TORONTO — Fans lined up before the game, waiting patiently for the chance to take a selfie with trophies that commemorated the back-to-back World Series championships.
Dodger Stadium is not the only place you can do this. The trophies were from 1992 and 1993, and they honored the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Dodgers matched that back-to-back feat over the past two years, including a classic Game 7 victory in Toronto in last year’s World Series, and returned here Monday to a noise pit packed with fans primed to boo, and to urge their team to exact vengeance on the evil mercenaries from America.
On this night, the mercenaries prevailed, in a pummeling so relentless and a silencing so rapid that a three-peat appeared all but inevitable: Dodgers 14, Blue Jays 2.
Dalton Rushing celebrates with teammates in the dugout after hitting his second home run of the game in the eighth inning of a 14-2 win over Toronto on Monday.
(Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
“These fans, sadly, didn’t want to see us come to town,” Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing said, “and rightfully so, after what we did tonight.”
Those fans did want to see the Dodgers, but they did not want to see this. On a night the Dodgers fielded a lineup without Mookie Betts and Will Smith, the team hit five home runs — two by Rushing — and scored in every inning but the second and ninth. Of the six Toronto pitchers, the only one to hold the Dodgers scoreless was catcher Tyler Heineman.
To the Dodgers, well, it was another day on the job, if a bit louder than usual at the start. They had a game to win on the long road toward October and, as they often do, they won.
In Toronto, however, pitcher Kevin Gausman said, “It feels like we’re getting ready for Game 8.” The fans mercilessly booed Shohei Ohtani, who turned down $700 million from the Blue Jays to take $700 million from the Dodgers, and outfielder Kyle Tucker, who turned down $350 million (over 10 years) from the Blue Jays to take $240 million (over four years) from the Dodgers.
They even booed Justin Wrobleski, the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, and Miguel Rojas, usually an infielder but on Monday the Dodgers’ final pitcher. Wrobleski, who won his seventh major league game Monday, said he expected the boos.
“It was fun,” he said. “They care about baseball here. It’s a fun environment. If people weren’t a little upset and a little, I’d say, passionate about what happened last year in the World Series, maybe they’re not real fans.”
The boos could have been a sign of respect, or of a long memory: about the ninth most-memorable part of Game 7 was Wrobleski hitting Toronto infielder Andrés Gimenez, then shouting language so profane Wrobleski later said he apologized to his mother for using it. You cannot be a nobody if you can get the benches to clear in Game 7.
“They wouldn’t boo me,” Wrobleski said, “if they didn’t know who I was.”
Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski delivers during the first inning against the Blue Jays on Monday.
(Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
The Dodgers led 4-1, then 5-1, then 6-1, then 9-1, and that was before the sixth inning was done.
“When you score a lot of runs, you’re going to take the crowd out of it,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said.
“I think the media and everyone else was more hyped up. It’s a new team, new year. We’ve got different guys on our team too. But we obviously understand it’s a World Series matchup.”
The Blue Jays were different: infielder Bo Bichette is in New York, catcher Alejandro Kirk is on the injured list, infielder-outfielder Addison Barger is hurt, and Toronto is borrowing a page from the Dodgers’ playbook with a rotation full of hurting pitchers: Shane Bieber, José Berrios, Cody Ponce and phenom Trey Yesavage all are on the injured list, and Max Scherzer left after two innings Monday because of tendinitis in his throwing arm.
The Dodgers are 8-2. The only defending World Series champion to get off to a better 10-game start in the last 100 years: last year’s Dodgers, at 9-1.
Last year worked out just fine. This is April, and no one is facing elimination any time soon. That explains how Roberts rated his anxiety level on Monday.
“It was probably a 10 in October and probably a one tonight,” he said.
Monday’s game offered yet another example of how the team that supposedly is ruining baseball is fattening the wallets of the league’s other 29 teams. The Dodgers have led the league in road attendance in each of Ohtani’s two previous seasons and almost certainly will do so again this season — and a fair number of those ticket buyers are Dodgers fans following their team here, there and everywhere.
In a 10-minute pregame walk around the main concourse, I saw plenty of fans in Dodgers jerseys: not only with the names of Ohtani, Betts and Freeman but with the names of Rojas, Kiké Hernández and Roki Sasaki.
