Dodger Stadium

Dodger Stadium, occasionally called by the metonym Chavez Ravine, is a baseball park located in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the home field of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise. Opened 54 years ago on April 10, 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of $23 million, financed by private sources.

Dodger Stadium is currently the third-oldest ballpark in MLB, after Fenway Park in Boston (1912) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (1914) and is the largest MLB stadium by seat capacity. Often referred to as a "pitcher's ballpark", the stadium has seen 12 no-hitters, two of which were perfect games.

The stadium hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1980, as well as games of eight World Series (1963, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981, and 1988). It also hosted the semifinals and finals of the 2009 World Baseball Classic as well as exhibition baseball during the 1984 Summer Olympics.

The 2012 season marked the 50th anniversary of the stadium.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles (ⁱ/lɒs ˈændʒəlᵻs/ loss AN-jə-ləs or loss AN-jə-liss) (Spanish for "The Angels"), officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County.

Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The city experienced rapid growth with the discovery of oil.

Chavez Ravine

Chavez Ravine is an area in Sulphur Canyon that is the current site of Dodger Stadium, a baseball venue in Los Angeles, California. It was named for Julian Chavez, a Los Angeles councilman in the 19th century. Chavez originally purchased the land in the Elysian Park area, which eventually grew to about 315 acres, in 1844. Formerly, it was known as "Cemetery Ravine," after old Calvary, the first cemetery of Los Angeles.

History

1940s

Before being cleared for public housing, Chavez Ravine was made up of the three mostly "Mexican-American" communities of La Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop. In the 1940s, the area was a poor, though cohesive, Mexican-American community. Many families lived there because of housing discrimination in other parts of Los Angeles. With the population of Los Angeles expanding, Chavez Ravine was viewed as a prime, underutilized location. The city began to label the area as "blighted" and thus ripe for redevelopment. Through a vote, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, with the assistance of federal funds from the Housing Act of 1949, was designated the task to construct public housing, in large part to address the severe post-World War II housing shortage. Prominent architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander developed a plan for "Elysian Park Heights." The city had already relocated many of the residents of Chavez Ravine when the entire project came to a halt. Fear of communism was sweeping the United States and loud voices in Los Angeles cried that the housing project smacked of socialism.

Stadium

A stadium (plural stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.

Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stade at Olympia, where the word "stadium" originated.

Etymology

"Stadium" is the Latin form of the Greek word "stadion" (στάδιον), a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet. As feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion = 600 ft (180 m), in a given historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller.

The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length — about 185 m (607 ft) - but instead of being defined in feet was defined using the Roman standard passus to be a distance of 125 passūs (double-paces).

Dodger

Dodger may refer to:

Sports

Baseball