March 26, 2008

Baseball stages Woodstock?

Okay, Charlie Steiner is given to overstatement. Nonetheless, the Dodgers and Red Sox are staging an exhibition game at the LA Coliseum this Saturday. 115,000 tickets have been sold.

I saw my first big league game at the Coliseum, in 1960 or 1961, sitting behind third base. The Dodgers played there from 1958-1961 while their home in Chavez Ravine was being built; it had the weirdest baseball configuration imaginable. It was only 250 feet to the left field fence, but there was a 40-foot tall screen out there to make home runs a little more difficult (it didn't stop Wally Moon, a left-handed hitter who figured out how to slice pitches over the thing with some regularity). Now it's even shorter; over time the track has been removed so the fence is only 200 feet away. To compensate, a new 60-foot screen has been erected.

Should be fascinating; I hope it's on TV out here.

Update: Pictures here.

Posted by Linkmeister at March 26, 2008 11:43 AM | TrackBack
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