Going to Los Angeles to see the Dodgers play has become a nearly annual event for me. I didn’t get to a game in Los Angeles until I was 27 years old (before the blog). Since my first two games at Dodger Stadium in 2011, the only years that I haven’t gotten out there are 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2022. I was so happy when Pete moved out there in 2015 because it gave me another reason to go out to Los Angeles. And then my brother Sean moved out there in 2017. So I try to get to a game with them and Sean’s college roommate Lorenzo almost every year since Sean moved out there. Last year I went for the Fourth of July. This year I went for Canada Day. Why did I pick July 1? With the Dodgers’ massive payroll, the appeal of Shohei Ohtani, and the fact that the Dodgers are the reigning World Series champions, ticket prices are crazy this year. There were a few games during the summer where they weren’t too crazy. There were some afternoon games. I like day baseball, but afternoon games in Los Angeles during the summer are a roll of the dice. The weather might be fine, but it could be high 90s and sunny (the second game my brothers and I went to in 2011 was 97° and we spent much of the game in the shade instead of sitting in our great seats). There were two night games during my summer vacation where prices weren’t crazy. July 1 against the White Sox worked better for my brother Sean so that’s what I did.
Usually I blog about my multi-part trips in chronological order, but this was definitely the most fun part of my trip so I’m doing this one first. But I was a little worried about making it out to Los Angeles. I had a connecting flight at the Atlanta airport and I was scheduled to have 42 minutes to get from my first flight to my flight to Burbank. Fortunately my first flight was a little early and by the time I got to my gate for the flight to Burbank, they were already boarding my zone. So I made it to California on time. Sean picked me up and we stopped at In-N-Out on the way to his house from the airport. I feel like I’m not officially in California if I don’t have In-N-Out. In-N-Out isn’t the best fast food burger (I would take Shake Shack and Five Guys), but it’s good and it has the best value. Gas prices in California are ridiculous, but In-N-Out is very reasonably priced.
We relaxed for a while and then we headed to Dodger Stadium. It was Yoshinobu Yamamoto against Shane Smith. I think it’s fair to say that Yoshinobu Yamamoto has established himself as the best pitcher on the Dodgers. Of course, that was Clayton Kershaw for a very long time. I think to be considered the best pitcher on the Dodgers during the Clayton Kershaw era, you have to do it for more than one year. Like Zack Greinke was arguably better than Kershaw in 2015 (I made the argument that Greinke should have won the Cy Young that year over Jake Arrieta and Kershaw). Greinke was great, but he was only arguably the best pitcher for one year. From 2010-2020, the only years when Kershaw wasn’t clearly the best pitcher on the Dodgers were 2015 (Greinke), 2018 (Buehler), and 2019 (Ryu). And it was very close in 2015 and 2018. Since 2020, their best pitcher has been changing each season. It was Buehler in 2021, Urias in 2022, Kershaw in 2023, and now it’s been Yamamoto in 2024 (Glasnow and Stone were there with him in the regular season, but Yamamoto gets the nod because of the postseason) and 2025. So it was cool to see the Dodgers’ best pitcher, but it would have been even cooler to see Kershaw the next night (I’ll come back to that).
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| I did not think this was going to happen when I saw them in Los Angeles last year. |
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| I like the Dodgers’s policy of only retiring numbers of Hall of Famers. I was also very much in favor of making an exception for Fernando Valenzuela. Fortunately they retired his number while he was still with us. |
Yamamoto was excellent. He went seven innings, gave up three hits, one walk, and one run while striking out eight. It was the third time he’s gone seven innings. Going into the game, the only other Dodger who had gone seven innings this year was Kershaw (and then Dustin May did it to finish the series against the White Sox). Baseball would be better if starters went deeper into games, but going seven is an accomplishment these days.
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| We sat in Reserve section 1 row M. I think row B of this section would be my ideal seat at Dodger Stadium. I’d rather not be in the first row because the railing might be kind of in the way. This section gives you a great view of the entire field and backdrop and it’s right above where Vin Scully called Dodger games for about five and a half decades. |
The game was never in doubt. Teoscar Hernandez and Andy Pages drove in runs in the first to give the Dodgers the lead. It was already a good inning and then Michael Conforto drove in two more with a single to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead after one. Pages drove in another run in the third. We talked about going to get some food and beverage after three, but we decided to wait until Shohei Ohtani hit in the fourth inning. That was a good decision because Ohtani hit a home run to make it 6-1 in the bottom of the fourth. It was the first Ohtani home run I’ve seen in person. And there were no more runs after that. With the game not being very competitive and no runs being scored in the last five innings, it was only two hours and 22 minutes (the second game I had been to in three days that was two hours and 22 minutes). Attendance was 51,368 and it was 69°. It looks like the Dodgers are going to get to four million fans for the first time in their history and I got to be one of those fans. It was also the first Dodger win I have seen at Dodger Stadium since 2021. I didn’t go in 2022 and I saw them lose a game against the Cubs in 2023 and two games against the Diamondbacks last year.
