Los Angeles Dodgers

Stadium Information
Parking: $5 per car
Stadium built in 1953.
Dimensions: 332 feet down left field foul line, 320 feet to right and 401 feet to center.
Seating Capacity: 6,474
Dodgers 60th Spring Training season in Vero Beach.

Los Angeles Dodgers Spring Training Location History
1907-09 Jacksonville
1915-16 Daytona Beach
1919-20 Jacksonville
1922 Jacksonville (Southside Park)
1923-32 Clearwater
1933 Miami
1934-35 Orlando
1936-40 Clearwater
1946 Daytona Beach (City Island Ball Park)
1949-2007 Vero Beach (Dodgertown, Holman Stadium)

Attending a game at Dodgertown and Holman Stadium
To bring together all the players associated with the Dodgers, whether minor league or major league, and find a compatible site for spring training, Branch Rickey assembled his 600 players first in Central Florida. He then moved them in 1948 to a former naval air station in Vero Beach that had 109 acres and two large barracks that could accommodate 500 to 600 athletes at a time. After he bought the property, he installed pitching machines, seven batting cages, parallel bas paths for rundowns and base-stealing lessons, a swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts and even an artificial lake full of trout and bass.

After a few years of renovations to make the facilities as modern as possible, one writer praised the facility in 1956: "There is nothing in all baseball that matches the factory the Dodgers operate at this spring training base here on Florida's East Coast."

Dodgertown facilitated Rickey's system, in which coaches could evaluate all players at one campa and teach them the same fundamentals of the game. Rickey would begin each morning at Dodgertown with a lecture to the 500 players and would then watch his players at different diamonds working with pitching machines, sliding pits and hanging rectangles of string (for pitchers to aim at a strike zone). Dodgertown also allowed the Dodgers to avoid the discrimination toward African Americans prevalent in the South. They could relax and become more of a family.

When Rickey established Dodgertown in Vero Beach, the city had a population of 3,500 and was the smallest city in the U.S. to host a major league team for spring training. Because the community was so small and because the Dodgers set up a year-round facility, a closeness developed between the team and the town that other sites envied. The family atmosphere existing at the ballparks of Dodgertown brought out many members of the community day after day.

Holman Stadium the Dodgers spring training home has great fan to player access. For example, if you are sitting in Row 1 it’s like you are on the bench with the major-league stars. You actually can touch them because there are no “dugouts.” Players sit on metal benches where there are no walls or a roof of any sort.

There is also no electronic communication of any kind except for the scoreboard, which also contains the park’s only corporate signage. That’s part of the allure at storied Dodgertown, where the Los Angeles Dodgers have held spring training for the past 55 years. Other teams can talk about tradition, and every team in Florida considers spring training the most fan-friendly, up-close-and personal experience in big-time pro sports. But no one goes to such lengths as the Dodgers. Holman Stadium has a unique, sun-drenched baseball layout that is the cornerstone of the sprawling complex. It’s a field that time forgot, providing a perfect backdrop for a new/old mix.

There is room for 6,000 baseball fans at Holman, but there are only 17 rows from bottom to top in a grandstand that fits snugly around the field. There is almost no shade, and the stadium includes an open press box that is as close and touchable as the benches filled with players. There is nowhere else like it.

Short fences surround the field, enabling fans to have a chat with their favorite ballplayer. Smoke from the hot dog stand often permeates the field, creating an even more intimate "day at the park" atmosphere. Seats are colored red, blue, yellow and tan like Dodger Stadium.

Dodgers Spring Training Attendance (2000-2008)
 

.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Total Attendance	69,593	56,398	66,318	52,844	64,451	62,930	72,523	76,894	72,649
Number of Games	16	13	15	14	15	15	15	15	11
Average Attendance	4,350	4,338	4,421	3,775	4,297	4,195	4,835	5,126	6,604

Area Information
Indian River County Tourist Development Council (772) 567-3491 or www.indianriverchamber.com
Treasure Coast Sports Commission, (772) 871-5458 or www.treasurecoastsports.com

Official Los Angeles Dodgers Web Site