Improving Dodger Stadium

I took my first trip of baseball season last week during my Easter vacation.  The original plan was go to to San Francisco.  But then I thought about my first trip last year, which started with Opening Day in Los Angeles and finished with a game in Milwaukee.  I left Dodger Stadium last year not knowing when I'd be back again.  But I decided that if I was going to fly across the country, I might as well get to more than one baseball stadium during the trip.  When I realized that going from New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco and back to New York for only about $40 more than a round trip to San Francisco, it was an easy decision to make.

For my first game of the season, I got to Dodger Stadium last week for Dodgers-Phillies, which happens to be the same match up as my last game of the 2013 season.  Unlike last time, the result was not good.  There were some good things.  It was Clayton Kershaw bobble head night, which brought in a crowd of 51,699 on a Thursday night.  Juan Uribe and Adrian Gonzalez hit home runs for the Dodgers.  Dan Haren pitched well for the Dodgers.  But the fielding continues to be poor (Gonzalez made a costly error and he's usually one of their better fielders) and I'm beginning to suspect that Brian Wilson is the mole.  The Dodgers lost the series against the Phillies 3-1.  If they had been up in the series 2-1 going into the game I went to, they would have had a shot at the franchise's 10,000th win, but it turned out they were stuck on 9,998.  Actually there's debate about the count since apparently they won 13 games with an illegal player in 1899.  But if all those wins with Barry Bonds count for the Giants, then I'm cool with counting those 13 wins for the Dodgers.  Anyway, it's not worth blogging in much detail about my game experience at Dodger Stadium when I've done that before (here and here).  Hopefully I'll get back to Dodger Stadium when I go back to California for an Angels game (most likely next year).  I'm going to spend the rest of this post focusing on how Dodger Stadium has improved since Mark Walter, Stan Kasten, and Magic Johnson liberated the franchise from Frank McCourt.

This is definitely the coolest thing I've ever gotten for free at a baseball game.

My view from the loge last week at Dodger Stadium.

I love Dodger Stadium.  I've now gone to five games there (two in 2011, two in 2013, and one in 2014) and two stadium tours (2011 and 2013).  I sat in the loge for this game, which means I've now sat on every level of Dodger Stadium except for the Dugout Club (the seats in front that didn't exist until somewhat recently in Dodger Stadium's history).  I also haven't sat in the Pavilion seats in the outfield, but I've been in the top deck twice (2011 and 2013) and once each on the field level (2011), reserve level (2013), and the the loge (2014).  So I have plenty of experience with Dodger Stadium.  I have it ranked as the second best stadium in baseball (a detailed explanation here and an updated ranking here).  Much has changed since my first visit in 2011.  I loved it when I first got there three years ago and the new ownership group has made it even better.  First, let's go over some of those improvements:

1.  Atmosphere.  The atmosphere is so much better.  Before the new owners took over, the team had stopped trying to contend because Frank McCourt had no money.  Fans stopped coming to games because they hated McCourt so much.  Average attendance dropped by 7,743 fans from 2010 to 2011.  They finished 11th in attendance.  The Dodgers should never be out of the top five in attendance and if they're good, they'll probably be number one since they have the biggest baseball stadium in the world in the second biggest city in the country.  Within two years, the Dodgers were back to number one in attendance and increased their average attendance by 9,980 fans.  Dodger Stadium was dead when I was there in 2011 (entirely McCourt's fault).  Dodger fans have a bad reputation, but I don't think it is deserved.  I've never seen/heard a crowd like the one on Opening Day last year when Kershaw beat the Giants (pretty much by himself).

This is from my second game at Dodger Stadium in 2011.  The official attendance was 35,537.  The actual attendance was nowhere close to that.

2.  Honoring the history of the team.  They added the retired numbers outside the top deck, which was nice.  They added big Cy Young baseballs last year.  This year, they put big World Series rings in right field.

Jackie Robinson's number outside the top deck.  They have all the retired numbers out there.  On the side of the number is a little paragraph about the player or manager.

Clayton Kershaw 2011 Cy Young baseball

This is a nice addition to Dodger Stadium.  They need to add another one of these soon.  Like after this season.

This painting is on the top deck.  I kind of want to have this framed and put in my house.

3.  Scoreboards.  They put in new scoreboards last year.  My brother Sean heard on a tour before last season that Dodger Stadium used to have the world's largest standard definition TV.  Not anymore.  Dodger Stadium doesn't have the biggest scoreboards, but they are now HD and they honor the team's history with their unique hexagonal shape.  Also, I was impressed with the amount of information they had considering they aren't the biggest.

4.  Merchandise availability.  I remember wanting to get a Clayton Kershaw jersey shirt back in 2011.  For some reason, they weren't available on the website (I think they only had Ethier).  I figured I could get one at Dodger Stadium.  When I went there, the entire stadium was sold out of Kershaw shirts.  My next choice was a Matt Kemp shirt.  They had those, but not in my size.  This is what went on when Frank McCourt owned the team.  The team stores throughout the stadium are well stocked now.

