Do you remember your first major league ball game?
As a life-long Dodger fan, I was never certain of my initial trip to Chavez Ravine.
Last week I was digging through some old scrap books when I came across a note:
"My first Baseball game
September 6, 1965 at Los Angelas (sic),
Dodger 6 Giants 7"
Unfortunately my memories of the past are clouded by the realities of the present. The Dodgers of the new millennium are nothing like the champions I worshiped on that late summer day. I was eight at the time, a happy kid with posters of The Beatles on my walls.
I played Little League and worshiped Sandy Koufax, but I also loved the bands of The British invasion. My three sisters contributed to my passions with new records every week and games of catch in the yard. They took me to my first game. Forty years ago. That's a long time to be involved with anything. I remember a doubleheader the following year. My oldest sister Marti and her husband drove me and a buddy to the stadium on a hot, August morning. So hot that Hugh's Chevy Nomad broke down when we reached downtown. He left it at a garage and we took a taxi to the stadium - my first cab ride. The opening game against the Cubs went extra innings before the Dodgers won 4-3. When the home team tied the score 10-10 in the nightcap, the fans went crazy and started tossing seat cushions onto the field. They used to rent them for a small fee. They don't rent them anymore.
We ended up getting a ride back to Fullerton with Dodger announcer Jerry Doggett. My sister went to school with his daughter, so naturally she went to the press box and asked Jerry for a ride home. At school I had a great story for "show and tell."
There are others. In the summer of 1974 I was excited about heading off to Santa Barbara for college. Yet I knew it would mean a much longer drive to the stadium. So I went to nearly every game and sat next to the bullpen. Earlier in the season Hank Aaron had hit his historic 715th home run off Dodger hurler Al Downing. Whenever some idiot started razzing Downing I would tell them to pipe down. My pay off came when the Dodgers won the pennant and I went to my first World Series game.
After that, going to Dodger Stadium meant a two hour drive down highway 101 in an old VW bug. That didn't keep me from seeing Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run on Oct. 2nd, 1977. The smash made the Dodgers the first team in history to have at least four players with 30 homers in one season. Three years later I watched Ron Cey belt a 2-run bomb to give the Dodgers a dramatic 4-3 win over the Astros on the last day of the regular season.
I saw Fernandomania in 1981 and a couple more World Series games.
I was awed by the special opening ceremony which inaugurated baseball at the Olympics in 1984. However, nothing could top 1988. I didn't go to the "Kirk Gibson game" but I was there for the "Orel Hershiser game." The one where he shut down Oakland to win game two, which turned out to be the last World Series game played at Dodger Stadium. Before that 5pm start, I was down the road in Anaheim watching another hero named Joe Montana take apart the Rams. Two incredible games in the same day!
It's easy to dismiss the nineties but while the team sputtered, the stadium kept producing memories. On April 8th 1994 I saw my first no-hitter by Kent Mercker of the Braves. That same night Chan Ho Park became the first Korean to pitch in the majors. A few weeks later Larry Walker of the Expos made one of the most infamous plays in Dodger Stadium history. You've probably seen the clip where he makes a catch and hands the ball to a fan, only to discover it's the second out of the inning and not the third. His frantic attempt to retrieve the ball while Jose Offerman runs the bases is part of baseball lore. I actually saw the whole thing on TV, standing next to Kings owner Bruce McNall while waiting for drinks at the Outfield Bar. I didn't know it at the time but both McNall (on the verge of bankruptcy and prison) and Dodger Stadium (a few years from being sold by Peter O' Malley to the Fox Corp.) were headed for big changes.
One of them was the Outfield Bar, up on the club level but open to the public. The one place the average fan could get a ****tail and freshly popped popcorn. Served up by bartenders straight out of "The Shining." It sat next to the cafeteria, where a big chef in a big hat would carve out a roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes and vegetables on the side. All for $8.00, or about the current price of a beer. In 2000, Fox installed private luxury suites on the club level and razed both the cafeteria and the bar. So long average guy, hello big spender.
The 21st century brought more changes, and none of them worthwhile.
If you want to see Dodger Stadium at its worst, go there on a "bobble-head" night. The last one I went to had security goons hassling little old ladies who were trying to get an extra doll for their kids. "One per person, not one per ticket" they barked, a policy I'd never heard of before that day. If I showed up on cap night with four tickets and went through the gate four times, I always ended up with four caps. In 2005 came the blanket fiasco, where fans were given a nice bit of fleece saluting the championship teams of 1962 and 1966, even though the Dodgers won in '63 and '65. Eventually I received a corrected blanket after mailing in the proper form.
At least they've kept Vin Scully. When I was growing up, everyone I knew listened to him. At the beach, at home or at the stadium. Back then Dodger games aired on mega-watt stations like KABC, and Scully's voice was synonymous with summer. After a few years on the low watt KFWB, the games are finally back on KABC. Yet it doesn't matter because Vinny only does three innings of radio anyway.
Last year was all about the parking. The control freaks running the stadium decided they needed to tell everyone exactly where to park. No problem for all the season ticket holders with parking p****. If you show up without one, however, you will be charged fifteen bucks and ushered to the furthest regions of the lot. So much for taking care of the average fan, who can easily shell out $100 to feed a family of four.
Despite all this, I haven't kept away from Dodger Stadium. Sometimes I'll watch the lights go out one-by-one. When the towering banks of illumination that have witnessed so much of my history are shut off for another night, the light will fade from white to a deep blue. That's one thing that hasn't changed in over forty years, but the other changes - and a lack of championships - have given this fan a different kind of Dodger blues.
