Play Ball: Dodgers Opening Day Is Big Business

Oh, it’s you. The greeting is half-smile, half-grimace.

The on-again, off-again affair (ends in fall, resumes in early spring) is celebrating its 50th anniversary; not so much love-hate as an acceptance of both inevitability and the foibles and benefits of the time together.

The Los Angeles Dodgers took up residence on the hilltop above Echo Park in April, 1962.  A 56,000-seat stadium and its massive parking lot were never going to be a benign presence in a mostly residential, partly commercial neighborhood, and so it turned, and turns out, to be.

 “Opening Day is the beginning of a season-long, long-term relationship,” said Jose Sigala, President, Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council’s Board of Governors.

 “We love the Dodgers. We want to root for them to generate money for the city, but we hate the impact on traffic and parking and drinking and all of the things associated with bringing in 45,000 people to one area.”

Rhonda Reynolds finds herself sharing this ambivalence. , the restaurant she co-founded with her husband Rob Rowe, is a reliable barometer of the shifting patterns of the baseball season.

At some point, usually late April, early May, Reynolds says, the pre-game traffic at Masa, on Sunset Boulevard, begins to pick up.

“As they’ve had their fill of Dodger Dogs, they start to come here,” she said, for a takeout order to take to the game.

Reynolds is also a lifelong baseball fan, and a long-term resident of Echo Park, whose home is only blocks from the stadium parking lot.

She was a batgirl for little league teams, and, living near Wrigley Field, grew up in the thrall of the Chicago Cubs, whose fans have made Masa part of their Los Angeles pilgrimage when the team is in town.

The Dodgers, too, go out of their way to be neighborly, Reynolds said, with an offer of free tickets to watch the first away game of the 2012 season, at the San Diego Padres, on the Dodger Stadium giant screen.

But for Reynolds, the vibe of Opening Day is dampened by the knowledge of its after-effects.

“Usually on Opening Day, there’s lots of picnics in the park,” Reynolds said.

“Opening Day pretty much means Elysian Park gets destroyed. It’s nice that people are celebrating, but then the city has to spend a lot of time cleaning it up.”

Every new season, in any sport, brings its own sense of promise and optimism. Even so, Armando Barragan, whose eponymous Mexican restaurant has been a fan fixture throughout the existence of Dodger Stadium, can sense a heightened feeling of enthusiasm this year.

“We’re all looking forward to it,” Barragan said. “When they start and they have a winning season it’s beneficial to the community. Now, under new ownership, it feels like people are really excited about the season.”

So, at Barragan’s, on Tuesday, April 10, this rite of spring will begin at 9 a.m. for “the big celebration."

The DJ will be cranked up; the limos and their celebrity cargo will roll in; the parties of 10 to 20 people will take their tables; and the four, even five generations of fans, will keep coming until closing time at 11 p.m.

The 2011 Opening Day parking lot assault of Giants fan Bryan Stow, the uncertain economy, the flailing team and the battling McCourts all contributed to a down year, Barragan said.

In 2012 he expects a rebound, higher than ever.

“It’s going to be better because they wanted a big change, and they got it.,” Barragan said of the Dodgers’ new ownership.

“The fact that Magic Johnson is on the team, that only makes it better. Everyone loves Magic.”

The uneasy mix that is Echo Park, the epicenter of real and imagined bohemia --its stepchild, hipsterdom--and baseball,is probably best exemplified at .

Yes, that is the name of a baseball fielding position, also the duration of a drink or two, as well as a former hangout for off-duty officers from adjoining LAPD precincts.

It’s also a cultural juggling act for manager Terril Johnson. Opening Day is the busiest day of the year for The Short Stop, which means preparations as obvious as ordering extra beer, and minor as making sure the air-conditioning works.

Another of those preparations says much about the gulf between the two crowds: Short Stop management informing its regular clientele that baseball season will soon be underway.

“Some of our regulars would just as soon avoid the Dodger crowd,” Johnson said. The fans, for their part, learn the simple math involved in the purchase of a Happy Hour beer at The Short Stop--two dollars--versus the $6-10 for a Dodger Stadium beverage, and become game-day regulars.

The twain seldom meet, as Johnson acknowledged.

"There’s an attitude, a mentality, that sports fans have that our fans don’t have,” Johnson said of the everyday patrons. “Our neighbors welcome the Dodgers when they’re home, and there are some who would rather not.

“Not everyone is going to be onboard with that, not everyone is going to benefit from that.  As a business, we certainly do."