As soon as the third inning, a “Let’s Go Dodgers” chant echoed through the stadium.
The Blue Jays are off to a 4-6 start, including series losses to the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox. The Jays should be good again, and soon. In the meantime, they are offering 77-cent hot dogs Tuesday.
For all the Dodgers fans here, that’s quite the trip: a rout that silenced a hostile crowd one day, hot dogs valued at 55 cents in U.S. currency the next. The fruits of victory, as Tommy Lasorda might have said, rarely are so cheap and filling.
The Dodger Stadium crowd roared at the sound of contact, cheers growing louder as Kyle Tucker’s single made it through the right side of the field and Alex Freeland trotted home to finally break a persistent tie.
In the Dodgers’ 5-4 win on Friday night, Freeland scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, jump-started the Dodgers’ offense in the third inning, and showed off his arm strength in a pair of momentum-changing plays.
“I’m just happy that we’re starting off on a good note, and everybody feels like we’re one,” Freeland said. “It’s just exciting to play for this team and in front of all these fans. I’m just enjoying it.”
The Dodgers fell behind 1-0 in the second inning, but the damage could have been worse. With two runners on and two outs, the Diamondbacks’ Alek Thomas lined a double off Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan, into the right-field corner.
One run was guaranteed Tucker chased down the ball. Then he turned and fired to second, starting a smooth relay through Freeland to throw out Pavin Smith at home to end the inning.
The next inning, after Sheehan surrendered a solo homer to Ketel Marte, Freeland showed off his bat.
Coming off a middling spring training from a surface-level results perspective, Freeland immediately fell into a two-strike count in his first at-bat of the season.
Then he displayed the plate discipline that helped him make the opening day roster.
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts celebrates after hitting a three-run homer against Arizona Diamondbacks in the third inning Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Freeland worked the count back even and then crushed an inside fastball over the right-field fence to end the Dodgers’ scoreless stretch.
“I just tried to have a long at-bat, get some more pitches for that inning,” Freeland said. “And it led to that.”
Two batters later, Mookie Betts followed with a three-run homer to put the Dodgers up 4-2.
In the fourth, the Diamondbacks tacked on two more runs, but again fell prey to a Tucker-to-Freeland relay.
The Diamondbacks again had two runners on for Thomas, and the Dodgers made a pitching change. It didn’t make a difference. Against left-hander Jack Dreyer, Thomas again hit a line drive into the right-field corner.
This time, two runs scored easily, tying the score. But Tucker and Freeland relayed the ball to third baseman Max Muncy to get Thomas as he tried to stretch his hit into a triple. Dreyer then got out of the inning with a strikeout.
With those fourth-inning runs charged to Sheehan, he wrapped up his season debut with four earned runs and five hits in 3⅓ innings. His average fastball velocity was down 1.6 mph compared to last season, according to Statcast.
“I felt pretty good early, and then I think [my stuff] ticked down a little towards the end,” Sheehan said. “But still working to try to get the delivery in the right place.”
In the eighth inning, Freeland lined a double into center field to give the top of the Dodgers’ batting order a runner in scoring position with the score still tied 4-4.
Shohei Ohtani grounded out to second base to move Freeland to third. Then Tucker sent him home to give the Dodgers the lead.
That set up closer Edwin Díaz to make his Dodgers debut. His infamous walk-in music, Timmy Trumpet’s “Narco,” was accompanied by a light show and a live trumpet performance. He recorded the save.
“I was surprised a little bit,” Díaz said after recording the save. “I heard a trumpet sounding before I was coming out. I said, ‘No way, they got a live trumpet.’ It was pretty fun. I enjoyed it, and I know fans enjoyed it, too.”
Vesia makes his season debut
Dodgers relief pitcher Alex Vesia reacts after striking out Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo to retire the side in the seventh inning Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Left-hander Alex Vesia received a loud ovation as he ran to the mound from the bullpen in the seventh inning. He pitched for the first time in the regular season since his newborn daughter died in October.
Dodgers relievers honored Vesia and his family during the World Series by writing his number on their caps.
On Friday, Vesia threw a scoreless inning. And as he walked off the field, he appeared to acknowledge the crowd and put his hand over his heart.
