After the early wake up call, I wasn’t getting back to sleep. So I got to Los Angeles early in the day, but I was ridiculously tired. Sean picked me up from the airport. Between how tired I was and Catherine not feeling well, Thursday was a quiet day. I watched the end of the Dodger game on TV (after losing two games in Chicago, they avoided the sweep), took a nap, and then Sean and I watched the NFL Draft. After that, we got some late night In-N-Out. So I did one California thing on my first day there.
We had a lot more planned for Friday. First up was a tour of the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl is the one bowl game that I’ll always be interested in regardless of whether or not it’s a playoff game. The stadium has so much history. The Rose Bowl game has been played there every year since 1923, with the exception of 1942 (when it was played at Duke because of the start of World War II). There were five Super Bowls played there. John Madden won Super Bowl XI there with the Raiders. The Rams lost to the Steelers in the only Super Bowl that a team got to play at home (sort of, the Rose Bowl was not the Rams’ home stadium). Notre Dame alum Joe Theismann led the Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XVII. Phil Simms had a record-setting performance and Bill Parcells won his first Super Bowl in Super Bowl XXI. The only Rose Bowl Super Bowl that I remember is Super Bowl XXVII when the Cowboys blew out the Bills. They’ll probably never play another Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl, but I’d much rather see one played there again rather than the new stadium being built for the Rams and Chargers (the Chargers should move back to San Diego and the Raiders should move to Los Angeles instead of Las Vegas, but that’s a whole other story). I did some quick research and as far as I can tell, Notre Dame is 2-0 in games played at the Rose Bowl. Knute Rockne finished the 1924 undefeated National Championship season with a 27-10 win over Stanford in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1925. And we beat UCLA 20-6 in the disastrous 2007 season. I think that’s the only Notre Dame football game that wasn’t shown on TV in New York since I graduated. That season was a complete disaster, but I still listened to the radio broadcast on the internet. It was the same night that Stanford beat USC when they were 41-point underdogs (that was a Stanford team that we later beat that season, amazingly we were 2-1 against the Pac 10 that year). And after going to the only current Major League Baseball stadium where Jackie Robinson played, I wondered if he played at the Rose Bowl for UCLA. The answer is no. UCLA didn’t play their home games at the Rose Bowl until 1982. UCLA made the 1943 Rose Bowl, but that was after Jackie Robinson’s time (he was on the team in 1939 and 1940). But Jackie Robinson did play football at the Rose Bowl before he went to UCLA, when he was a student at Pasadena Junior College. So yes, I visited two stadiums that still stand where Jackie Robinson once played.
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| Me and Sean outside the Rose Bowl |
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| Knute Rockne and the Four Horsemen led Notre Dame to victory and a National Championship in the 1925 Rose Bowl. |
As for the tour, we were there at the wrong time. I was definitely getting to Los Angeles at some point this year for a Dodger game, but the only question was when. I’ve wanted to do a Rose Bowl tour for a while. I figure I’m most likely never going to see a game there (if Notre Dame makes it to the Rose Bowl when it’s a playoff game after the 2020 season, that would be pretty cool because it would be a Friday so I could go to the game and come back home without missing work). They only offer public tours of the Rose Bowl on the last Friday of the month, when seems a little weird. I guess it’s not like a baseball stadium. It doesn’t have games 81 times a year. It’s a little out of the way. Even if the Cubs are away, a Wrigley Field tour is something you might do if you’re in Chicago. If you’re in Los Angeles, going to Pasadena for a Rose Bowl tour is not going to be something that a lot of people are going to do. So the reason Los Angeles was included on my Easter vacation trip was that it let me get out there on the last Friday of April. The only other month where the Dodgers are home for the last Friday of the month is May. Actually, I guess I could have used Ascension Thursday and taken that Friday off and gone out that weekend, but that thought never crossed my mind. I might have done the summer if that would have worked with a Rose Bowl tour. Anyway, on this particular Friday, they were getting ready for some concert at the Rose Bowl. So we couldn’t go on the field and they didn’t even want us to take pictures of the field as they were setting up. The field was covered because of the concert, unfortunately. The tour guide said that they keep it painted for UCLA football throughout the year (I guess except for when they’re getting it ready for the Rose Bowl game), possibly for recruiting purposes. It would have been cool to see that. They took us up into the broadcast booth, which is at the 50 yard line and way up there. There were windows that were closed, but apparently they’re open for games and the broadcasters are required to be tethered into the booth because it would be a very long fall from the booth if they fell out. We also saw the press box where reporters would be during games. And then we went down to the original 1923 locker room, which was very small. Now they have all sorts of Rose Bowl history stuff on display there and they show you a video about the Rose Bowl in there as well. So I’m glad I got to see the Rose Bowl, but it would have been cool to go on the field, or at least see the grass. They also never took us into the seating area. I noticed a statue maybe 100 yards away from the gate that we had entered. It was obviously a football player so I was curious if it was Jackie Robinson. It could have just been a random football player, but it was in fact Jackie Robinson. Of course, everybody knows him as number 42 (which is apparently retired across UCLA sports), but his football number at UCLA was 28. The statue has him wearing 55, which I guess was his number at Pasadena Junior College.
