Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium
Opened in 1962 in Chavez Ravine, just a few miles from downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium is the third-oldest ballpark in baseball. It's the largest by seating capacity, built to hold 50,000 people. Newly renovated to include a two-acre centerfield plaza with a beer garden, sports bars, kids' play area and more, the stadium has nevertheless retained or restored much of its original charm. Even the seating color scheme — yellow, light orange, turquoise and sky blue — now matches the original pastels. Have a Dodger Dog and enjoy the skyline as well as mountain views.
Los Angeles Dodgers History
A storied franchise whose roots extend back to 19th-century Brooklyn, the Dodgers throughout their history have stood in for larger themes in American life: urbanization, integration, suburbanization, the postwar migration to the West. Few sports teams have been as celebrated, as eulogized and as romanticized as the Dodgers. Their departure from New York, after the 1957 season, seemed to break the hearts of half the novelists and historians east of the Hudson River. The owner who arranged the move, Walter O'Malley, is among the most hated people in the history of Brooklyn, a borough that has had no shortage of enmities.
The Dodgers have also played some pretty good baseball along the way, winning the World Series in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988 and 2020. The big names in Dodgers history are still familiar today: Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson, Orel Hershiser, Tommy Lasorda. The team appeared in back-to-back Series in 2017 and 2018, falling first to the Houston Astros and then to the Boston Red Sox. The latter defeat gave the Dodgers 14 World Series losses in all, the most in baseball history (going into the 2020 season). Only the Yankees, with 40 appearances, have played in more Fall Classics than the Dodgers.
That first championship, in 1955, capped a storybook era in which the Dodgers played a pivotal role in modernizing baseball. The team included Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider, not to mention a Hall of Fame manager, Walt Alston, and one of the greatest sportscasters in history, Vin Scully. Eight years earlier, Robinson had broken baseball's color line, under the supervision of Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who pioneered a more scientific approach to baseball management. Campanella had also signed with the team out of the Negro Leagues. The Dodgers took on the rival Yankees in the '55 Fall Classic, winning in seven games thanks in large part to the pitching of series MVP Johnny Podres.
For the 2021 season, despite winning 106 games, the Dodgers did not win their division and advanced to the playoffs via a one game wild card playoff against the St. Louis Cardinals. The NLDS saw the Dodgers play their rival San Francisco Giants for the first time ever in the playoffs. In a hard fought series, the Dodgers prevailed in 5 Games, winning the final game in San Francisco. The Dodgers then advanced to the NLCS where they played the Atlanta Braves for the second year in a row for the right to go to the World Series.