167 have foul-pole obstructions and should be avoided.

The Inner Reserved Seats (Reserved Aisles 1–20) are also too pricey considering how high up they are. Better to sit in a low row of the Top Deck and pay almost a third of the price. Outer Reserved Seats (Reserved Aisles 13–60) are probably the best for the money if you can get them in Aisles 23–40. Inner Reserved Seats in aisles lower than 20 share the middle concourse with Outer Reserved Seats that are above the concourse. These Outer Reserved seats are therefore that much worse, but they are also significantly cheaper seats, so it’s a bit of a trade-off.

We don’t recommend sitting in the Outer Reserved Seats, Aisles 41 and higher. You’ll be much happier with seats in the Top Deck or the Pavilion. Any aisle higher than 54 will have some type of foul-pole obstruction.