“The fans have been waiting a long time to show their love for him and [his wife] Kayla, and it meant a lot to him,” Roberts said. “He’s an emotional guy. I know fans get it.”
Stewart throws in batting practice
Right-hander Brock Stewart (shoulder surgery recovery) threw the first live batting practice session of his rehabilitation Friday. He estimated he threw 18 pitches.
“Command hasn’t been perfect with the bullpens, but it’s coming around,” Stewart said. “And today it was another step in the right direction with the command. Velocity was fine, and execution was pretty good. Really I just wanted to feel good, and I did feel good. So, main objective cleared.”
He said he has another live batting practice scheduled for Tuesday in Phoenix and then could begin a rehab assignment, which he expects to be at least two to three weeks long.
There were fireworks, there was a flyover, there was Will Ferrell screaming and Keith Williams Jr. crooning and four months of cheers unleashed by fans wearing championship belts and howling grins.
But the real stars of Thursday’s Dodger opening day show never made a sound.
They arrived silently at the end of the pregame ceremony, carefully held by two of the men who helped win them, lifted high for all those who so passionately longed for them.
They were the last two Commissioner’s Trophies, the back-to-back World Series championship trophies, the two symbols of the Dodgers domination held side by side in the afternoon sun.
Man, it was beautiful. Goodness, how they sparkled. Incredible, how they glowed.
It was almost as if they were powered by some electrical force, some sort of championship current running between them, lighting them up with a blinding power curated by the battered fingers of the two veterans who touched them.
Freddie Freeman, whose grand slam doomed the New York Yankees, held the 2024 trophy. Miguel Rojas, whose home run stunned the Toronto Blue Jays, held the 2025 trophy.
Together they brought the trophies to the dugout from center field while riding in the back of a blue convertible driven by Ferrell as part of an elaborate video skit.
It was the first time many had seen the hardware side by side, and, amid audible gasps, their power was unmistakable. The greatness of the Dodgers accomplishment came to life on a day when their new task became equally clear.
“Three-peat!” screamed one of the pregame musicians.
Welcome, Dodgers, to 2026.
While manager Dave Roberts downplayed the three-peat talk before the opening 8-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, you know it’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere.
“At this moment, very minimal,” said Roberts when asked about the pressure. “…So yeah, hopefully we can keep that to a minimum throughout the season. But yeah, there’s obviously going to be a lot of talk about it.”
Thursday did nothing to dampen that talk. It was as if last season’s Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays was still being played. The Dodgers behaved like the exact same team with some of the same heroes.
The winning pitcher? Once again, it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw six solid innings with six strikeouts and no walks.
The game-changing play? Once again, it was Andy Pages, whose three-run home run in the fifth inning gave the Dodgers a lead they never lost.
The final big blow? Yep, Will Smith, whose two-run homer in the seventh inning clinched it.
Dodgers unveil the plaque for the 2025 World Series win.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
There was even a World Series star coming out of the bullpen, new cult hero Will Klein entering the game to the night’s loudest ovation and throwing a scoreless inning.
It’s as if the Dodgers have been on the same roll for four months…with no signs of slowing. This could be crazy. This already is crazy.
Other than the cool trophies and the Diamondbacks trampling, the most notable show Thursday was unwittingly staged by Dodger Stadium itself.
Your dutiful correspondent’s first impression of his favorite place on earth upon returning here for his 37th home opener wasn’t about the deep green or brilliant blue or enduring mountainscape.
It was, when did this place become Las Vegas?
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Illuminated by the new grotesquely red Uniqlo Field billboard hanging high above center field, the stadium appears to have been transformed into something straight from NASCAR, advertisements filling every nook and cranny of the pavilion and beyond. There are giant billboards above the bullpens. There are scribbled ads on the bullpen walls. There are screaming displays for beer, soda and healthcare, the latter of which you will need if you heed too many of these ads.
The incessant sales pitches are buffeted by the usual deafening pounding music, which makes Vin Scully Avenue seem like Las Vegas Boulevard.
Was it always like this? It doesn’t seem like it. The Dodgers have always been relentless billboard salesmen, but since the arrival of Shohei Ohtani, they’ve become a global attraction with seemingly every major company on earth willing to pay for a piece of their success.
