House hunting

The Dodgers’ plans for baseball at the Rose Bowl

The Dodgers, less than three months after abandoning Brooklyn, are planning to move into the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1958.

Of course, that does not stop the always-negotiating Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley from talking 67 years ago today with the Pasadena City Board about instead using the Rose Bowl as the team’s temporary home until building a permanent, baseball-only ballpark.

Major League Baseball in a stadium built only for football?

Not a great look, but possible, given plans to convert the Rose Bowl into a baseball stadium with fences set at 300 feet down the left- and right-field lines with 460 to straightaway center.

Opening Day at the Coliseum in 1958

Of course, the Dodgers eventually keep their word to the city of Los Angeles and move into the L.A. Coliseum – yes, a football-first facility – as their home for four seasons until Dodger Stadium opens in 1962.

The dimensions at the Coliseum are a ridiculously short 250 feet down the left-field line, a short-but-not-outrageous 301 to right and 425 to center. The Dodgers install a screen measuring 42 feet high in left field to help cut down on cheap homer runs.

Dodger Stadium, now 62 years old, remains today as one of the game’s classic ballparks, and the majors’ third oldest ballpark after the equally iconic Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.

Dodger Stadium today