The Sunday Memory Drawer - Dodger Stadium From 3000 Miles Away

A timely memory drawer entry as the Dodgers and the Yankees square off for a weekend of interleague play at Chavez Ravine. Above, you're looking at a photo of Dodger Stadium's very first opening day in 1962. I see this snapshot and I realize that the place, which is now my primary baseball home, still looks amazingly as it did 48 years ago.

Back when I was a kid in NY and a fledgling fan of the sport, the Dodgers' home in Los Angeles seemed like it was on the moon. 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.

I was in love with the Mets and, whenever they played the Dodgers on the other end of the world, 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 this episode of "Mr. Ed."

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.

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 burger at the Grill in Hollywood.