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| Jackie Robinson never played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he played multiple sports at UCLA. |
The weekend I was out there, MLB FoodFest was going on in Los Angeles. They had food from all 30 stadiums in the Majors, plus Tokyo, Monterrey, and London (which have hosted or will host Major League games this year). I kind of wanted to go, but with my schedule, Friday was the only day where it was a possibility. We would have had to go shortly before the Dodger game (I think it was starting around 3:00 or 4:00). The cheapest tickets were $45, which allowed you to pick eight different items. That would have meant you’d really have to eat a good amount to get your money’s worth. The problem was that I was going to the Dodger game that night and I would have had to eat a lot of food shortly before the game. Of course, I had to enjoy some Dodger Dogs at the stadium. So as much as I was interested in MLB FoodFest, I passed. They’re doing it again in New York and London later in the season. I might go to the one in New York if it’s at a convenient time (they haven’t announced the dates yet).
Later in the day, we went to Philippe’s before heading to Dodger Stadium. We met Pete and Lorenzo there. It was my third time at Philippe’s. I had the lamb double dip. I’ve been there twice before and I’ve had the beef both times so I wanted to try something different. The lamb was good, but it was more expensive than the beef and I don’t think it was better than the beef. So if I ever go there again, I’d go with beef or one of the other options.
Then we were off to Dodger Stadium. We were in the third row of the reserve level, one section over from being directly behind home plate. For $33 per ticket on Stubhub, that was a great value. The bad thing about being on the reserve level was a lack of beer options. This is my biggest criticism of Dodger Stadium (which I love). They need better beer options (especially local beer options). On the loge level (the one below us, which I don’t think we were allowed to go to with a ticket on the reserve level), there were bars at each end that had a decent beer selection (it could still be better). The only thing that we could find that was sort of local was and 805 from the Firestone Walker Brewing Company in Paso Robles, which is kind of like halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Of the four beers I drank at the four games I went to on my Easter vacation trip, this one was the blandest. Also it was served in a 24 ounce can for $17.50. So Dodger Stadium needs a wider variety of beer and they need more options in terms of sizes. If I’m only going to get to one Dodger game a year, I’ll drink a 24 ounce beer for $17.50. But if I lived out there and I went to several games a year, I’m not going to have a beer at every single game. If you gave me the option of getting a 12 ounce beer for $10 and I went to five games a year, I’d probably get a beer at each game. I’m just trying to help the Dodgers make money. Sell good beer for in a 12 ounce size for $10 (you might even be able to charge a little more than that for good beer) and you’re going to make more money. I had two Dodger Dogs. They were quite good, as always.
For the game, it was Hyun-Jin Ryu against Christ Archer. The Pirates took the lead in the first with a double play that scored a run. Cody Bellinger hit a home run in the bottom of the first to make it 2-1 because of course he did. That gave the Dodgers home runs in 33 consecutive home games, which is a Major League record (which was snapped the next day). But that’s over the course of two seasons and it’s just regular season games. They didn’t hit any home runs in three home games in the NLCS against the Brewers. So they didn’t really hit home runs in 33 consecutive home games. Anyway, Austin Barnes hit a home run in the second to make it 3-1. The Pirates scored a run in the top of the fourth, but the Dodgers answered with three in the bottom of the fourth and that was all the scoring. Justin Turner had three hits, Barnes drove in three, and Ryu went seven innings and only gave up two runs and struck out ten. Attendance was 50,748, which is more than five times the attendance at the Rays game I went to. Another reason to want to go to a Dodger game on a Friday night was Friday Night Fireworks. Sean, Lorenzo, and I made it down to the field after the game. I’ve been on the field at many different stadiums for tours, but they always just let you on the warning track and that’s it. For Friday Night Fireworks at Dodger Stadium, they let you onto the outfield grass. I did this two years ago with Pete and Katie and it was cool to be on the field again. The win broke a five-game losing streak for the Dodgers with me in attendance (two in Philadelphia, one in Los Angeles, and two in Chicago). During my Easter vacation, they went 7-3, but 1-2 with me in attendance. I guess if I had to pick a game for them to win of the three that I went to, it would have been the one in Los Angeles.
