Dodger Stadium

A freshly pressed gray suit clinging to his small frame, a weathered leather folder wedged firmly in his hand, Willie Hunter stood elegantly among the sweating masses filling the darkened concourse. Unlike others in the news recently, he doesn't need $55 million to work for the Dodgers. He'll do it for $10.90 an hour. Please? "I'll be the water boy, I'll sell hot dogs, I'll do whatever they ask," the security guard said softly.

Was it the best trade Ned Colletti ever made? "I shouldn't be answering that," the Dodgers' general manager said. Certainly the deal for Manny Ramirez was a pretty good one. A minor league pitcher and a bench player for a future Hall of Fame member whose salary was being paid by the other team? Who wouldn't make that deal? Over time, however, that may pale in comparison to the first trade Colletti made as a general manager, the one that made Andre Ethier a Dodger. Come to think of it, it might be a better trade right now. At 27, Ethier is a decade younger than Ramirez.

The stars come and go. They bleed Dodger Blue one year, and another color the next. They send home runs over the fence and win a space in our hearts -- and then they do something dumb like fail a drug test. Manny Ramirez was earning $25 million this year until his suspension last week. But the Dodgers don't need to pay that money to keep this fan. What I go to Dodger Stadium to see doesn't cost owner Frank McCourt a penny. I go to Dodger Stadium for the twilight.

This should have been the first month of the rest of Joe Torre's life. He could have treated his wife to Sunday brunch, or cheered his 13-year-old daughter at her softball game. He might have joined his fellow New York Yankees' legends for the first weekend of the new Yankee Stadium, or offered expert analysis from a broadcast booth. He should be enjoying retirement today, not managing the home team at Dodger Stadium. That was the way he planned it.

Weeks before spring training, the Los Angeles Dodgers got an early workout Tuesday as jurors heard a woman's claim that the ballclub failed to protect her from a drunken, abusive, foul-mouthed woman who assaulted her in the stadium parking lot after a game against archrival San Francisco. The central issue is whether the Dodgers provided enough security at the ballpark in Chavez Ravine.

Faced with continuing demand for tickets for the Dodgers' return to the Coliseum on March 29 despite an early sellout, the club has announced an additional 25,000 tickets will go on sale Saturday, increasing the capacity to 115,000 for the exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox. That would be the biggest crowd to watch a baseball game.

In the 50 years since the moving vans arrived from Brooklyn, and in the 20 since the team's last title, Los Angeles' love affair with the Dodgers hasn't waned. Maybe it's the franchise's lineage of colorful players, maybe it's the allure of Dodger Stadium at dusk. But like sun worshipers to the beach, Angelenos are drawn to the grand ol' game even as it has become big ol' business. As the Dodgers mark their golden anniversary in L.A., we offer 50 ways to bleed blue.

The Dodgers' one-night return to the Coliseum has the team wrestling with a familiar problem -- parking. The Dodgers are offering round-trip shuttles from the Dodger Stadium parking lot to the Coliseum for Saturday's exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox. That wasn't an option in 1958, before the Dodgers' first game in Los Angeles.

Charitie McArthur says she bleeds Dodger blue. She thinks Vin Scully is a genius, wept with joy when Steve Finley's grand slam clinched a division title in 2004 and scored big when she got married at home plate at Dodger Stadium the following summer. But as the team returns to town this week for the new season, the 32-year-old teacher from Redondo Beach is already cringing. It's not the team's prospects that have her down, but the prospect of the bad traffic expected at this weekend's games.

Dodger Stadium is close to being selected as host of the championship game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, according to a baseball source. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said that while he knew Dodger Stadium was a finalist to host the final, he hadn't received word that its bid had been accepted. He added that he expected a decision early next month. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said that a final decision hadn't been made.