Stadiums

The price first-time homeowner Justin Bieber paid for his new digs in Calabasas has wended its way into the public record: $6.5 million. Set on 1.3 acres in a gated community, the 10,000-square-foot main house is described as "transitional French" in style. Features include a high-ceiling foyer, library, a movie theater with stadium seating, a wet bar and a wine cellar. Just what every 18-year-old pop singer needs. Including a guesthouse, there are seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

A clean-shaven Bryce Harper stood in the visitors' clubhouse at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, 11 stitches tracing a line under the chin of the young Washington Nationals star. The night before, Harper was chasing a fly ball when he crashed into an unpadded part of the right-field wall that features an electronic National League scoreboard covered by transparent plastic and a coated chain-link-style screen. Harper's legs, shoulder, ribs, hand, wrist and chin were sore, he said, but he did not suffer a concussion.

At the Dallas Cowboys stadium that will open for the next NFL season, what catches your eye -- no, what makes your jaw drop -- might be the 60-yard-long video screen that hangs from the translucent, movable roof. At the New York Mets ballpark that will open April 13, it might be the soaring open-air rotunda that honors Jackie Robinson.

It's another hymn of an evening down here in Anaheim, the French Riviera of freeways. Took a mere two hours to drive from L.A., which exceeds the capacity of many bladders. Fortunately, the kid in the back seat fell asleep in Azusa of all places, or the trip might've verged on the unpleasant. So on this perfect May evening when everything smells of grilled meats and mowed grass, the Angels had me at halo. What's to make of these Angels? Is there a better lineup in baseball? Is there a bigger disappointment in all of sports?

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday ordered the county's lobbyists to oppose any legislation in Sacramento that would ease environmental and planning regulations in order to clear the way for a proposed 75,000-seat professional football stadium to be built in the city of Industry. Gloria Molina asked her fellow supervisors to take that stand after recent reports indicated that backers of the stadium were aggressively lobbying state legislators. The Times reported last week that aides to top lawmakers appeared receptive to issuing California Environmental Quality Act waivers for the stadium, in light of the tough economy.

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa — A strike by stadium stewards over pay had spread to half the World Cup venues by Tuesday, forcing police to bring in more than 1,000 officers to guarantee security for a night game between Brazil and North Korea at Ellis Park. Several hundred protesting workers, clad all in black, were singing, chanting and whistling as fans and journalists began arriving at the downtown Johannesburg stadium Tuesday afternoon. Grim-faced police officers toting shotguns looked on from just a few feet away.

Five new baseball parks have opened since 2000, including Miller Park in Milwaukee and PNC Park in Pittsburgh this season: MILLER PARK * Location: Downtown Milwaukee on Miller Park Way (formerly U.S. 41). * Dimensions: Left field 342; center field 400; right field 345. * Capacity: 43,000. * Cost: $399 million. * First game: April 6 vs. Cincinnati. * The lowdown: Miller Park is a convertible-roof stadium that replaces County Stadium, which opened in 1953.

State leaders have said there are no winners in California's budget deal to erase a $26.3-billion deficit. But at least one group might come out ahead: the City of Industry, billionaire real estate investor Ed Roski Jr. and backers of a proposed NFL stadium on 600 acres he controls east of downtown Los Angeles.

When Mayor David Perez of the city of Industry looks out over the rolling, 600-acre site on his city's eastern edge, he sees the future home of an NFL stadium and an economic engine that would bring jobs and tax revenue for the entire region. When Joaquin Lim, the mayor of nearby Walnut, imagines a stadium there, he sees a potential disaster: traffic, noise and "passionate, emotional" football fans.

Unable to mediate a settlement with opponents of a football stadium proposed for the city of Industry, the California Senate approved a measure Wednesday that exempts the project from state environmental laws. The action was taken after Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) was unsuccessful in negotiating an agreement that would have a citizens group drop its lawsuit seeking to block the 75,000-seat stadium. The suit alleged that the project violated state environmental laws.

Switching from cold, snowy vistas to the backdrop of a Pacific sunset, the NHL on Monday confirmed the Kings and the Ducks will face off in an outdoor game Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. Dodger Stadium. The contest, the first regular-season NHL game scheduled for an outdoor venue in a warm-weather city, will be played on a portable rink laid out from first base to third base. Contingency plans will be made for rain or other issues. "I think that's a perfect setting for a hockey game," said Kelly Cheeseman, chief operating officer of the Kings' parent company, AEG. "With the mountains and the palm trees in the background, you couldn't ask for a more magical setting.

