The Dodger pre season will end this year in grand fashion, as the boys in blue will face the champion Boston Red Sox in Southern California’s original home for Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

The venue was home to the Dodgers from 1958-1961, before relocating to Dodger Stadium. It was also the site of Los Angeles’ first baseball championship, as the Dodgers won it all in 1959, only one year after relocating. 

The Dodgers have been preparing for their 50th anniversary in Los Angeles, even entering a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade for the first time in their southland history. 

This year also marks the 20th season the team has played without a post season series victory, coming at a time when baseball’s popularity has been challenged by developments involving some of the sport’s biggest names mixed up in allegations of steroid usage, and, when it comes down to it, cheating. 

Still this has been highly anticipated by Dodger fans since its announcement, and most feel the game will transcend the concept of a simple baseball game. It will be a game that will reminiscent of a simpler time in sports, perhaps a throwback to an era long forgotten where the big leaguers played for more than just money, a concept foreign to many today. 

Just to give you an idea, Alex Rodriguez is in the middle of a contract that will net him more than $252 million.  In 1959 when the Dodgers won the World Series, the highest salary for an entire team was rumored to be only $585,000.

The game will be the second in a series of three games against the Red Sox, the other two to be played at Dodger Stadium, in a timeframe usually reserved for the Anaheim-Los Angeles freeway series. 

Fans will remember the Coliseum as a field which, for baseball, is beyond quirky. The field was designed with football and track in mind, which presents serious problems for baseball.  Due to the oval shape of the field, game play is seriously altered, especially when you consider that left field is only 251 feet from home plate, literally one hundred feet shorter than the average modern home run wall distance.  

To compensate, the Dodgers erected 42 foot high fence to discourage excessive home runs. This causes headaches for outfielders, and ideal situations for right handed pull hitters with a pitch to hit. This has also historically proven to be an easy home run for some sluggers, and a rare chance at one for some players who were not well known for power. Wally Moon for example, smashed 56 home runs over the Coliseum walls in four years, known as “Moon shots” by fans and players.

One hilarious example of the surprisingly easy home run was August 6th, 1961 when Maury Wills, after 1,167 Major League at-bats, hit his first of only 20 major league home runs. He stepped into the dugout expecting high fives and congrats from his teammates, instead finding them acting as they had passed out cold from shock.

Coliseum lore is important not only for the Dodgers, but for the MLB as well. The single game record for attendance of a big league game is 93,103, played at the Coliseum in honor of the late Dodger great, the beloved catcher Roy Campanella. After being paralyzed in an auto accident, “Campy” was wheelchair bound, and the game played on May 7th, 1959 paid homage to him and the love the fans felt for him. 

The record still stands today, along with the all time World Series attendance record of 1959, in which, for every game, the coliseum was packed to the gills with more than 92,300 fans. These numbers will likely never be matched, as modern Baseball stadiums cannot compare to the massive capacity of the coliseum. 

The next largest stadium today would be Yankee stadium, which would still be 26,000 seats short of the Campanella’s night. While it’s not likely that the stadium will be set up the same way, the fact of the matter is that a game at the Coliseum will change not only how it’s played, but how it’s enjoyed by fans.