The Los Angeles Dodgers bid farewell to Vero Beach, Florida Spring training grounds this season, bound for the scorching oasis of Glendale, Arizona. But after spending a week in Vero Beach witnessing their last days first hand, Machochip editor Alejandro De La Cruz is left wondering how in the world they lasted there this long.

Sports writers across this baseball loving nation have stated the same thing about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ final year in Vero Beach, Florida: it’s the end of a great era. But after attending three games at Holman Stadium, their Springtime home, I’m not convinced they will actually be missed. Most fans attending the 60th and final year of baseball games in Dodgertown (unless the Baltimore Orioles move there) were cheering against the Dodgers, with some even whispering, “I could never cheer for them during the regular season.” Rightly so because Florida has to deal with the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays making runs for the pennant this year, so their time will be occupied. Kind of.

I didn’t want to leave Vero Beach feeling disappointed, so I tried my hardest, through wretched humidity and the taste of spongy hot dogs, to resist feeling animosity for a city that once loved my team. Yet, the truth persistently reared its ugly little head when after only a few moments at my first game I was pummeled with the reality that Florida fans had waived goodbye to the Dodgers long ago. Like, in the 90’s. When Mike Piazza was around smiling at retirees and Eric Karros was valiantly hitting 326 foot homeruns. Here are a few reasons why the last year in Vero Beach came a few years too late for me, for you and for all Dodgers’ fans.

Cheering is taboo in Dodgertown, USA.

• I know baseball games are long and boring. I’ve been playing the sport my entire life. But, the eerie silence I experienced throughout each of the three games I attended was disheartening. I thought cheering and singing along to recognizable baseball tunes was appropriate, if not mandatory, at all ballparks. No wonder Dolphins stadium has the attendance levels of a pedophilia convention.

Dodger Dogs in Florida are spongy.

• I was excited when I realized i’d be eating a Dodger dog in March. For this Angeleno, it was a distant proposition. It’s probably my second favorite thing to do at the ballpark besides throwing peanuts at Giants’ fans. You can sell foot long hot dogs anywhere, but only within the perimeter of the gnat infested smoggy skyline of Chavez Ravine do they taste good. Frankly, if you are going to sell the legendary weiners, then do it right:

  There are two queues for Dodger Dog vendors: steamed or grilled. The vendors of the grilled dogs locate near the back wall of the stadium so that the smoke doesn’t overwhelm the baseball fans. Some purists believe the grilled dogs are superior to the steamed variety.

  Florida served their franks looking like pruny fingers. Gross is right, people. And the condiments were handed out in packets. We’re not here to judge, but we’ve never come across so many closet Communists in one place.

Dodger games without Vin Scully calling the play-by-play is like smoking a cigarette without the filter.

• Every Dodger fan since the dawn of Chavez Ravine has entered the stadium with an fm headset in hand, plugged in their RCA headphones and tuned into 790 AM radio. You never, ever watch a game without hearing Vin Scully screw up an opposing player’s name. Instead, we were endured the stench and belching prowess of the dude behind us. Even Rick Monday would have been sufficient.

Where were the women under 80 years old?

• In Los Angeles, half the fun of a Dodger game is watching all the drunk cholos try to pick up on their next baby mama. In Florida, the majority of women in attendance raised our anxiety levels until that was quelled by the presence of EMT’s and numerous ambulances. And that takes us to our final reason.

The Cholos V The Florida Retiree.

• For those who have never experienced a game out in Los Angeles, let me paint a portrait: you’ll take your seat next to a bald guy wearing lokes (really really dark sunglasses), a Fernando Valenzuela jersey and drinking a Bud Light out of a plastic bottle, with a firm grip on the neck. He’ll be the first to start “Let’s Go Dodg-ers” chants and the last out of the stadium. He’ll cheer on Jason Repko as hard as he cheers on Andruw Jones. He may even have “LA” tattooed on the side of his head. Yet, he’ll be friendly, if you’re wearing Dodger gear. If not, you best have the nerves of a deep sea oil driller. I missed my Los Angeles cholos in Florida. I longed for their unabashed rants. The 70 + year old couple, quietly monitoring every fifth pitch or so, were nice, but we didn’t really bond with them since they left in the 6th inning; along with most of our section; who were all cheering against the Dodgers anyway, while asking us bashfully when the regular season started. Oh, Florida.

Angst aside, I can’t forget that the celebrated history of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Vero Beach wasn’t always dull. Back in 1948, the O’Malley’s (the Los Angeles Dodgers owners until 1998) were wooed by a vast acreage of fertile baseball turf. The O’Malley’s decided to build barracks for their twelve farm teams on a naval base quietly situated amongst grapefruit fields. For the first time in Dodgers’ history, the teams had a permanent place to play. More significantly, they made great strides in civil rights by becoming the first team to desegregate their grounds. Blacks and whites lived a similar lifestyle in the confines of Dodgertown and for that the site will forever be commended. Timothy M. Gay of the Boston Globe writes:

It took too long, but O’Malley began to appreciate his black players’ disgust with the Jim Crow world. He built a movie theater and a golf course for all his charges. When a local hotel rejected blacks, he took over its management. In the mid-’50s, he demanded that the town’s merchants drop their discriminatory practices - and they did, sort of. Years later, though, there were still “colored only” restrooms at Dodgertown’s stadium. After Tommy Davis and other players protested to O’Malley’s son Peter, the park’s Jim Crow facilities disappeared - literally overnight.

Our hats off to them, but that sort of appreciation ended long ago. As one fan interviewed by The New York Times stated: “You know why the Dodgers players were signing autographs here and waving at the fans? Because they didn’t want us to boo them when they went out on the field for the last time.”

Thankfully, the last and final time in Florida. We hope.

Dodger Dog [Wikipedia]
Dodgertown’s integrated field of dreams [Boston Globe]
Taking the Dodgers out of Dodgertown [NYTimes]
Dodgertown feels the blues [LATimes]
Dodger Dog Image [Flickr]
All Other Images [Machochip]