From Ballpark Roadtrip
Dodger Stadium
Los Angeles, CA
Colorado Rockies @ Los Angeles Dodgers
July 21, 2003
The Road Trip
Since the L.A. game was at night we'd be able to have a leisurely ride through the California desert from Dauber's house outside of San Francisco. On the ride down we saw farms, rest areas, and windmills, lots of windmills. Did we take a wrong turn and end up outside of Amsterdam? And the Californians are always having rolling blackouts; something doesn't make sense. After hours and hours in the middle of nowhere we'd have a rude awakening as we got near L.A. The traffic just comes to a standstill, even during the middle of the day. Fortunately, Dauber was very familiar with the area and was able to point out different places along the way to keep us from asking, "Are we there yet?" We were able to get rooms on Priceline.com very cheap (~$30) at the Crowne Plaza at LAX. It's right at the airport (go figure) which is south of downtown L.A. so we figured it would make for a quick getaway the next morning, as we would be heading down to San Diego. We checked in at the hotel and got a quick bite to eat, then proceeded back through downtown L.A. to sit in traffic for another hour. The smog was so heavy we couldn't even see if the car in front of us had a "FATYGRL" license plate. You'd think they would have figured out how to use their superior windmill technology to blow the traffic exhaust to Vegas. Once through downtown L.A., the traffic wasn't bad and we made it to the stadium in plenty of time. Our first impression of L.A.? Well, if you've ever seen these figures called the
Mijos...L.A. is loaded with Mijos, everywhere you look. By the end of the trip, we were using Mijos as an adjective to describe almost everything in and around L.A. "Check out that Mijos car", "Look at that Mijos house", "Who's that Mijos catcher? Oh, that's Bobby Estelella".
The Park
Right before we got banned from playing catch
We got to the parking lot and it was pretty barren. Dodger Stadium is up on a hill far removed from any other local action so it's not like you can have a scalper's row blend in with the surroundings. We decided to hang out near the car for a while and broke out our gloves and a ball. It look less than a minute for the golf cart patrol to come by and explain to us that fun wasn't allowed at Dodger Stadium and that we needed to put our gloves and ball away and go into the stadium. Absolutely lame! Wonder if they knew about us drilling that car at the parking lot of the Vet?
We knew going into this trip that the world would be better place if someone would just implode Dodger Stadium
a la The Vet. There are some games we look forward to in anticipation of enjoying the full ballpark experience and then there are those that satisfy a check mark on our list. You can figure out which category this one falls under. Just take a look at the orange and yellow seats, Dodger Stadium and Riverfront must have chipped in and gotten a volume discount. Guess they were all out of brown that day. One thing that could have dramatically improved this park is the view. If they rotated it 180 degrees, you'd have a fantastic view of downtown L.A, instead, you see a whole lot of nothing.
Maybe the smog was so bad on the groundbreaking day, the architect couldn't see downtown through the thick toxic cloud and mistakenly faced it the wrong way. One bright spot in this park (no pun intended) is the jumbotron. It's tough to tell from the angle in this photo but the video quality is excellent. Giving credit where it's due, the grounds around the stadium are immaculate with a Disney palm tree feel.
The Game
Well, if there ever was a game to get left field seats to, this was it. The Dodgers had recently acquired Rickey Henderson from who knows where (we think we saw him working the grill at Carl's Jr.) and for some reason, the Dodger fans love him. All game long they keep yelling to him, and not the way he'd be yelled at in Yankee Stadium, they actually love him! Rickey is still his usual self:
Rickey's always looking into the stands
lazy and cocky. The best part of his whole charade came later in the game when the Dodgers were making a pitching change in the middle of the inning. As soon as the manager came to the mound. Rickey went sprinting into the pen, which is just over the left field wall. He was just hanging out in there resting while the rest of his team was on the field. The reliever was finishing his warm up and still no Rickey, 8 men in the field. As the batter got set in the box and the pitcher was taking the signs, the bullpen door slowly opens. Right about then the pitch came to the plate and whack!, a shallow fly ball down the left field line! Rickey comes sprinting from the warning track and makes a flat out diving catch, for what should have been a routine pop out. Rickey nearly escaped utter humiliation. We were laughing hysterically. What made it even worse, during the next pitching change, he did the same EXACT thing. This time the batter took the first pitch and he had time to get into position. Laziest Hall of Famer?
We've never even puked at the ballpark (Well, not until KC...)
The other cool thing that happened at Dodger Stadium was some guy got totally obliterated during the game and ended up puking all over and then passed out in the stands. We love action like this! We're did his friends go? We thought about taking him to the bar with us but he'd probably make a mess in the car.
