Los Angeles Coliseum

Several emergency room physicians Monday called for an end to raves at the Los Angeles Coliseum and Exposition Park after a massive weekend event sent scores of teenagers and young adults to hospitals, mostly for drug intoxication. At least two people were in the intensive care unit for drug intoxication at California Hospital Medical Center, including one minor. Another minor was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital comatose; the minor had drunk from another attendee's water bottle without realizing it had been laced with drugs.

In a move aimed at centralizing X Games events in downtown Los Angeles, ESPN, AEG and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum announced a deal Monday that means fans won't have to fight freeway traffic to see all of this year's extreme-sports competition. This summer's 16 t h X Games will be concentrated among Staples Center, Nokia Theatre, the Los Angeles Coliseum and LA Live. Past games were split between the AEG-owned Staples Center and the Home Depot Center in Carson. "Now fans don't have to choose between the events and being in the car," said Katie Moses Swope, ESPN X Games director of public relations.

For sale? For shame. That, in essence, was the message the Coliseum's top official sent to Sacramento on Thursday in a news conference that blasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to sell the historic stadium to raise cash amid the state's growing fiscal crisis. "Whoever made the decision to throw this on the table five days before an election made a boneheaded decision," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, president of the Coliseum Commission.

Fight on? Not anymore. USC and the Coliseum Commission have worked through their differences, and Wednesday signed off on their first long-term lease, one that will keep the Trojans playing football at the historic stadium for decades to come. It was six months ago that USC, frustrated with the lack of progress on much-needed improvements to the 84-year-old Coliseum, threatened to relocate its games to the Rose Bowl.

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.

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.

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.

Representatives of both sides in the effort to keep USC playing football in the Coliseum expressed optimism Tuesday that an agreement could be reached as early as next week. The Coliseum Commission is expected to vote on the most recent set of negotiated proposals at its monthly meeting next Wednesday. Pat Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum and Sports Arena, said, "We're not done yet, but we are very, very close."

Argentina's national soccer team, minus Barcelona wunderkind Lionel Messi, will be on display when it takes on Guatemala at the Coliseum tonight at 7:30. Messi, 20, is still not fully recovered from a left thigh injury. But his absence doesn't mean Argentina brought its "B" squad to face Guatemala -- even if it is primarily fielding the under-23 team that will participate this summer at the Bejing Olympics.