The Rose Bowl's new premium seating pavilion has yet to open, but stadium officials say seats are already selling fast. Construction of pavilion and press box levels on the stadium's west side has been the most significant - and expensive - aspect of ongoing stadium renovations now priced at $181 million. The renovation was originally billed as a $152-million effort in 2010, but projected costs climbed to nearly $195 million before city officials down-scaled some planned improvements earlier this year.

USC's Bryshon Nellum and Aaron Brown were the men's individual stars Saturday at the USC-UCLA dual track meet at Loker Stadium. Nellum won the 200-meter dash, something new for the 2012 Olympian, in a time of 20.37 seconds, and he won the 400, his specialty, in 46.26. Aaron Brown won the 100 in 10.24 and led the 400 relay team to a win over UCLA in 40.18 seconds. And yet it was UCLA taking a long, arm-raising, fist-pumping victory lap at the opponent's track. The Bruins' women broke a five-meet losing streak with a 90-73 victory and the Bruins' men won, 85-78.

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will play host to the first championship game in the new College Football Playoff. "The stadium itself was the biggest determiner," Bowl Championship Series Executive Director Bill Hancock said after the announcement Wednesday. "It's still THE stadium with a capital 'T'. " It helped immensely that Cowboys Stadium can seat 103,000 for football. The game will be staged Jan. 12, 2015, and marks the start of a Super Bowl-like venue rotation.

Torii Hunter's first at-bat in Angel Stadium on Friday night was delayed by a standing ovation, which the Detroit Tigers right fielder acknowledged by waving his helmet. When Hunter took his position in the first inning, fans in the right-field bleachers rose in unison, one row of spectators holding up a large “THANK U TORII” sign. For Hunter, who hit .286 with 105 homers and 432 runs batted in during a five-year stint with the Angels in which he was also the heart and soul of the club, it wasn't just about appreciation.

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, an architect who changed the face of Mexico City by designing a number of landmark modernist structures, died on Tuesday, his 94th birthday. The cause was pneumonia, according to Mexico's National Council for Culture and the Arts. Ramirez Vazquez was known for stunningly original designs that blended a European modernist sensibility with pre-Columbia aesthetics. His most famous modernist buildings, all in Mexico City, include the Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the country's holiest shrines; the National Museum of Anthropology, distinguished by a vast, square concrete umbrella; and Azteca Stadium, open since the mid-1960s and home to Mexico's national soccer team.

Tucked in the middle of the San Gabriel Valley lies nine square miles of hilly land flanked by four freeways filled with motorists, most of them heading elsewhere. And that's the way many of the 32,000 residents in Walnut like it. As the outside world drives by, those who live here on the far edge of Los Angeles County see it as a hidden oasis with horse-friendly crosswalks, single-family homes and an open, rolling landscape. Clean and quiet, safe and serene -- Walnut, locals say, is the quintessential bedroom community.

The New York Yankees and Mets could make their biggest off-season acquisitions with the help of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: two new $800-million stadiums. The cost of the proposed new ballparks, each with a retractable roof, would be divided evenly between the city and the two teams, Giuliani said Wednesday. But it won't be the baseball-crazy mayor or the two franchises that have final word on the plan; that will belong to incoming mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Authorities in Southern California went on a heightened state of alert after Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, beefing up security at Los Angeles International Airport, Dodger Stadium and other venues where crowds congregate. Law enforcement officials said they took the steps to reassure the public while guarding against the possibility of potential attacks related to or inspired by the Boston bombings that left at least three dead and dozens injured. LAX, the target of the failed 1999 millennium bomb plot, immediately stepped up police patrols and employed additional bomb-sniffing dogs in and around terminals and parking areas.

Can there be too much of a good thing? The NHL recently announced that the Toronto Maple Leafs will face the Detroit Red Wings at Michigan Stadium on Jan. 1, 2014 in the resumption of the Winter Classic outdoor series, and it was reported here that the Ducks will face the Kings outdoors amid the palm trees at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 25, 2014, pending the completion of some logistical and financial details. But on Tuesday TSN reported that the league is planning six - count 'em six - outdoor games next season.