The Dodgers are returning home for World Series Game 6 today, on Halloween! The bats should be out in full force tonight!
One week ago it was 104° and dry. Today, right now, it is 65° and raining!
I was reading an article about things you don't know about Dodger Stadium. Some I did, but here's a couple I did not:
--There's a hidden Japanese Garden behind parking lot #6!
The story says that when Dodger Stadium opened, famous Japanese sportswriter Sotaro Suzuki was so amazed by the new stadium he commissioned a Japanese garden built -- complete with wooden bridge, rock garden, and a stone lantern -- in the hills beyond the right field pavilion. The garden, which dates back to 1965, is now gated off and has fallen into disrepair over the last decade but the stone lantern remains. Rumor has it you can even see its light shining during night games.
Thrillist
Yuli Gurriel should be reuired to make a visit to it. It was rededicated in 2003. This needs to be restored!
Urban Gardens Web
More photos at the link.
--Also, in 2009 the USPS gave Dodger Stadium it's own Zip Code. 90090. The first such sports stadium in the country
to have one. The official USPS designation for the Zip Code is Dodgertown, USA.
--Instagram says that Dodger Stadium is the second most photographed place appearing on their site.
(What's the 1st, I wonder?)
--The Stadium has a time capsule installed the year the stadium was opened, in 1962. It's located in the Top Deck.
--The stadium design was inspired by Disneyland's Tomorrowland. It originally was designed to have monorails take
people from the furthest area of the parking lot grounds to the stadium. Yowsa!
--Speaking of raining today, the stadium has had only 17 rainouts since 1962! And the only consecutive rainouts
happened for three days, April 19-21, 1988. The last season we won a World Series! The longest streak in MLB
for no rainouts is Dodger Stadium, not having had a rainout since since April 17, 2000 to date!
--BUT! Dodger Stadium did have one flood! And it happened with the Angels when they used the stadium concurrently
with the Dodgers.
I'm assuming the date was September 17, 1965, as an L.A. Times article the next day reported:
Who says there are no lakes in Los Angeles? Dodger Stadium turned into one inside a half hour Saturday as an electrical storm and heavy cloudburst flooded the area. The scheduled Angel-Baltimore Oriole game was not only washed out, it was drowned. Hopefully, the contest has been reset for today as part of a doubleheader starting at 2:30. But Dick Foster, Angel director of stadium operations, had his doubts. “We’ll be pumping water all night,” he said after surveying the damage.
Starting 17 minutes before game time at 1:58, the downpour was the heaviest to hit the stadium since it opened in 1962. The playing field turned into a lake inside a few minutes, both dugouts filled with water, pads on the benches floated out to the infield and Angel batboy Roger Hailey actually had to swim through the dugout to removed equipment.
Framework/Los Angeles Times
Angel batboy Roger Hailey.
In the end of the Angel dugout leading to the clubhouse, water was four feet deep and moved up nearly 50 get inside the stadium.
Photoscream/Flickr
The $5.50 dugout box seats behind home plate were completely submerged and the infield tarp looked like a raft in the middle of a small sea.
[$5.50 for the dugout box seats!] NOTE: The photo source has the wrong date on it (1962) and other places using the photo have reiterated it.
Water poured over the rims of the upper levels in sheets, flooding into the press box and forcing phones and wire machines to be disconnected. “It looked like Niagara Falls,” chirped Angels broadcaster Buddy Blatner. “Walter O’Malley (Dodgers owner) has done it again. The drains aren’t working properly,” shouted an Angel official.
Those are the only two photos I could find of this event.
GO BLUE!