Mapping the path

California Baseball: Day 12

Los Angeles Dodgers

I have a complicated relationship with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Growing up in the 1970s in San Diego County, I was a Padres fan. That’s my hometown; that’s my team. But we also had Dodgers games on our local TV and radio, and I would watch or listen to just about any sports at the time. Given Major league Baseball’s blackout rules (and yes, not to mention the relative quality of the teams), I saw a lot more of the Dodgers on TV than my lovable band of brown-and-yellow bottom-dwellers.

And at the time, the Dodgers were very good, going to the World Series three times in five years. This was the infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell, and Ron Cey; starters Don Sutton, Tommy John, Mike Marshall, and knuckleballer Charlie Hough; plus Steve Yeager, Jimmy Wynn, Bill Buckner, Reggie Smith, and pinch-hitter extraordinaire, Manny Mota. On top of it all, the feats of these great teams were described and enlightened by Vin Scully, the greatest baseball broadcaster ever.

Watching these teams win games, from a city just 120 miles away, it was hard not to be a fan. My allegiances were both regional and partisan: I rooted for SoCal over NorCal, any Californian team over a team from another state, and any National League squad over their American League foe in the World Series. I would never have owned a Dodgers jersey or baseball cap, but for most of the year, and especially in the post-season, I rooted for the Dodgers against teams not named the Padres. This is how I ended up heartbroken when Los Angeles lost the Series to the Yankees for two years in a row; and how I found myself jumping up and down on my couch when Kirk Gibson hit one of the most unlikely home runs in baseball history against the A’s in 1988.

But when the Dodgers came to San Diego, it was different. My allegiances narrowed, became more tribal. This was about family, a battle between my good-natured, seaside community and our dirty, noisy, ostentatious neighbors to the north.

Therefore, on more than one occasion, my Dad and I found ourselves in the center-field bleachers at San Diego Stadium, with a group of 20 or 30 people all wearing the same yellow t-shirt with “DODGERS SUCK” in bold, brown, capital letters. To ensure that our message would be clearly received, the group chanted this phrase throughout the game. Other sections joined in, agreeing with our premise and amplifying our message. It felt subversive. It was fantastic.

Our group chirped relentlessly at whoever was playing center field for the Dodgers. In 1978, that was Rudy Law. Law clearly heard the chatter, and occasionally smiled or shook his head. But in one game, with one out in the inning, one of our guys yelled “two outs!” and Law signaled two outs. When the next batter popped out, Law put his head down and started running toward the dugout before discovering his mistake near the infield. “Ruuuuuudy!” the crowd in our section roared, delighted with our small victory.

Although I did grow up close to Los Angeles, the ninth game of this year’s 15-game baseball road trip would be just my second visit to Dodger Stadium. We arrived two hours early to spend time touring the stadium, but the gates were already packed with fans waiting in the heat to grab a promotional Kike Hernandez Jersey Shirt.

When the gates finally opened, and we had shuffled our way to the front, a security guard inspecting my backpack asked me about the small boom microphone I sometimes attach to my phone. In all of our previous games, it had been noticed by security guards but received no attention. This particular guard was compelled – with a growing crowd of fans waiting in the sweltering sun – to stop everything and call his manager over for a second opinion. The manager scolded me for bringing the microphone to the game, saying it could block the view of other fans (which I would never do). He asked if Danny and I could go back to the car, but it was parked on the other side of the ballpark, beyond a sea of tightly packed, blue-clad bodies. The manager eventually instructed me to keep the microphone in my backpack and waved us into the stadium.

Opened in 1962 in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chavez Ravine, Dodger Stadium is the oldest Major League ballpark west of the Mississippi River, and the third oldest overall. It is one of the last ballparks built before the dawn of multi-purpose stadiums, a trend that blighted American cities with a range of cold, soulless, turfed, cement rings before the return of baseball-only ballparks at the turn of the century. Dodger Stadium also has the largest capacity of any current Major League stadium, seating 56,000. We made our way to the top to get the full view.

In 1963, one year after moving into the stadium from Brooklyn, the Dodgers won the World Series. But they have won just three titles in the intervening 56 years, with the last coming more than 30 years ago. (Their hated rivals, the San Francisco Giants, have won three championships in the last decade.) Despite superstar lineups and a lot of wins, playoff appearances, and six straight National League West titles, the Dodgers had not been able to put it all together. In 2019, once again loaded with talent, they were back on top — a whopping 11 games ahead of today’s opponent, the second-place Colorado Rockies.

