Dodger Stadium Express

Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of (US$ in 2020 dollars). It is the oldest ballpark in MLB west of the Mississippi River, and third-oldest overall, after Fenway Park in Boston (1912) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (1914), and is the largest baseball stadium in the world by seat capacity. Often referred to as a " pitcher's ballpark", the stadium has seen 13 no-hitters, two of which were perfect games.

The stadium hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1980 and 2022—as well as games of 10 World Series (1963, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1988, 2017 and 2018). It also hosted the semifinals and finals of the 2009 and 2017 World Baseball Classics, as well as exhibition baseball during the 1984 Summer Olympics. The stadium hosted a soccer tournament on August 3, 2013, featuring four clubs: the hometown team Los Angeles Galaxy, and Europe's Real Madrid, Everton, and Juventus. The Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks played a regular season game in 2014 as part of the NHL Stadium Series.

It is sometimes referred to as “Blue Heaven on Earth,” a nickname coined by Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda.

History

Construction

In the mid-1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers team president Walter O'Malley had tried to build a domed stadium in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, but was unable to reach an agreement with city officials for the land acquisition, and eventually reached a deal with the city of Los Angeles. The land for Dodger Stadium had been seized from local owners and inhabitants in the early 1950s by the city of Los Angeles, using eminent domain with funds from the federal Housing Act of 1949. The city had planned to develop the Elysian Park Heights public housing project, which included two dozen 13-story buildings and more than 160 two-story townhouses, in addition to newly rebuilt playgrounds and schools, and a college.

Before construction could begin on the housing project, the local political climate changed greatly when Norris Poulson was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1953. Proposed public housing projects such as Elysian Park Heights lost most of their support as they became associated with socialist ideals. Following protracted negotiations, the city purchased the Chavez Ravine property back from the Federal Housing Authority at a drastically reduced price, with the stipulation that the land be used for a public purpose. It was not until June 3, 1958, when Los Angeles voters approved a "Taxpayers Committee for Yes on Baseball" referendum, that the Dodgers were able to acquire of Chavez Ravine from the city. Los Angeles forcefully evicted residents from their homes, mainly Hispanics. While Dodger Stadium was under construction, the Dodgers played in the league's largest capacity venue from 1958 through 1961 at their temporary home, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which could seat in excess of 90,000 people.

Los Angeles–based 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. Many residents continued to hold out despite the pressure being placed upon them by developers, resulting in the Battle of Chavez Ravine, a ten-year struggle by the residents to maintain control of their property, which they ultimately lost.

Dodger Stadium was the first Major League Baseball stadium since the initial construction of the original Yankee Stadium to be built using 100% private financing, and the last until Oracle Park in San Francisco opened in 2000. Ground was broken for Dodger Stadium on September 17, 1959. The tops of local ridges were removed, and the soil was used to fill in Sulfur and Cemetery Ravines to provide a level surface for a parking lot and the stadium. A local elementary school (Palo Verde) was simply buried rather than demolished, and sits beneath the parking lot northwest of third base. A total of of earth were moved in the process of building the stadium. A total of 21,000 precast concrete units, some weighing as much as 32 tons, were fabricated onsite and lowered into place with a specially built crane to form the stadium's structural framework. The stadium was originally designed to be expandable to 85,000 seats by expanding the upper decks over the outfield pavilions; the Dodgers have never pursued such a project.

Dodger Stadium was also the home of the Los Angeles Angels from 1962 through 1965. To avoid constantly referring to their landlords, the Angels called the park Chavez Ravine Stadium (or just "Chavez Ravine"), after the geographic feature in which the stadium sits.

Frank McCourt era

At the conclusion of the 2005 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers made major renovations during the subsequent off-season.

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 1975 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 (more muted) 1962 color scheme consisting of yellow, light orange, turquoise, and sky blue. 2,000 pairs of seats were made available for purchase at $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. Other repairs were made to the concrete structure of the stadium. These improvements mark the second phase of a multi-year improvement plan for Dodger Stadium.

Renovations

Between 2003 and 2005, Dodger Stadium upgraded with LED video displays. The large main video display measures high by wide.

