Dodger Stadium
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Despite being built in a part of Los Angeles called Chavez Ravine, the stadium is also on a hillside overlooking downtown Los Angeles, providing spectacular views of the city to the south; the green, tree-lined hills of Elysian Park to the north and east; and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond the outfield pavilions. It is often ranked as one of the best stadiums in baseball.
Overview
The stadium holds 56,000 fans and was designed to be capable of expansion to 85,000 seats. It has a unique terraced-earthworks parking lot behind the main stands, which allows ticketholders to park at roughly the level that their seats are, minimizing their climbing and descending of ramps once they get inside the stadium. The design is also alleged to be earthquake-resistant, certainly an important consideration in California.It was the only park of its era designed specifically for baseball, and with the construction of many new MLB ballparks in recent years, is now one of the oldest still in use. Being privately owned, however, and maintained with a level of pride that is typically missing from public facilities, it has stood the test of time very well, and no plans are in the offing to replace it, although some renovations were made in 2004 that added luxury suites, a feature that had not been previously present.
Currently, Dodger Stadium is one of the few Major League Baseball stadiums without the name of a corporate sponsor as part of the title. (Others include Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, RFK Stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Angel Stadium).
Because of overall poor visibility for hitters, fairly large dimensions and a large amount of foul territory, Dodger Stadium has enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a pitcher's park. (The amount of foul territory was significantly reduced during the 2004 renovation, which added seats which were closer to home plate than the pitcher's mound, moved the dugouts closer to the field, and filled in previously open space down the foul lines with new seats.) Even the almost always pleasant California weather benefits pitchers. During evening games, as the sun sets, the surrounding air cools quickly due to the ocean climate, becoming more dense, and deep fly balls that might be home runs during the day instead "die" in the air for routine outs. Pitchers such as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela, and Orel Hershiser became superstars after arriving in Los Angeles. This pitcher's edge is evident in the fact that nine no-hitters have been thrown in the stadium, including two perfect games (by the Dodgers' Sandy Koufax in 1965, and by Dennis Martinez of the now-defunct Montreal Expos in 1991).
The park's significant advantage was eroded somewhat in 1969, in general because MLB rules were changed to lower the maximum height of the pitcher's mound, and more specifically because the Dodgers moved the diamond about 10 feet towards center field. This also gave the fielders more room to catch foul balls, so there was some tradeoff. Renovations in 2004 added some seats to the field level, reducing somewhat the amount of foul territory.
Dodger Stadium was the first Major League Baseball stadium since the initial construction of Yankee Stadium to be built using entirely private financing, and the last until Pacific Bell Park was built.
2006 is the Dodger franchise's 45th season at Dodger Stadium, the same number of seasons that the club spent at its storied ancestral home, Ebbets Field (1913-1957). Thanks to the 162-game season that coincidentally went into effect the year the stadium opened, as of 2005 the Dodgers had actually played more games at Dodger Stadium at that point than they did at Ebbets Field. In the mid-1950s, team president Walter O'Malley had tried to convince the Borough of Brooklyn to construct a new stadium, complete with dome, to replace the woefully cramped Ebbets. O'Malley eventually got his stadium, except it was in Los Angeles and without a dome. Given the Dodgers ongoing commitment to keeping the stadium in good shape, and barring unforeseen circumstances, Dodger Stadium should outlive Ebbets Field by a good margin. With completion of the Nationals Ballpark projected for 2008 and the new Yankee Stadium for 2009, and if Wrigley Field and Fenway Park are still around, Dodger Stadium would become the third oldest Major League ballpark still in use, albeit some five decades younger than the other two venerable facilities.
The ballpark has had a terrific run of luck with rain - prior to 1976, the Dodgers were rained out only once, against the St. Louis Cardinals, on April 21, 1967. That rainout ended a streak of 737 consecutive games without a postponement. The second home rainout, on April 12, 1976, ended a streak of 724 straight games. No rainouts occurred between three straight games from April 19-21, 1988, and April 11, 1999 - a major league record of 856 straight home games without a rainout. [link]
Famous players who have called Dodger Stadium home include Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills, Tommy Davis, Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson, Orel Hershiser, and Mike Piazza.
