Which is fine and pleasant and perfectly acceptable.īut this is the Dodgers - an organization that single-handily integrated baseball and trots out its past almost as much as the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Add to that the congenial feel of a resort-type atmosphere with meandering dirt paths, a river that snakes through parts of the complex and a pleasant Arizona sun and you have a comfortable baseball stadium. Still, the proximity to Los Angeles was key for many fans, many said, allowing some to drive from point A to Point B in five hours instead of the five hour flight from LAX to Orlando Int'l Airport. That design includes unsuspecting white shirts donned by each guard complemented by an easy demeanor that was on display during the weekend series. 'That was by design,' Rawitch said of the laid back guards. Players must walk from practice fields to the clubhouse along dirt paths with just a simple yellow rope separating them from gawkers players, like Manny Ramirez (who was seen jumping into a crowd of fans Sunday) freely schmooze and signed autographs with ticket holders and security is noticeably lax, an ethos that is stressed company-wide. The usual distance between players and fans so pervasive in major sports complexes is largely scaled back in Arizona, as it was in Florida. There are some elements that have carried over from Vero Beach to Camelback Ranch, on which the new complex sits. It was not just a mere spring training complex, but an ongoing monument to the greatest Dodgers in the organization's 126 years replete with Vin Scully Blvd., fields that bore the memories of Dodger greats and scores of older fans willing to paint a portrait of Sandy Koufax as a young man. The original Dodgertown in Vero Beach, FL, breathed its glorious past with regularity. Though Dodgers Vice President of Communications Josh Rawitch said the complex is 'functionally complete,' the stadium lacks a familiar feel the Dodgers in general and its owners specifically have gone to great lengths to sell: history. 'It's great,' first base coach Mariano Duncan said. The distance from home plate to center field on that field is identical, as is the type of dirt used while the warning track is just as wide and the grass is cut the same height as back home.Ĭoaches lauded a small field for bunting - dubbed Maury Wills' pit for the Dodger coaches prolific ability to lay one down - while others generally reflected the widespread mood of the new training complex.

While the outfield walls' main diamond is longer than at Dodger Stadium, the dimensions of a practice field less than 200 feet away that is used solely for the boys in blue is exactly the same. The Dodgers locker room (or clubhouse, as they call it - a realistic departure from the literal connotation a 'locker room' carries), is bigger than the one in Chavez Ravine and a cozy locker room specifically for coaches and Dodger Manager Joe Torre is a luxury the team's brain trust does not have back home. Players, like Wolf, raved about the lush grounds and wide-open spaces both in and around the stadium. Players, coaches and fans seem genuinely thrilled with the confines and its proximity to Los Angeles. The sprawling, 13 ½ field complex (the half is for bunting drills) shared between the Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox includes at least 12 batting cages, a luxurious clubhouse for each team and grassy knolls on which fans can bathe under the desert sun while drinking in some baseball. The $113-million complex 363 miles from Dodger Stadium is, in many respects, a beautiful monument to baseball as it was intended. For the Dodger fans, it's a lot better a commute. 'Honestly, there's not a ton of value for me in all that ,' Wolf said Saturday. But, when asked about the glaring lack of historical identification at the Dodgers new spring training complex in Arizona, Wolf is indifferent.

To be fair, the newest Dodger starting pitcher and Southern California native clearly cherishes the memories of watching the 1970's Dodgers during his most formative baseball years as a teen pitcher at El Camino Real High School. Unlike Randy Wolf, I put a lot of stock in the sentimentality of Dodger history.

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