Fans will probably notice that the biggest difference this year is the $125-million sponsorship deal with Uniqlo, a Japanese apparel company that bought center field. Chavez Ravine is now officially known as Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium and, yeah, on Thursday it was awful hearing public address announcer Todd Leitz introduce it like that.
Not to worry, nobody in their right mind is ever going to call it that. Nonetheless, the whole atmosphere was weird and unsettling.
Still, it’s hard to blame the Dodgers. They’ve spent gobs of money building a two-time defending champion, and those bucks have got to come from somewhere.
You want Kyle Tucker? Live with the beer ad. You want a $1 billion rotation? Deal with the bank ad.
Dodgers Blake Snell, Kiké Hernandez, Roki Sasaki and Alex Call during player introductions before the game.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Unlike many other teams that have made baseball a haven for cheapskates, the Dodgers invest much of their revenue back into the roster.
It’s not always pretty. It can be loud and distracting and obnoxious. But it works.
As night fell on a blessed blue Thursday, the Dodgers had won their eighth straight home opener. They did it with pitching, hitting, depth, and two of the prettiest pieces of jewelry you’ve ever seen.
It was a day to celebrate the completion of the most incredible two-year journey in franchise history.
It was also a day to realize that the journey has just begun.
It was Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, when the grass outside the baseline and the bright red sign high above center field read “UNIQLO FIELD.” It will be Dodger Stadium on Thursday, when the defending World Series champions open their new season, and forevermore.
The official name of our summer home is now Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium. The team announcers will say that, and so will some of the signs. The fans won’t, and the founder of the company that just spent nine figures on the name you won’t use said he completely understands.
“That’s a very natural reaction,” Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai told me through an interpreter. “We respect that.”
Yanai said his company’s deal with the Dodgers covers five years. He would say only that the total value was “more” than $125 million. That provides the Dodgers with an annual naming rights payment in line with the ones at Crypto.com Arena, Intuit Dome and Sofi Stadium, without the Dodgers having to sell naming rights to the actual venue.
Are the Dodgers baseball’s version of a gold mine? Yes. Do they spend big and win big? Also yes. Do you mind if Uniqlo essentially covers Freddie Freeman’s salary this season?
“We need a lot of revenue to put out the product that we do,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. “That’s not a secret. And we’re proud of everyone who helps us do it: all of our fans, all of our media partners, and all of our sponsor partners. They are all important. It is how this all comes together.”
While Uniqlo would be delighted if you used its name, whatever local fans choose to call the stadium is not critical to the success of the partnership.
Ohtani made an estimated $125 million in endorsements and sponsorships last year, Sportico reported, a larger annual haul “than any other athlete in the history of sports.”
“The Dodgers are such a popular team,” Yanai said. “I usually ask my wife, after I come back from the office, whether Shohei hit a home run. I think all the Japanese people do that.”
Uniqlo Field signs were unveiled Wednesday at Dodger Stadium in the wake of the team’s naming rights deal.
(Beth Harris / Associated Press)
According to Forbes, Yanai is the richest man in Japan, where baseball teams carry corporate names. Why not buy a team and call it, say, the Uniqlo Bears?
“I always keep saying that could be very interesting,” he said, “but my wife turned it down. She keeps telling me, ‘Tadashi, you are not cut out to manage sports teams.’”
Instead, he is managing Uniqlo, an apparel company that pitches itself as blending comfort with quality. “We do not make disposable clothing,” Yanai said in the company’s last annual report.
Uniqlo has 794 stores in Japan but only 77 in the United States, including 14 in the Southland. Koji Yanai, a senior executive officer and Tadashi’s son, said the company aspires to grow annual U.S. revenues from $6 billion to $30 billion.
He shared what might be a more challenging aspiration.
“The Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium name may be very new for everyone,” he said, “but I hope in the near future the fans will like it and will love it.”
Jeff Marks, the chief executive of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group, once brokered a naming rights deal in which the Cal football team would play on Kabam Field at California Memorial Stadium. He tried to find a receptive audience for the name.
“We educated a lot of freshmen, sophomores, and newcomers,” Marks said. “Are you going to go after alumni who have been calling it Memorial Stadium? No. So you didn’t focus on that. You focused on people that could be more impressionable, and it worked.”