In 2008, the Dodgers announced a $412 million project to build a Dodger museum, shops, and restaurants around Dodger Stadium. In a press release, the team described the various features of the renovation as follows:
*Dodger Way – A tree-lined entrance will lead to a landscaped grand plaza where fans can gather beyond center field. The plaza will connect to a promenade that features restaurants, shops and the Dodger Experience museum showcasing the history of the Dodgers in an interactive setting.
*Green Necklace – The vibrant street setting of Dodger Way links to a beautiful perimeter around Dodger Stadium, enabling fans to walk around the park, outdoors yet inside the stadium gates. This Green Necklace will transform acres of parking lots into a landscaped outdoor walkway connecting the plaza and promenade to the rest of the ballpark.
*Top of the Park – The Green Necklace connects to a large scale outdoor plaza featuring breathtaking 360° views spanning the downtown skyline and Santa Monica Bay, the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains, and the Dodger Stadium diamond.

In the 2008–2009 off-season, the upper levels of the stadium were supposed to be renovated to match the repairs and improvements made to the field level. The improvements were to include the removal of the trough urinals in the men's restrooms, new concession stands and earthquake retrofitting to the concrete structure. It was also to include the replacement of the outfield scoreboards and monitors with new HD monitors. Due to the 2009 World Baseball Classic hosted at Dodger Stadium, these renovations were put on hold. The divorce of Frank and Jamie McCourt, as well as a weak economy, were the reasons for the postponement.

To pay for an outstanding loan with the Dodgers former owner News Corporation, former owner Frank McCourt used Dodger Stadium as collateral to obtain a $250 million loan.

In 2008, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to give the Dodger Stadium area bounded by Academy Rd, Lookout Dr. and Stadium Way its own zip code, 90090 (as of July 2009). This also gives the area a new name, Dodgertown. The signs from the former Dodgertown spring training facility in Vero Beach, Florida will likely be integrated into the $500 million project.

New ownership and further renovation

Following the sale of the Dodgers in 2012, the team brought in the architect, urban planner, and stadium specialist Janet Marie Smith to lead renovations efforts to the 50-year-old stadium. Renovations to Dodger Stadium began in the winter of 2012. Both video boards were replaced with High Definition screens, and new clubhouses and weight rooms were installed. The restrooms, concession stands, sound system and batting cages were also improved and renovated.

Dodgers owner Guggenheim Partners internally discussed moving the Dodgers to a new stadium at a Downtown Los Angeles site proposed by the Anschutz Entertainment Group to allow an NFL team to build a stadium at the Dodger Stadium site. Guggenheim Partners also considered allowing an NFL team to build a stadium next to Dodger Stadium. The NFL eventually chose to build SoFi Stadium in the City of Inglewood.

The extensive renovations to Dodger Stadium were ready for the 2013 season and included new HD hexagonal video and scoreboards, a new sound system, wider concourses, more standing room viewing areas, improved restrooms and a children's playground amongst others.

Between the 2013 and 2014 seasons, more renovations were put in place. Dodger Stadium was the beneficiary of improvements such as wider concourses in the pavilions, new restaurants "Think Blue Bar-B-Que" and "Tommy Lasorda’s Trattoria", dedicated team store buildings replacing the tents that previously served as team stores, bullpen overlooks with overlook bars, and tree relocation at the top of the stadium.

On July 23, 2019, a press conference was held with the presentation of the $100 million renovation to the ballpark, which includes a center field plaza with a children's playground located between the left field and right field bleachers, the relocation of the Jackie Robinson statue from the left field entrance to the center field playground, as well as a display honoring the Legends of Dodger Baseball, along with a sports bar and a beer garden. Also included are new elevators and escalators which connect the outfield bleachers with the field, loge and reserve levels and a new stadium center main entrance. The renovation was completed while the 2020 regular season was delayed.

Features

Design

Dodger Stadium was one of the last baseball-only facilities built before the dawn of the multi-purpose stadium. It was built near the convergence of several freeways near downtown Los Angeles, with an expansive parking lot surrounding the stadium. With the construction of many new MLB ballparks in recent years, it is now the third-oldest park still in use, and the oldest on the West Coast.

