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Dear Dodger Stadium,
As I emerge from the last of L.A.’s actually-not-that-cold winter, I’m starting to count down the days until I can see you again and say those five magic words: It’s time for Dodger baseball.
They say a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and you always know how to lavish me with carb-loaded delicacies: hot dogs, Cheetos-dusted elote, churro sundaes and garlic fries (bad breath be damned). When you leave me with the bill, well, I’m a little less enthused, but I’m honestly just happy to be eating nachos out of a helmet.
I know it’s impolite to talk about age, but I never would have guessed you’re the third-oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. Of course, you’ve had a little bit of work done: You’re not fooling anyone with some of those recent, midcentury-inspired enhancements, but they suit you well. And as the sun sets against the San Gabriel Mountains, I love to see your zigzagging outfield awnings and hexagonal scoreboards stand out in sharp relief.
It’s what’s on the inside that counts, so I’ll forgive some of your exterior faults. Sure, it’s sort of convenient that your peculiar, terraced parking lot provides ground-level access to each tier, but that also means I’m constantly queuing for an M.C. Escher–esque tangle of tropical-plant– lined escalators. And then there’s your notorious traffic, which I’ll admit sometimes sends me back to my car by the seventh inning. It has fans so fed up that Elon Musk (of course) wants to build a tunnel, while Mayor Eric Garcetti has championed a plan for a gondola system.
There’s something else that I can’t let slide: your lack of commitment. For two years in a row, I’ve been expecting a ring. A pennant is nice and all, but it’s no World Series ring. Look, things didn’t work out twice now, but I’m willing to do anything this time to make it happen for you— except maybe to pay more for parking.
True blue to the end,
Michael Juliano