With Dodger Stadium, we’ll see. For the 2026 season, it is now time for Dodgers baseball, but not before one reporter at a press conference Wednesday asked company officials whether Uniqlo would provide the Dodgers players with free clothing.
Kasten could not pass up the chance to interject.
“We pay them enough,” he said with a grin, “to shop at Uniqlo stores.”
The Dodgers are working ahead on adding bullpen depth for later in the season.
Right-hander Jake Cousins, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, was signed to a one-year deal, as revealed on the team’s transactions page on Tuesday.
The one-year contract is worth $950,000, with incentives that could bring the total to $1 million if he makes at least five appearances and finishes the season on the active roster, a source familiar with the deal but not authorized to speak publicly confirmed. The Athletic first reported the terms of the deal on Wednesday.
Cousins, 31, underwent Tommy John surgery last June. At that point, he’d already spent the whole season on the 60-day IL. In 2024, however, Cousins posted a 2.37 ERA in 37 relief appearances for the Yankees. He pitched in all three rounds of the postseason that year, including three appearances in the World Series against the Dodgers. Cousins was the pitcher of record in Game 1, which culminated with Freddie Freeman’s dramatic walk-off grand slam off Nestor Cortes.
Though Cousins has a substantial injury history, he’s performed when healthy. He spent the first three seasons of his major-league career with the Brewers, amassing a 3.08 ERA in 51 games.
Cousins is expected to return sometime during the season.
The Dodgers also made a flurry of injured list moves, all retroactive to Sunday.
They put right-hander Bobby Miller (shoulder soreness) on the 60-day IL; left-hander Blake Snell (left shoulder fatigue) and right-handers Brusdar Graterol (right shoulder surgery recovery), Brock Stewart (right shoulder surgery recovery), Gavin Stone (right shoulder inflammation) and Landon Knack (right intercostal strain) on the 15-day IL; and utility player Tommy Edman (right ankle surgery recovery) on the 10-day IL.
Dodgers fans generally hiss at the mention of Frank McCourt — the former owner took the team into bankruptcy, after all — but today is about tipping our cap to him.
Without him, fans would have no option to take public transit directly to Dodger Stadium. On his watch, the Dodgers helped secure government funding for the shuttle buses that provide free rides between Union Station and Dodger Stadium.
Sixteen years later, beyond the addition of a sister shuttle from the South Bay, that’s it.
The Dodgers boast the best team in the world. Shohei Ohtani is a tourist attraction. So is their historic ballpark. The Dodgers sold a record 4 million tickets last year.
In 1990, the last year Fernando Valenzuela pitched for the Dodgers, Los Angeles County unveiled a report that suggested ways to improve access to Dodger Stadium “for those who cannot or do not wish to drive.”
The options: a monorail, people mover, or light rail extension from the Chinatown Metro station; the shuttle buses that McCourt and Metro launched 20 years later; the gondola that McCourt first pitched in 2018 and continues to pursue; and a walking path.
A passenger exits the Chinatown Metro station in January.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
L.A. is all about the car. You will most likely drive to Dodger Stadium, and so will your children.
For decades, the Dodgers have promised to ease traffic by adding amenities that encourage fans to come early and stick around after the game. That has not materialized, and notorious congestion within and around the stadium is as much a tradition as Dodger Dogs.
What if you could walk, for real? What if you could head into the stadium along a beautifully landscaped and wide Dodgers-themed path, a blue ribbon of fans coalescing into a community, with decorations and food carts, shade and lighting, and chants of “Let’s Go Dodgers!” along the way?
You can walk now, sort of. It’s about a mile.
There’s a map at the Chinatown Metro station displaying the pedestrian path toward Dodger Stadium.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
At one end of the Chinatown station, there is a map with a pedestrian route, in a glass case that faces away from Dodger Stadium. If you walk out of the station at the other end, or if you just start heading in the direction of Dodger Stadium, good luck finding the map.
There are Metro signs leading you back to the station from Dodger Stadium, but none leading you along the route there.
The Dodgers actually would prefer you did not take that route, or at least the last part of it. I walked it with Alissa Walker, whose Torched newsletter is the go-to place to learn how major sporting events impact the everyday lives of Angelenos.
