Dodger Stadium, 1962.

This is the Dodgers logoture that sits high above home plate at Chavez Ravine. I'm going to tell you what has bugged me about it since my childhood.

By Russell Neyman.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have played baseball in Chavez Ravine since 1962, and I feel especially connected to the place. Somebody asked me about my memories of that year and I was surprised at all the details that flowed during the conversation.  I thought it worth putting “to paper” and sharing here, but allow me to ramble a bit. I’ll end it with an comment about one of the more familiar details of the place that’s bothered me almost all my life.

First of all, my very first recollection of baseball ever was watching Wally Moon hit one of his “moon shots” over the tall screen at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the 1959 World Series. That place was built for football and track and hardly capable of holding a baseball field, but the Dodgers had to play there while the new stadium was being built in Chavez Ravine. I watched that World Series on a static-y black-and-white television running on a rabbit ear antenna at my elementary school lunchroom in Macon, Georgia. I was about 12. We moved to Southern California right after that.

My father took me to see my first pro game a few months later, and it was a Dodgers-Pirates affair, also at the Coliseum. Leo Durocher was one of the Dodger coaches, and got into a fracas with the home plate umpire, a very small guy named Jocko Conlin. Durocher was tough as nails and always ready to fight. He was the type of guy who’d punch a car bumper, and he had a habit of kicking dirt on an umpire’s shoes when he got really mad, and he tried to do that on this day. Problem is, he slipped, instead kicking Conlin in the shins. So, naturally, Conlin kicked Durocher back. These two grown men are tangled together at home plate in front of thousands of people, kicking each other like two mules. The entire stadium is in pandemonium, players and spectators enjoying it thoroughly. Problem was, Conlin was wearing shin guards, and obviously Durocher wasn’t. I thought, “Gee, this IS an interesting game….” and never quit following baseball. I pitched, played, and coached for nearly 45 years, learned the English language (and some math) from Vin Scully, and have wonderful “driveway moments” with both my father and my sons connected to the Dodgers. It’s been a lifetime love affair.

OK, so let’s get to the 1962 Dodger Stadium story. Dad took me to the second or third game ever played at the brand new stadium. I remember the huge Union 76 orange ball over one of the outfield walls; it was the only advertisement visible anywhere in the stadium, and I could sing Jack Jones version of the “Spirit of ’76″ advertising jingle if you asked me to. As a boy, I marveled at all the sky blue paint and polished chrome, not to mention the acres of cars parked in the lot. There was food fare: basic beer, coke, and hot dog stands and not much else. I think we brought cheese sandwiches and a thermos of milk to sustain us that first game. The cotton candy and CrackerJack vendors in the aisles sang a song that could be heard above the crowd noise, and each of us held onto a printed game program. Yes, we bought one of those blue Dodgers fingers and held it high.

The CrackerJack boxes, incidentally, contained real prizes.

The left field scoreboard was extremely simple, showing just the line score and the pitching batteries. A second scoreboard was in right, showing the scores of other major league games that day. There was no animation or colored lights, but it was state of the art for the day. The seats were orange, I think (might have been yellow) and all the ushers wore straw hats. Seats cost $3 in the outfield and general admission sections. The stadium is bright, shiny, and brand new.

Those were the days of Dodger pitching and “small ball” offense. I can still remember the everyday lineup from those years:
1. Maury Wills, SS — Stole 105 bases, breaking Ty Cobb’s record. No one could stop him. Everyone knew he was going to steal, but he got away with it almost all the time.
2. Jim Gilliam, 2B — Taught me the value of bunts and hitting to the right side. He had to take strikes so that Wills could steal, then give himself up by bunting him to third.
3. Willie Davis, CF — Boy, was he fast! Could bunt, steal, and run down fly balls.
4. Tommy Davis, LF — A true triple crown contender and one of the last to do so. Had 230 hits, 27 HR, 153 RBI and a 346 BA on his way to MVP that year.
5. Frank Howard, RF — Huge man, nearly seven feet tall, who’d absolutely clobber the ball if he hit it at all.
6. Ron Fairly, 1B — Could cover the bag very well, and was a sound lefthanded hitter. He was from Macon, so I had to like him!
7. John Roseboro, C — A sold, fundamental role player and signal caller behind the plate.
8. Daryl Spencer or another role player, 3B — No third baseman on this team, really, so third was occupied by whomever was slumping the least.
9. Starting Pitchers: Don Drysdale RHP, Sandy Koufax LHP, Stan Williams (RHP), Johnny Padres (LHP) and Larry Sherry; In the bullpen: Eddie Roebuck (R) and Ron Perranoski (L).

