Sports
After 42 years and a COVID delay, Dodger Stadium readies for All-Star moment
Chub Feeney stood earlier than the crew for his annual rah-rah speech within the house clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. It was July 1980. The Nationwide League All-Stars had been about to defend their eight-game profitable streak towards their American League counterparts, and Feeney badly needed to proceed the trivial dominance.
Feeney was the Nationwide League’s president. Successful that recreation mattered to him and it mattered to gamers within the room again when the summer time showcase was greater than only a lighthearted, mic’d-up scrimmage.
“The pleasure took over,” Steve Garvey mentioned.
Garvey was the Nationwide League’s beginning first baseman and one in all six Dodgers chosen to the crew that 12 months. He was chosen most beneficial participant in his first All-Star look in 1974. He appeared in 10 video games over his profession and went undefeated. However nothing in comparison with suiting up in Los Angeles in 1980.
“To win the sport in entrance of our crowd was additional particular,” he mentioned.
The 1980 All-Star recreation was the primary held at Dodger Stadium and the second the Dodgers hosted since transferring to Los Angeles in 1958. Ken Griffey Sr. was chosen the MVP. The primary house run derby was nonetheless 5 years away. Interleague baseball was a distant nightmare for purists.
The ballpark was seemingly an excellent host. Good climate on a regular basis. Celebrities in every single place. Constant fan help in an enormous market. However years, a long time, generations handed and the sport by no means returned.
Dodgers pitcher Jerry Reuss gestures whereas standing subsequent to New York Yankees pitcher Wealthy “Goose” Gossage throughout warmups for the 1980 MLB All-Star recreation at Dodger Stadium.
(Lennox McLendon / Related Press)
Lastly, after 42 years and up to date consternation, that may change in July when Dodger Stadium hosts the All-Star recreation and its rising record of occasions. The futures recreation and movie star recreation might be held Saturday. The draft will occur at L.A. Reside on Sunday. The house run derby will take heart stage Monday earlier than the sport concludes the midseason competition on Tuesday, July 19.
“It’ll be fairly particular,” Dodgers infielder and two-time All-Star Max Muncy mentioned. “The All-Star recreation is nearly, in a manner, sort of what the town of L.A. is. It’s Hollywood, it’s lights. It’s only a massive stage. That’s all the things that L.A. does on a nightly foundation.”
Ending the drought was one in all Dodgers possession’s priorities when Guggenheim purchased the crew a decade in the past. The hassle got here to fruition in April 2018 when Main League Baseball awarded the 2020 recreation to the Dodgers.
MLB prioritizes groups that by no means hosted the sport and new ballparks, however that formulation has not all the time been constant; 9 groups had been awarded the sport twice between 1980 and 2018.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred formally proclaims Dodger Stadium because the host of the 2020 MLB All-Star recreation as Stan Kasten, Dodgers president and CEO, stands subsequent to him throughout a information convention in April 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic compelled MLB to cancel the 2020 Midsummer Traditional.
(Damian Dovarganes / Related Press)
“It’s sort of unthinkable,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten mentioned. “As a result of the opposite sports activities attempt to get right here as a lot as they will, and baseball had not been right here for that lengthy a time period. I can’t clarify why it took so lengthy.”
In 2019, the Dodgers, with the All-Star recreation in thoughts, unveiled plans for a $100-million renovation that includes a brand new heart subject plaza to be opened for 2020. The COVID-19 outbreak modified all the things.
In March 2020, 4 months earlier than Dodger Stadium was slated to host the exhibition, MLB suspended operations. Inside a number of weeks, Kasten mentioned, it turned clear the sport wasn’t taking place.
A mammoth signal with the All-Star recreation emblem was delivered to Dodger Stadium that spring anyway. It might’ve been a waste however for one factor: The brand didn’t embrace the 12 months. So, the Dodgers put up the signal within the empty ballpark anyway.
“It’ll simply be a reminder that it’s coming,” Kasten mentioned.
4 months later, MLB awarded the Dodgers this 12 months’s recreation. The close to future remained murky. The pandemic nonetheless was raging. Vaccines weren’t but accessible. And a discouraging potential impediment loomed throughout the sport: the expiration of the collective bargaining settlement.
MLB carried out a lockout on Dec. 1. The season, All-Star recreation included, was in peril. However the homeowners and union hammered out a deal to reserve it.
“You’re speaking in regards to the third-oldest stadium in MLB and all of the historical past that’s been by means of there,” Dodgers third baseman and two-time All-Star Justin Turner mentioned. “The truth that it’s been 40-something years since that they had an All-Star recreation simply appears loopy.”
Cincinnati Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Sr. celebrates with Montreal Expos catcher Gary Carter throughout the 1980 MLB All-Star recreation at Dodger Stadium. Griffey was named the sport’s MVP.
(Related Press)
This time, Dodger Stadium will host its first house run derby. There received’t be a rousing pregame speech from the Nationwide League president as a result of that place turned out of date on the flip of the century. The American League may have the eight-game profitable streak to defend.
The sport itself will really feel totally different. It received’t characteristic the ferocity Garvey and the opposite gamers displayed in 1980. It will likely be a made-for-TV manufacturing with adverts plastered in every single place and lengthy industrial breaks. However the stars lastly will glow in Los Angeles as soon as once more. All it took was 42 years.