We entered the Dodger Stadium property at an intersection with no crosswalks, where cars enter and exit the 110 freeway. We stood atop a dirt patch next to a crumbling curb.
“To go a very short distance safely with a feeling that you’re not going to die,” Walker said, “is very difficult.”
With Game 3 of the World Series underway at Dodger Stadium last October, a few folks scurried across a pedestrian bridge with LED lights and blue glow sticks.
The bridge connects Chinatown with Dodger Stadium, traversing the 110. Without this bridge, there is no walking path to Dodger Stadium.
“Our goal was, just by adding some lights, to make the really dark path at the top of the bridge at night a little bit brighter, so that it felt a little less scary,” transit advocate Jeremy Stutes said, “and to add a little bit of fun and whimsy.”
Glow sticks forming the “LA” logo of the Dodgers were placed on a pedestrian bridge over the 110 Freeway connecting Chinatown to the area where Dodger Stadium is located during the World Series and for several months after. As of last week, the glow sticks were no longer there.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
From the Chinatown Metro station, the bridge is three blocks up College Street and one block down Yale Street. It’s an easy walk, and for now you pass an elementary school, a church, a row of Chinese restaurants, a dirt lot where a hospital once stood, parking lots, and an auto repair facility with a Dodgers flag hung on a wall.
When I did the walk last week, the trash at the foot of the bridge included a plastic cup, socks, a piece of rotting fruit, a half-full bottle of tequila, and half of a turkey sandwich, peeking out from torn plastic wrapping that indicated the sandwich had gone bad three days earlier. On the bridge: shopping bags, a pair of flip-flops, stray clothes scattered at one end, and graffiti everywhere.
A sign painted on the sidewalk indicates the direction toward the Chinatown Metro station.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
That was the point those volunteers made last October: Clean up the bridge and light up the bridge — as they did for three days — and fans will walk there.
“It’s not that it’s not used,” Stutes said. “It’s not designed to be a safe space to use as an alternative to driving.”
When you cross the bridge, you can turn right or left along Stadium Way to get to a stadium entrance.
Turn right, as the map tells you to do, and you’ll encounter decaying sidewalks, with cracked and buckled concrete that turns a modest uphill walk into an obstacle course. Once you get onto the stadium grounds, the paint is fading along the pedestrian path, which offers you no protection from passing cars.
Turn left, and you’ll have to walk part of the way in the street, on an unprotected bike lane. You also could walk along the road behind the Fire Department training center, a path with no sidewalks and passing fire trucks. Either route takes longer than the one on the map, but you would enter Dodger Stadium through a pair of protected and brightly painted pedestrian paths. (That entrance, along Vin Scully Avenue, is a quarter-mile from Sunset Boulevard, where two Metro bus routes stop.)
If the primary choices for getting out of Dodger Stadium after a game are car congestion or Dodger Stadium Express shuttle bus congestion, a downhill walk to Chinatown Metro station — 12 minutes, Metro says — would be a nice option. That’s why those folks lit up the bridge over the freeway during the World Series.
“The lights were just a fun way,” transit advocate Kevin Dedicatoria said, “to show, ‘Hey, here’s a bridge so you don’t have to play, ‘Dude, where’s my car?’ or have to worry about waiting for the bus.’”
McCourt hails from Boston, where the local subway drops Red Sox fans a few short blocks from Fenway Park. When McCourt owned the Dodgers, I asked him if he could envision a subway or light rail extension to Dodger Stadium.
He’d love it, he said then, but the Dodgers were a private business, and government should pay for public transit.
Homes line a street in Eylsian Park, where Dodger Stadium is located.
(ETIENNE LAURENT/For The Times)
It was a fair point. The Dodgers pay taxes. In an era where teams regularly demand stadium and arena deals that exempt them from property tax, the Dodgers have paid $12.8 million in property taxes over the past three years, according to Los Angeles County tax collection records.
Would demand for public transit amid a car culture justify the investment? The Dodger Stadium Express indicates it could: Ridership has just about quadrupled since its inaugural season, from 122,273 in 2010 to 463,147 last year, according to Metro.
Even along the poorly maintained, poorly lit and poorly advertised pedestrian path, Metro said more than 700 riders returned to the Chinatown station on each of the three nights of World Series home games last year.