Drysdale was a very good hitter, but Koufax couldn’t hit a mailbox with a garden rake. All the teams used a four-man pitching rotation, with the fifth starter going on days when there was a double-header. Both Duke Snider and Wally Moon were still on the roster, and sometimes Snider would play right field on those long doubleheader days in place of Howard. Moon mostly pinch-hit. The manager was Walter Alston, who coached for about 25 years continuously.

The ’62-64 Dodgers were famous for manufacturing runs, and the offense was built around Wills’ ability to get on, steal one or two bases, and somehow score on a bloop single or sacrifice fly. Heck, LA would sometimes win games with only one or two hits, depending instead on the terrific pitching of Koufax and Drysdale. Howard had a habit of hitting jaw-dropping home runs, and the pitching was outstanding. Those were extremely entertaining teams, and Los Angeles always seemed to be in the thick of a pennant race. They won an amazing 102 games but finished second in 1962. The came back to win the World Series in ’63, sweeping the Yankees 4-0. There were just 20 major league teams — 10 National, 10 in the Junior Circuit — and only the two top teams would meet in October.

No complex playoffs, no wild card teams, no designated hitters, no synthetic grass, and no domed stadiums. Come to think of it, there weren’t any high salaries or player agents, either. Batters did not wear complicated batting helmets — some wore no head protection at all — and everyone wore knee-length baseball pants with stirrups that went down into the black leather shoes. Pitchers were expected to throw a complete game, and they had to bat, too. If some hotshot took his time digging in to the batter’s box, he could expect a fastball to buzz his ear. Beanballs were part of the game.

The mood in the stadium was different then as well. Everyone kept a scoresheet, following Scully and his partner, Jerry Doggett, on small transister radios tuned to “60-thousand watt clear channel radio, K-F-I Los Angeles”. Guys would show up with trumpets and blow a “da-da-da-dot-dah-da” and the crowd would follow with “CHARGE!” to inspire a rally. We held up signs and yelled at the umpires. Dodgers fans absolutely hated the Giants, and never left a game early. The traffic in Los Angeles was absolutely awful, especially when the games were over. There were double-headers EVERY Sunday, and not many games were televised. The Dodgers shared the stadium with the Angels, who really were located in Los Angeles back then. It was a great time to go to the park, eat two Dodgers Dogs, and keep a handwritten box score with my dad.

Now, to the detail I mentioned earlier: Understand that I was/am a graphic designer, and for many years got paid to develop and produce trademarks and logotures, so small details about logos catch my eye. You know the blue “Dodgers” script with the flying baseball that is mounted at the top of the stadium behind

See hoe the two "d's" align? They don't do that on the stadium signage. Click to enlarge. By the way, this was taken from the Dodgers website, and the upper photo from a PhotoBucket page posed by somebody identified as "Immdlb". Kyped, but still credit given.

home plate? The darn letters are crooked! Look at it sometime; the primary up-and-down strokes of the two “D’s” should be parallel and they aren’t, and something is clearly askew. It simply doesn’t match either the official insignia or the uniform lettering. As much as I love that ballpark, that has annoyed me for every one of the hundred of games I’ve attended there.

I suppose I need to let it go. Maybe it’s no longer “not exactly correct” and has become “quaint” or “old school” instead. Do me a favor at glance up at it next time you can and see if you agree.

I moved to Seattle a few years back, and really miss Dodger Stadium, Vin Scully, and Dodger Dogs. Things will never be the same.