Tiger Geist

I’ve had this series circled since spring training;  I’ve never been to Dodger Stadium, one of the most historic fields in baseball.  Detroit rarely plays at Dodger Stadium, so I made the trek down to Los Angeles for a short weekend.  It appears that I picked the best game of the series to witness.  I’ll split this post up to the Stadium experience, the LA experience, and the Game experience.

The Stadium

I’ve never been to a lot of baseball games at different stadiums, but I’m starting to try to knock some off of my list.  Dodger Stadium is the third oldest in baseball, and was a perfect candidate to check out in 2010.

Dodger Stadium is located near downtown Los Angeles, in Chavez Ravine.  As with many stadiums (and most of the LA area), driving is the best option to get there.  This made us seem like real Dodger fans, as we missed the first pitch.

We had been warned about the Dodger faithful by some Astros fans at our hotel bar; and we’re well aware of the bad blood between Giants and Dodger fans.  Sure enough, a group of Dodger fans said it might be hostile, but “at least we weren’t Giants fans”. Duly noted.  The above picture was taken right after walking into the Stadium from right field; Detroit’s bullpen can be seen here.

Dodger Stadium is quite a site.  The architecture looks like every 50′s and 60′s movie that takes place in Los Angeles, and even hints towards the old TWA Flight Center at JFK.  They’ve done a pretty good job of keeping the retro feel while updating the stadium, but you still have this giant jumbotron which cuts into the beautiful view.

More on that Jumbotron later.  Reading up on the Stadium, you can see the Dodgers kept the outfield seats ‘open’; they’re currently sporting 56k seats, but could roll up to 85k if they enclosed the stadium.  As ballparks are getting smaller, I’m sure they’ll keep the view.

Our seats turned out to be fantastic, fifteen rows behind the dugout.

Remember Casey Blake, the Tiger killer?  He’s also a Dodger fan killer.  He had a shot right over our heads that nailed a 12 year old girl in the elbow five rows behind us.  Paramedics rushed over but she seemed to tough out the rest of the game.

Once we were in our seats, I didn’t get a chance to move around too much.  The concourse appeared to move pretty well.  Sight lines for most seats seemed fantastic; I will also say the seats (at least in the MVP box area) were very wide and comfortable.

Getting out turned into a nightmare; there are many freeways in the area, but getting to them isn’t easy.  I got just a tad bit nervous about my 6:45pm LAX flight after the 1pm game.

Paid attendance was 46,053.  As you can see from the pictures, it never felt like the stadium was 82% full.  I imagine the Laker game later that night (though it was in Phoenix) may have had an effect.

The LA Experience

Dodger Stadium is still in LA.  I’ll admit to being just a little bit biased due to the standard Norcal / Socal feuds.  But many times it doesn’t feel like you’re at a sporting event.  Remember that jumbotron?  It spent about 10% of the time showing replays, and 90% advertising stupid things.  Between the first inning, it spent 5 minutes talking about being friendly to your neighbor and respecting other team’s fans (notice a trend here?).  Next inning it gave out phone numbers to call if someone was hurting your enjoyment of the game.  Third inning?  It started the “this is my town / Dodgertown” ads.  In these ads, they paste celebrities and… somewhat famous people with the words “this is my town” on it.  LeAnn Rimes.  Kim Kardashian (example here, though this is just a billboard).  I will say the Kardashian spot started some interesting conversation between us and Dodger fans… namely, there are people in this world who don’t think Kim is the best looking Kardashian.  I couldn’t comprehend the conversation, but we were in the sun all day.

We sat down in between the top of the first and bottom of the first (we watched Cabrera’s blast from the concourse).  We noticed the flags were at half staff and didn’t know why; I picked up some twitter feeds to learn about Jose Lima’s death.  And the Dodgers were nice enough to show a video montage after the sixth inning for Lima.  But here’s the kicker:  it FOLLOWED a Sex and the City II movie ad.  Yes, the sixth inning ended.  The jumbotron went into Sex and the City mode… and THEN Jose Lima tribute.  That is Dodgertown.

There are a lot of little video boards all around the outfield and foul territory; they’ll show the pitch count, flash the batter’s previous at-bats, etc.  One of the coolest ‘experience’ aspects was when Manny Ramirez came up to pinch hit against Porcello with the bases loaded.  Since the Dodger’s pitcher was scheduled to be up and the bases were loaded, the crowd started to do a “Manny!” chant… and suddenly Manny emerges from the dugout.  The crowd EXPLODES and all of these little video boards around the stadium start flashing “MANNYTIME!”.  I’ll have to admit, that was pretty cool.

The Experience apparently isn’t cheap, and Dodger Stadium had $11 beers, worst prices I’ve ever seen.  As a Tiger fans and Giants fans, we just weren’t going to donate that kind of money to the Dodger system.  So Bret snuck in some Crown Royal.

That’s myself, Bret and Dan after the victory… with Bret sporting the empty CR.

The Game

You’ve probably read about the game already, but here’s my take from the (pretty good) seats.  Danny Worth played an outstanding defensive game.  Johnny Damon played a pretty solid center field, and the Dodgers seemed downright nervous to test Magglio’s arm from right… or maybe LA is a poor base-running team.

I’ve never seen anything like Porcello getting hit (or nearly hit — he caught one) three times on the mound.  It still feels like one of his best starts of the year, given the adversity of the crowd, the physical trauma, and the great pitch to Manny with the bases loaded.  He surrendered 9 hits, but all singles.

But this game was a gem by Leyland.  He seemed in complete control the entire time.  Late in the game, he walked out to the home plate umpire for a quick chat, and when we walked back to the dugout, Rick Knapp walked out to Porcello.  I assume Leyland was verifying that Knapp could go out without having to take Porcello out (there was a lot of trainer visits to the mound due to the hits off of Porcello’s body).  These are little things, but it makes you feel like Leyland is always in command of what’s going on.  I didn’t get the same vibe from Joe Torre.

This is where I’m not sure if its actively tracked.. but when is the last time a manager made a pitching change when another pitcher was pinch-hitting?  Seriously, Joe Torre was that worried about Dontrelle Willis?  I thought at the time (and Jason Beck confirmed it with Leyland) that Dontrelle would have swung away.  But Torre played right into Leyland’s hands.  Torre gave Leyland a lefty / righty matchup, and Leyland has his best bunter up to bat.  We assumed a sacrifice was on to move over the runner with Johnny Damon coming up, but Everett swung away on the first pitch.  No one saw the squeeze coming on the FOURTH pitch, but it worked and it was perfect.  Advantage:  Leyland.  I’m not buying the “Dontrelle Willis is still a feared hitter” argument; Torre over-thought this move and gave Leyland a better matchup.  Seriously, if you’re Joe Torre, would you rather have a bad matchup with Willis or Everett?  Or maybe Adam Everett really has very little respect around the league…

I’m a little surprised Don Kelly went into the game in left, instead of sliding Damon over and having Kelly take over center field.

Back to Danny Worth.  Carlos Guillen is moving to second base, and Ramon Santiago is getting quite a bit of playing time at short.  Could Worth give Leyland a better bat and more versatility then keeping Adam Everett?  Or does Everett’s experience at small-ball skills that were showcased today given the Tigers another situational weapon?  Did I really just suggest that Adam Everett can be considered a weapon?