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| Our view for the game |
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| Sean and me on the field after the game |
I was supposed to be headed home on Saturday, but that didn’t happen. On our way to the Dodger game on Friday, I got an email saying that a winter storm in Chicago might affect my trip (I had a layover in Chicago) and that I might be able to change my flights without a fee. So I tried to change on the American Airlines website on my phone, but that wasn’t working. So when we got back to Sean and Catherine’s house, I tried to do it over the phone. I was told there was no way they could get me back to LaGuardia on Saturday or Sunday on other flights because there were no open seats on flights to New York (I was flying to LaGuardia because that was cheaper, my preference is always Kennedy). I had checked on their website and it looked like you could book a route to LaGuardia going through Dulles. So I asked about that, but apparently the Dulles to LaGuardia flight was like American Eagle operated by American Airlines or something so technically it wasn’t the same airline so I couldn’t do that. So I asked about going to Kennedy and they said it had to be to the same airport. Anyway, my flights were still supposed to be in time so it looked like I would just have to take my chances. As I was about to get ready to go to the airport on Saturday morning, I got an email saying that my flight had been cancelled and they had put me on a flight on Sunday to Kennedy (the bad news was I had to go to San Francisco first and I wouldn’t get to Kennedy until around midnight).
So I had an extra day in Los Angeles. Sean had an all day event and was out of the house from about 8:00 in the morning to about 7:45 in the evening. So I just took it easy. I guess MLB FoodFest would have been an option, but I didn’t think of it at the time. I thought about going to the Dodger game that night. Clayton Kershaw was pitching so of course I wanted to go. I looked into it. The problem was that my flight from Los Angeles on Sunday was early enough that I couldn’t get to mass before going to the airport (and of course, I’d be getting back way too late to go to mass in New York). My other option was a vigil mass. That might have worked if the game was at 7:10, but most Saturday home games for the Dodgers start at 6:10. There were a couple of churches within a few miles of Dodger Stadium with 5:00 vigil masses, but with Los Angeles traffic, I might not get into the stadium until like 6:45 or something if I was going to a vigil mass that got out around 6:00. So I decided just to watch on TV at Sean and Catherine’s house after going to the vigil mass at their church at 5:00. Clayton Kershaw pitched seven and gave up one run on four hits and had eight strikeouts. The Dodgers scored three in the bottom of the seventh to put him in position for the win. Caleb Ferguson loaded the bases without recording an out in the eighth, but Pedro Baez came in and got out of the inning without allowing a run and the Dodgers held on to win 3-1. It would have been a cool game to go to, but oh well. It reminded me of my first trip to Los Angeles. I ended up spending two extra days there because of Hurricane Irene back east. I had gone to two Dodger wins with Sean and Tom. They had to stay one extra day because of the hurricane. On the day that I was by myself, I could have gone to see Clayton Kershaw against the Padres. I didn’t have a car and I definitely didn’t know about Uber back then (it was before I had a smart phone anyway). The Dodgers won 4-1 and Kershaw pitched a complete game. So I’ve still only seen Clayton Kershaw pitch at Dodger Stadium once, but I have seen him at Nationals Park (before the blog), Citizens Bank Park, Yankee Stadium, and Citi Field in 2009 (before the blog), 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
I always love being in Los Angeles. My first trip there was in 2011 and this was now seven times in Los Angeles in nine years. In those seven trips, I’ve been to ten Dodger games and they’ve gone 6-4. It was good to see Pete and Lorenzo. And thanks to Sean and Catherine for having me. There’s a good chance I’ll be back in 2020.
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