I love Dodger Stadium and I wish I could get there more often. My one complaint is that the food and beverage program could use work. The food isn’t bad, but the non-Dodger Dog options are really expensive. Since it was my only game at Dodger Stadium this season, I just had two Dodger Dogs. But if I was going to other games, I’d want other good options that aren’t ridiculously expensive. Also, they need real mustard. They just had yellow. I remember they used to have real mustard in the past. The beer selection was decent, but it could be better, there should be more options on tap, and the options should be more clearly displayed. If you want good beer at Dodger Stadium, the best bet is to go to the loge level. If you go all the way to the corners on either side, there’s a pretty good selection of craft beer. They have all the cans displayed, but they should have a monitor displaying what is available. I got the Andre Ethier Walkoff Blonde. It’s nothing special, but it’s named for my favorite Dodger who never won a World Series (but he should have because he was on the team when the Astros cheated him out of a championship). It wasn’t until after I asked for one of those that I realized they had some on tap on the back wall. I wish they would make craft beer more widely available throughout the stadium and I wish the options were more clearly displayed.
The next day, Clayton Kershaw was going for his 3000th strikeout. I might have considered extending my trip and going to the game, but ticket prices were crazy. It was already Yoshinobu Yamamoto bobblehead night and then you add in Kershaw going for 3000 strikeouts. So it would have been awesome to be at that game, but it was not going to happen. But I did get to Dodger Stadium that day. First Sean and I went to Philippe’s, where the French dip sandwich was invented. We’ve been there several times. There are a number of different meat options. The beef is the most popular. I did some research on the internet and it seemed like lamb is considered by many to be the best option other than beef. So I decided to try the lamb. It was good, but I would definitely prefer the beef. So I’ll keep that in mind for next time.
After Philippe’s, we went back to Dodger Stadium for the stadium tour at 1:00. I have done the tour before, but I was wondering if they changed anything about the tour with the renovations that they had done to the stadium since the last time I did the tour in 2018. There really wasn’t anything different about the tour. The renovations have been to the outfield area (which is very accessible to the public during games so I’ve seen it) and to the clubhouses. The clubhouses were not part of the tour (there’s a significantly more expensive tour that does include the clubhouse). I remembered from my last tour that the 1:00 tour when they have a night game gives you a chance of seeing players (Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Joc Pederson, and Yasmani Grandal walked right past me on the tour in 2018). This year we saw Anthony Banda and Blake Snell. One thing that I learned that I don’t remember hearing before was that Walter O’Malley wanted an apartment in Dodger Stadium. It would have been at the top of the stadium where the elevator shaft sticks out above the stadium. That would have been so cool to live in Dodger Stadium and have that view of the field.
The Dodgers only have four World Series trophies because they used to give out bats for the championship. The Dodgers have won the World Series eight times so my guess is that they gave out a bat and a trophy in 1981 and 1988. These paintings from the 1955, 1959, 1981, and 1988 World Series were really cool. I don’t know if the artist is still alive, but it would be nice to add one for the Freddie Freeman grand slam. We got to walk on the warning track. We could touch the grass, but not walk on it (but I’ve walked on the grass a few times in the past when they let fans on the field for Friday night fireworks).
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| These are two fantastic pictures of Tommy Lasorda. |
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| The models of Ebbets Field and Dodger Stadium were cool. If I could time travel, the first thing I would do would be go back in time and go to a game at Ebbets Field. |
My flight home was at 9:20 from Burbank. Sean got me there very early so that I could hopefully see Clayton Kershaw get his 3000th strikeout from a bar in the airport. We got to the airport around 6:50. I got through security by like 6:55 (one of the many reasons why I go to and from Burbank instead of LAX). I got a ridiculously expensive sandwich and a bottle of water and sat down to watch the game. It was not looking good. Kershaw has been good for the most part this season, but he was struggling early. He gave up a run and struggled to get through the first. The Dodgers scored in the bottom of the first and the bottom of the second to take a 2-1 lead. But then Kershaw gave up three runs in the third, but he did get his first strikeout. He needed two more. Going into the fifth, it wasn’t looking good. His pitch count was getting high. His next start was going to be on the road so everybody wanted him to get two more strikeouts. I didn’t think he was going to do it. He got the third out in the fifth on a strikeout. I think if he didn’t get that strikeout, he might have been done. But Dave Roberts sent him back out for the sixth. That inning started with a groundout. Then Michael A. Taylor doubled. He got thrown out trying to steal third, which was good news and bad news. The good news was that it was two outs and nobody on instead of one out and a runner in scoring position when the Dodgers were already down 4-2. The bad news was that it was another out that wasn’t a strikeout. The really bad news was that Max Munch got hurt making the tag. It looked really bad like he might be done for the season with torn knee ligaments or something, but it turned out to be a bad bone bruise (he said he would be out for about six weeks). Then Kershaw struck out Vinny Capra on his 100th pitch of the game (his season high). Getting his 3000th strikeout on his final pitch of the night when it looked like he wasn’t going to get it was really cool.
This was my view for Kershaw’s 3000th strikeout. Kershaw hugs Will Smith, one of five catchers to catch at least 200 Kershaw strikeouts.
After seeing Kershaw get to 3000, I headed to my gate. Unfortunately, Kershaw was in line to be the losing pitcher. The Dodgers had two on and nobody out to start the bottom of the sixth. It would have been nice to get Kershaw off the hook or perhaps even to give him a chance to be the winning pitcher. But they didn’t score. It was still 4-2 when I got on the plane. I had ESPN on the plane so I was able to watch SportsCenter as they gave updates. Ohtani and Betts drove in runs in the ninth to tie the game and get Kershaw off the hook. And they won 5-4 when Freddie Freeman drove in the runner who was on base for no reason in the 10th.
So that was my quick trip to Los Angeles. I’ll probably go back next year. It might be combined with a trip to see the A’s play in Sacramento. Of course, it will depend on schedules and when ticket prices for the Dodgers aren’t too crazy.
