The lines of fans were as long as the distance to the left-field fence was short. The memories were even longer.
Half a century slipped off the calendar Saturday night and baseball attendance records were shattered as the Dodgers returned to the arena that welcomed them here for good from Brooklyn -- the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The official head count was 115,300, squeezed into every corner of the Olympic venue to watch the current boys of summer commemorate the team's 1958 move west in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox.
As the snarled traffic into the Exposition Park stadium made clear, the festival-like crowd was the world's largest ever tallied at a baseball game, team officials said, adding that they expected Guinness World Records to certify the attendance.
"Pretty amazing," said Upland resident Rudy Lima, 45, as he watched the Coliseum fill up from his seat on the first-base side. "The Dodgers are one of the things that brings us together, brings the city together."
Nostalgia ruled, but the charity event also was part logistical nightmare -- some of the parking, shuttle and hot dog queues were epic -- and part national pastime freak show.
The left-field fence stood a Wiffle-ball 201 feet from home plate, about 50 feet closer than it was in the original baseball makeover of the track-and-football-dimensioned Coliseum, where the Dodgers played for four seasons, beginning on an April afternoon during the Eisenhower administration.
"The fence is wild," said Larry Stromwell, 57, a San Bernardino County resident who recalled seeing the Dodgers four or five times at the Coliseum. "The field looks pretty close to what it was back then."
Jake Gribbon, 28, of Costa Mesa landed a seat behind the 60-foot-high netting that vaulted up along the left-field fence, where former Dodger Wally Moon used to dump his famous "Moon shot" home runs.
"It's awesome," Gribbon said. "I called my parents and told them, 'I'm right in left field, and this is great.' "
He pointed to the netting. "It's a good thing it's here," he said. "We're right in the action, and some of these line drives are coming out here pretty fast."
For the Dodgers, James Loney homered over the screen.
Dodger outfielder Andre Ethier likened the game to a rock concert or football bowl game. "It was fun to have that many fans show up and be into the game and have this atmosphere," Ethier said, according to the Associated Press.