Construction controversy
The land for Dodger Stadium was expropriated from the local residents in the early 1950s by the city of Los Angeles under eminent domain. The residents were told that it was to be used for low-income housing and that the residents would have their choice of the new homes. The city, however, used the land to induce the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers to relocate the franchise in Los Angeles.
Noted Los Angeles author Mike Davis, in his seminal work on the city, City of Quartz, describes the process of gradually convincing Chavez Ravine homeowners to sell. With nearly all of the original, Spanish-speaking homeowners initially unwilling to sell, developers resorted to offering immediate cash payments, distributed through their Spanish-speaking agents. Once the first sales had been completed, remaining homeowners were offered increasingly lesser amounts of money, to create a community panic of not receiving fair compensation, or of being left as one of the few holdouts.
The top of a local hill was removed and the soil was used to fill in the actual Chavez Ravine, to provide a level surface for a parking lot and the stadium.
A few years after the stadium opened, a minor land dispute arose. A nearby landowner claimed that a corner of his property had been paved over as part of the parking lot. He announced he was going to build a small hamburger stand on that small slice of property, selling "O'Malleyburgers", the buns to carry an imprint of Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley, so that disgruntled patrons could "bite off his ear". Apparently a settlement was reached, as nothing much came of this incident.
Dodger Stadium was also the home of the Los Angeles Angels between 1962 and 1965. To avoid constantly referring to their landlords, the Angels called the park Chavez Ravine Stadium (or just "Chavez Ravine"), after the former geographic feature in which the stadium had been constructed.
Other notable events
Pope John Paul II celebrated a famous Mass at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 16, 1987.Many of the world's top rock bands have performed at Dodger Stadium, including acts such as The Cure, KISS, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Genesis, Eric Clapton, Depeche Mode, U2, the Dave Matthews Band and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Dodger Stadium was also the site of "Encore - the Three Tenors", a 1994 concert reuniting internationally renowned tenors Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, conducted by Zubin Mehta.
Dodger Stadium has also staged other sporting events such as boxing, a basketball game featuring the Harlem Globetrotters and a ski-jumping exhibition, as well as the baseball competition of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games.
2005-2006 offseason improvements
At the conclusion of the 2005 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers made major renovations during the 2005-2006 offseason.
The largest of these improvements was the replacement of nearly all the seats in the stadium. The seats that were removed had been in use since the mid-1970s and helped give the stadium its unique "space age" feel with a color palette of bright yellow, orange, blue, and red. The new seats are in the original (and more muted) 1962 color scheme consisting of yellow, light orange, turquoise, and sky blue. Two thousand pairs of seats were made available for fans to purchase for $250 with the proceeds going to charity.
The baseline seating sections have been converted into retro-style "box" seating, adding leg room and a table for fans. Other maintenance and repair were made to the concrete structure of the stadium. These improvements mark the second phase of a multi-year improvement plan for Dodger Stadium.
References
Source for dimensions:- [Clem's Baseball] -- Lists center field as 400 feet; matching signs to the left and right of dead center indicate 395 feet.
External links
- [Ballpark Digest Visit to Dodger Stadium]
- [History of the stadium] on the Dodgers website
- [Dodger Stadium history and facts]
- [Ballparks of Baseball Page]
- [Official Website of former Dodger owner Walter O'Malley; has many historical documents pertaining to the Dodgers' move West]
- [Dodger Stadium from Baseball-Statistics.com]
Aerial photo
| Preceded by: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 1958–1961 | Home of the Los Angeles Dodgers 1962–present | Followed by: Current |
| Preceded by: Wrigley Field 1961 | Home of the Los Angeles Angels 1962–1965 | Followed by: Anaheim Stadium 1966–present |
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