The Sunday Memory Drawer - How I Met My Dodger Stadium

I can't explain how some things have happened in my life.   Or, for that matter, I can't explain how a lot of things have happened in my life.   Back, when I was a kid, I fantasized about Hollywood and California.  As far as I was concerned, both might as well have been on the moon.   I was on South 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon and I expected to die there.  

I mean, I would look at my own family.   They were sequestered in the Bronx and lower Westchester County.  Few went anywhere far.   Most had never flow on an airplane.  Back in the day, you just didn't harbor any expectations when it came to traveling great distances.

So, as I did Friday and yesterday, I sit in, of all places, Dodger Stadium.  In my season tickets.   And I think one more time how this all happened.  I'm close to the stadium now.  And I remember how far away it was way back when.

A lifelong Met fan now screaming his head off in Chavez Ravine.

Back when I was a kid in NY and a fledgling fan of the sport of baseball, the Dodgers' home in Los Angeles seemed to be in another world.  And that was just as well.   I was bleeding blue and orange...the chosen plasma of every New York Met fan.  And I wanted to hear and see every pitch.  Even when they were playing in that far off land called California.  

I didn't understand completely then the concept of time zones. All I knew is that Dodger Stadium was so far away the games started three hours later than they did in NY. An 8PM start time was really 11PM at Dodger Stadium and it took years for me to comprehend this phenomenon. So, whenever the Mets played the Dodgers on that other end of the planet, I had to get very creative when it came to staying in touch with the game.

Rarely were those contests telecast on television back to WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York. And, if they were, there was no way this eight-year-old was going to be able to go into the living room and turn on the big clunky Zenith. As it was, the sleeping hawks/parents sensed my every nocturnal move.

"You're going to the bathroom. What's wrong?"

"You turned the light on. What's the matter?"

"Why are your bedcovers off? What's the problem?"

Jeez...........

So, to keep track of West Coast baseball games, I was reduced to covert activity. A transistor radio with the covers pulled over my head. Meanwhile, since my dog Tuffy was already in the bed with me, this became a very sweaty situation on hot summer nights.

I was trying to listen to Met announcer Bob Murphy call the action with the play-by-play smothered under a pillow. Did he say that was a strike or a ball? Did Ed Kranepool score or didn't he? And, Tuffy, please stop licking my feet!

Eventually, one of the parental units would get up to go to the bathroom themselves. And the faint hum of AM radio would be radiating from my bedroom.

"TURN OFF THAT GAME AND GO TO BED!!!"

Er, I'm not listening to a game. And, technically, I am in bed. Oh, never mind. I quickly clicked off the transistor radio and threw it across my room.

I needed those words from the Met announcers because, indeed, I had no idea what Dodger Stadium looked like. Oh, I had seen a few pictures, but little else. I knew there were these two neat six-sided scoreboards. And that wave-like roof over the bleachers. But, all in all, this ballpark was a mystery to me.

I was further addled by the varying names the stadium had. Sometimes, I saw it in print as "Dodger Stadium." But, other times it was called "Chavez Ravine." Is that the Spanish translation? I had no clue. It all sounded so wonderful. But, only in my mind. Really, all I had to go on was an episode of "Mr. Ed."  Or that time Jeff Stone met Don Drysdale on "The Donna Reed Show."

I finally got to see the place for myself on a Labor Day when I was eleven. For some bizarre reason, one of the networks was televising a game that afternoon between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Why? Who knows? But, it was strange for me to watch a game that didn't involve the Mets.

I was going to get my chance to actually see Dodger Stadium for myself. And I was a captive audience. Mainly because I was trapped in my bed with a fever of 104 degrees. That was probably the sickest I have ever been in my life. Some sort of virus was galloping through my body. It was like one of those jungle movies where the great White hunter has malaria and is lying in a quonset hut, being fanned by natives. Except I was lying in my bedroom and my parents were taking turns applying cold compresses and alcohol in order to get the fever down.

Meanwhile, as I lay there in gallons of sweat, I kept staring at the game on the black and white TV in my room. That's Dodger Stadium! There's those cool scoreboards! Look at all those palm trees outside the bleachers! I was literally and figuratively closer to heaven. I vowed to go there one day and see this Chavez Ravine for myself

 I, of course, survived. The Giants won that day in 13 innings. And it would be another twelve years before I would see Dodger Stadium for myself. In person.

It was as glorious as it appeared on that day when I lost about ten gallons of water through my pores. I was on my first ever trip to Los Angeles and this ballpark was a mandatory stop. The Reds shellacked the Dodgers that day. But, the sheer essence of just being there was enough for me.

Here I am years later. A season ticket holder with a regular view of all that which enchanted me when I was eleven. I never take it for granted. This is baseball paradise.  Especially when there's playoff baseball in October.

Yes, Shea Stadium will always be my first love. But, if I have no other baseball home for the rest of my life, Dodger Stadium will do just fine.

Dinner last night:  Bacon wrapped hot dog at the Dodger game.