We walked down from the Top Deck to the Club Level, passing the Vin Scully Press Box and, nearby, a display of Scully memorabilia. I loved listening to Scully call games. His drawl may have come from the Bronx, but his words flowed like a pleasant, Midwestern stream, full of stats, anecdotes, and insights. He could keep it going all day. Although Scully worked for many years with broadcast partners Jerry Doggett, Ross Porter, and Joe Garagiola, he did just fine in a one-man booth — even in his final year, at the age of 88 — gliding effortlessly from one topic to the next.

Scully called Dodgers games for 67 seasons, starting in Brooklyn as a 22-year-old in 1950, well before the franchise moved to Los Angeles. He took over the main chair from the legendary Red Barber three years later and still holds the record as the youngest broadcaster ever to call a World Series game, which he did that same year.

In 2016, just after his retirement, President Obama awarded Scully the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “The game of baseball has a handful of signature sounds,” Obama said at the ceremony. “You hear the crack of the bat, you got the crowd singing in the seventh-inning stretch, and you’ve got the voice of Vin Scully.”

We continued through the Memorabilia Hall, with various displays of Dodgers history, including a few lockers used in the Dodgers clubhouse from 1962 to 2012.

We then descended to Field Level, its bright-yellow seats shining like the sun above. The unique color scheme of the Dodger Stadium seats — yellow, light orange, turquoise, and sky blue — is based on the original color scheme used in 1962.

Despite the jersey-shirt giveaway, quite a few of these seats were empty when a young woman named Janaé Manigault gave a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem, the nicest we would hear on our road trip. Late arrivals at Dodger Stadium are a a bit of a tradition, but the stands filled as the game progressed, and attendance was listed as a robust 53,096.

A group of kids, each assigned to a starting Dodgers player, gathered around a microphone and spoke Scully’s famous opening line, “It’s time for Dodger baseball,” before running onto the field with the players to receive an autographed ball. The game was underway.

As we settled into the game, I began to realize I had made a big mistake in selecting our seats. For every other park we visited on our road trip, I had carefully chosen our seats based on expected exposure to the sun. I had consulted not just seating charts but satellite maps, and had looked up times for sunset. Because this was a day game, I had assumed it didn’t matter where we sat — if we sat close, we were going to be in the sun. What I had not realized was that the sun would be directly across home plate from our seats on the first-base side. Danny had left his hat at the hotel and needed to employ the protection of a Kike Hernandez jersey shirt to withstand the heat and glare of the early innings.

It was time for a dog. While Dodgers fans enjoy a pretty decent selection of food options at Dodger Stadium, Dodger Dogs are everywhere. The 10-inch pork wieners are one of the most famous ballpark offerings in the country. Everywhere you go at Dodger Stadium, you are reminded that you are jut a few steps away from enjoying a steamy Dodger Dog; or an all-beef Super Dodger Dog; or the Chili Cheese Dodger Dog; or the Brooklyn Dodger Dog, with a crunchier casing; or the Big Kid Dog, covered in mac ‘n’ cheese. I opted for the LA Xtreme Bacon-Wrapped Dog, an all-beef frank covered with applewood-smoked bacon, peppers, onions, mustard, and mayo. I added a little ketchup and brown mustard to complete the debauchery.

The game remained in the balance throughout. Ryu gave up two unearned runs in the third, but the Dodgers picked up runs in the second, third and fifth — the latter a home run by rookie Alex Verdugo, his second hit of the game. After six innings, with both starters out of the game, the game was tied, 3-3.

The Rockies took the lead in the seventh with a home run by outfielder Raimel Tapia. But the Dodgers answered in the eighth, pushing a run across to tie it again, 4-4. Thankfully, the sun was beginning to set behind the stands, now full and buzzing with energy. The cooling afternoon returned some life to the stadium as the crowd anticipated an exciting conclusion to a tight game.

Neither team scored in the ninth inning, nor the 10th. We moved over to some empty seats on the third-base side above the Dodgers dugout to get another angle on the action. Meanwhile, Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly — the sixth reliever employed in the five innings since Ryu’s departure — tossed a scoreless 11th inning.

Highlight Reel

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