5.  More food options.  I'm not going to turn down a Dodger Dog.  They're great and I've only been to Dodger Stadium for five games in my entire life.  But if I was able to go to several games per year, I'd want more options and now they have them.  This season, they added a barbecue restaurant in left field and Tommy Lasorda's Trattoria with Italian food in right field.

I love Dodger Dogs (they do taste different from any other ballpark hot dogs that I've had).  And this beer was fine, but they need more good beer options (hold on, we'll get there).

If I had gone to more than one game this year, I would have gotten something to eat here.

6.  360 degree field level access and outfield improvements.  Dodger Stadium used to have one similarity with Shea Stadium.  If you were in left field and you wanted to get to right field, you had to walk all the way around home plate to the other side of the field.  There wasn't much in the outfield anyway.  Now, you have a lot of stuff out in left and right field as I mentioned and you can just walk around the outfield on the lower level like you can at most of the newer stadiums in baseball.

There are no tickets for these seats above the bullpen, which were just added this year.  You can just sit in them if they're open.  It's not a particularly good look at the field, but it would be cool to stop there before the game and watch the starter warm up.

So they've made some great improvements in a short time.  However, they can still make it better (and I believe they will).  Here are my recommendations:

1.  Honor the history of the team more.  As I mentioned, they have done a better job with this, but they can still do more.  If you take the tour, you can see a lot about the history of the team on the press box/suite level.  I don't think that's accessible to most fans during games.  You also have the World Series trophies (or bats from the old days) and Cy Young Awards and stuff down by the Dugout Club.  I think fans sitting in the Dugout Club are the only ones that can see this stuff during games.  My brother Tom loves the Yankee museum at Yankee Stadium.  The Dodgers could have something like that.  Also, I would build two statues.  Two Dodgers deserve to be honored above all others, Robinson and Koufax.  They have all the retired numbers, but they're all the same (except the blue and white are reversed on Robinson's compared to the other retired numbers).  Next year I would put a statue of Jackie Robinson in left field and I'd put a statue of Sandy Koufax in right field the following year.  Jackie Robinson was the most important player in the history of baseball.  Sandy Koufax was the greatest left-handed pitcher ever and the greatest Dodger ever.  That would also honor the two eras of Dodger history.  Robinson played his whole career in Brooklyn.  Koufax started in Brooklyn, but he wasn't particularly good (9-10 with a 4.00 ERA in three seasons) and all of his great seasons were in Los Angeles.

I showed this picture to my kids this week since John Paul II was canonized on Sunday.  The largest crowd in the history of Dodger Stadium came to see him.  This is on the press box/luxury suite level.

The World Series trophies are near the Dugout Club, which I think you only have access to if on the stadium tour or if you have tickets for the ridiculously expensive Dugout Club seats.

One of Sandy Koufax's Cy Young Awards.  Also near the Dugout Club.

2.  More merchandise for the former players.  This is related to the first one.  I wanted to buy either a Jackie Robinson or Sandy Koufax jersey shirt during my visit last week.  I checked a few of the team stores and couldn't find anything down low in the stadium.  The best team store is on the top deck.  I finally got up there and they did have Mike Piazza, Tommy Lasorda, and Jackie Robinson shirts.  So I got what I was looking for (but I didn't see Koufax), but there should be more of that and it shouldn't be so hard to find.

3.  Beer.  Dodger Stadium needs better beer.  I had a Point the Way IPA (which is apparently a Los Angeles beer) and it was pretty good, but it was hard to find.  I saw it on the top deck and nowhere else.  Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I did look around lots of places and couldn't find much other than the usual stuff (crappy mass-produced American beer and Blue Moon and stuff like that).  Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia gets beer right.  They have the usual stuff at most of the concession stands, but then they have several small stands around the stadium that only have craft beers.  That means good beer is easy to find and you don't have to wait on a long line to get it.

They added these bars in the outfield.  There should be lots of good beers available on tap here.

4.  Dodger Stadium traffic.  It needs to get better.  I can dream.  Traffic after Opening Day last year was horrendous.  We spent more than an hour in the parking lot trying to leave the game.  There's not much that you can do about traffic when you have a weekday afternoon game that's sold out and very exciting (meaning everybody stays for the whole game).  Actually, ownership has done some things to improve traffic.  They've done stuff to encourage carpooling and they added a drop off/pick up spot for the Dodger Stadium Express bus from Union Station.  I actually stayed close enough to the stadium to walk this time, so I really couldn't tell you if it's gotten any better.  The main reason for this problem is that Los Angeles traffic is horrendous all the time.  But like I said, ownership has tried to do things to make this better, but I don't know if there's really any solution.  And it's not their fault, so I won't hold this one against them.

Dodger Stadium is fantastic.  I just want it to keep getting better.  If the Dodgers want to hire me, I'm willing to help.  Actually, I just gave them all of my ideas for free.  But they should still hire me to work for them.