IN A CITY OF BURNING AND CRASHING, DODGER STADIUM NOW HAS FALLING CONCRETE
A franchise with endless resources should be ashamed when fans are hit by chunks, as we saw Friday night in Section 10 Reserve, where the police played a legal game while lawyers called Ricardo Aquino
How dare a police officer confiscate a chunk of concrete, ignoring how it struck Ricardo Aquino on the back after falling from slabs at Dodger Stadium. In legal terms, this was dirty business to make sure the fan didn’t hand it to a lawyer, one of hundreds already seeking to represent him. Welcome to Los Angeles, where wildfires and earthquakes might nail you if a 63-year-old sports edifice does not.
Let’s consider it an urgent time when Guggenheim Baseball Management — which is spending $500 million on the Dodgers this season and somehow will make much more — should assess the future of a structure growing older. Aquino, from Mexico City, was in his seat in Section 10 Reserve on Friday night, where grunge in the roof layers looked old and gritty. He was there to watch the New York Yankees, of all teams, who decided to first employ handiwork in the mid-1970s — when Yankee Stadium was 50 years old. The team decided to fully renovate the historic Bronx dwelling and sign a lease through 2008, when they moved into a new palace next door.
The Dodgers cannot afford a dangerous home field when people in their city have no idea what might crash or burn next. They are the American firebrand that deals in mad money — what they pay in salaries, what they draw from cable TV, what they make at the gates in drawing four million people annually, what they demand from Japanese groups supporting Shohei Ohtani. That said, Mark Walter must retreat from his beautiful seat and start scanning the physical operation within Chavez Ravine.
Next time, might a child be conked in the face?
“He’s in some pain, but all it was, was the hit. He’s not bleeding, but he’s in some pain,” Aquino told a fan, who translated a conversation with The Athletic.
The last time I visited the stadium, where Hispanics once were evicted from houses in the area, I walked the concourses and looked at the roof. I didn’t like what I saw, just as I blinked out when I examined Wrigley Field. Chunks soon were flying, prompting the Chicago Cubs to install nets. Eventually, owner Tom Ricketts modernized the park and restored it as a dream from yesteryear. The Dodgers have no reason not to do at least the same, unless they choose to build a new stadium — which would exceed all others. The fans deserve the latest and the very best, not something from 1962.
Meaning, multiple billions must be spent. If not, Walter can sell the team and let new owners cut a stinker deal with former owner Frank McCourt, who has half-ownership of stadium parking lots. There is no shortage of land on the property. Build Dodger Stadium 2.0. Wrigley and Fenway Park were rehabilitated to fit timeless neighborhoods, but in southern California, why would anyone — in Pacific Palisades, in Altadena, anywhere — accept an upgrade.
“We are aware of the report,” the Dodgers said. “We cannot say anything more until we have all of the information, which we are currently gathering.”
Listen to fans who spoke to The Athletic, which had the story first when the Los Angeles Times was focused on Ohtani’s two home runs, still a marvelous treat but not worth full-blown plastic surgery.
“Me personally, to see some rocks fall like that. I would be clearing out this whole area,” Lewis Loy said. “How do you know it’s not going to fall anymore?”
“We’re spending a lot of money up here,” Wilmer Rivas said. “We should at least be safe.”
“I thought someone had thrown something and then I was like, ‘We should get security,’ and then (Aquino) showed us the rock, and it was clearly from the stadium that fell on him,” said Jessica Coria, a season-ticket holder. “We were trying to translate (to Aquino) and we were like, ‘This is not OK. You cannot have stadium falling on you.’ ’’
The police also were involved when Ohtani hit his first in-house homer for the home team. They took the baseball, and in return, the Dodgers handed out souvenirs and arranged face time with Ohtani. It wasn’t nearly enough for what any fan deserves — a baseball that can be sold for big money at an auction.
Six years ago, a grandmother named Linda Goldbloom died of a blunt force injury at Dodger Stadium. She was hit by a foul ball. The nets went up.
Reinstall them.
Now.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.