Dodger Stadium offered several innovative design features. One of these was a covered and screened section of dugout-level seats behind home plate. Dodger owner Walter O'Malley was inspired to incorporate this feature into the Dodger Stadium design after having seen it at Tokyo's Korakuen Stadium during the Brooklyn Dodgers' postseason goodwill tour of Japan in 1956. The original dugout seating area was replaced by more conventional box seating in a 1999 renovation, but this feature has been replicated at Progressive Field in Cleveland and Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

Two of Dodger Stadium's most distinctive features are the wavy roof atop each outfield pavilion and the top of a 10-story elevator shaft bearing the Dodger logo rising directly behind home plate at the top of the uppermost seating level.

A unique terraced-earthworks parking lot was built behind the main stands, allowing ticket-holders to park at roughly the level of their seats, minimizing use of ramps once inside. The stadium was also designed to be earthquake-resistant, an important consideration in California, and it has withstood several serious earthquakes.

Dodger Stadium was originally equipped with two large Fair Play electronic scoreboard units above the left- and right-field pavilions. The right-field board displayed in-game information. The left-field board displayed scores of out-of-town games and other messages. Smaller auxiliary scoreboards were installed at field level on the box seat fences beyond the first- and third-base dugouts during the inaugural 1962 season. The left-field message board was replaced by a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision video board in 1980. The field-level auxiliary scoreboards were replaced by larger units installed on the facade of the Loge (second) seating level in 1998; these, in turn, were replaced by a video ribbon board in 2006. Field-level out-of-town scoreboards were installed on the left- and right-field walls in 2003.

Strobe lights were added in 2001; they flash when the Dodgers take the field, after a Dodger home run, and after a Dodger win. In 2018, blue strobe lights were added.

Retired numbers

In addition to those of Don Drysdale (53), Sandy Koufax (32), and Don Sutton (20), the retired numbers of Pee Wee Reese (1), Jackie Robinson (42), Duke Snider (4), Tommy Lasorda (2), Walter Alston (24), Roy Campanella (39), Jim Gilliam (19) and Gil Hodges (14) are mounted on the club level facade near the left field foul pole. On April 15, 2017, to mark the 70th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut, the Dodgers unveiled a bronze statue of the player in the stadium's left-field plaza. The sculpture depicts Robinson sliding into home plate as a rookie. Also honored on the left field line in addition to the retired numbers are broadcasters Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrin.

Location

Built on top of the historic Los Angeles neighborhood of Chavez Ravine in Solano Canyon, the stadium overlooks downtown Los Angeles and provides 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. Due to dry summers in Southern California, rainouts at Dodger Stadium are rare. Prior to 1976, the Dodgers were rained out only once, against the St. Louis Cardinals, on April 21, 1967, ending a streak of 737 consecutive games without a postponement. On April 12, 1976, the second home rainout ended a streak of 724 straight games. April 19–21, 1988 saw three consecutive rainouts, the only time consecutive games have been rained out at Dodger Stadium. No rainouts occurred between April 21, 1988, and April 11, 1999 – a major league record of 856 straight home games without a rainout. That record has since been broken, with no rainouts since April 17, 2000, 1,471 consecutive games through October 3, 2019

Seating

Dodger Stadium has never increased its seating capacity, and was the only current MLB park (through 2005) that had never done so, due to a conditional-use permit that limits Dodger Stadium's seating capacity to 56,000. Whenever higher revenue lower seats were added some in the upper deck or pavilion were removed to keep the number the same. Through the sale of standing room only tickets, the Dodgers' 2009 home opener drew 57,099 fans, the largest crowd in stadium history. Following a number of incidents in the early 1970s in which fans showered Cincinnati Reds left fielder Pete Rose with beer, bottles, cups, and trash, the sale of beer was discontinued in both pavilions. Beer sales were reinstated in the right field pavilion in 2008, when that section was converted into the All You Can Eat Pavilion. Fans seated in that section can eat unlimited hot dogs and peanuts and also have access to free soft drinks. There is a charge for beer.

With the retirement of the original Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium

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