“As seen in social media videos during the 2025 postseason, the walking path continues to explode in popularity,” Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo said.
Next steps?
“It’s astonishing to me that the Dodgers have not taken it upon themselves, as this great community partner, to fix this problem,” Walker said. “It is the city’s responsibility, but the Dodgers should be doing this, as part of what they want to represent to this community.”
The walking path includes segments along city streets, a Caltrans bridge, and Dodger Stadium property. Just who is the responsible party?
A Caltrans spokesman said the city is responsible for maintaining the bridge. A spokesman for the city’s department of street services did not provide an answer. A spokesman for the Dodgers declined to comment.
You could almost hear the sigh from city councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium.
“That’s what my job is: to bring people and agencies and organizations together to accomplish a goal,” Hernandez said. “We’re already in conversation with all these entities.
“We’re looking at some of the things we can enhance to make this a more walkable and accessible option for people.”
City Council member Eunisses Hernandez, center, talks with Circle outreach workers in Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
How much might those enhancements cost?
Without a look at a city-commissioned Dodger Stadium traffic mitigation study, expected to be completed this fall, Hernandez said she could not put a price tag on it.
“What I can tell you,” she said, “is that it will be less than half a billion dollars, for sure.”
By year’s end, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on McCourt’s gondola project, estimated to cost $500 million and proposed as privately financed. Last November, the council voted 12-1 to urge Metro to kill the project.
Metro granted its approval, but with conditions that included a requirement to explore supplementing the gondola with other Dodger Stadium transit options, including more buses along Sunset Boulevard and a designated walkway from there to the stadium.
The walking path proposed in that 1990 study would have avoided Sunset Boulevard and the current Stadium Way routes — the ones with crumbling sidewalks, or no sidewalks at all — by using escalators and walkways to get fans up and down the hill between Lookout Drive, just off Stadium Way, and Dodger Stadium.
“Pedestrians could be directed through Chinatown,” the study read, “where numerous restaurants, shops and pedestrian amenities are provided.”
It’s hard to sell Chinatown businesses on the benefits of the gondola when fans would ride between Union Station and Dodger Stadium, soaring over Chinatown. It would be easier if a walking path led at least some of those fans through Chinatown, even if only on the way back from the game.
Even if the gondola system really can accomplish what its proponents say it can — loading 35 people into a cabin every 23 seconds — thousands of riders leaving when the game ends could mean a long line to board.
One of the entrances to Dodger Stadium on Stadium Way, the easiest access when walking from Chinatown Metro station.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
“Also,” the 1990 study said, “passenger waiting following a game is psychologically perceived as being three to four times longer than actual waiting time.”
From this perspective, McCourt might win a few council votes by funding a first-class walking path. The cost, I’m told, would depend on what the enhancements include: signs, lights, trees, shade canopies, sidewalk repairs, escalators, and so on. For something close to $5 million — one one-hundredth of the projected cost of gondola construction — McCourt likely could do an exceptional job.
Is there any sign of progress here? Happily, yes.
In an internal report last December, Metro said Zero Emissions Transit (ZET) — the nonprofit organization now shepherding the gondola project — is pursuing ways to link pedestrians and bicyclists to the transit system and to Dodger Stadium. Those potential improvements include sidewalk repairs and a revitalized pedestrian pathway from the Chinatown Metro station to the bridge across the 110 and then across Stadium Way, to Lookout Drive and the hill above.
“Dodger Walk is envisioned as a series of switchbacks,” the report said, “inspired by the original walking path up Lookout Mountain that existed prior to the construction of Dodger Stadium.”
Whether such switchbacks would make the walk to the stadium longer or shorter than the current path remains to be determined.
In a statement, ZET said: “We embrace and include active transit solutions to increase pedestrian and bike access throughout the project area.” In particular, ZET said, it was “supportive” of a walking path to Dodger Stadium.
The Metro report cautioned the concepts “are in the early planning stage,” so L.A. might get an extravagant walking path, a utilitarian one, or none at all.
Here’s hoping McCourt gives us a path of some kind — whether the city approves the gondola or not — because a pretty walk generations can enjoy would be a prettier civic legacy than driving a team into bankruptcy.
The Dodgers’ rotation order is set for the first homestand of the season.
To round out the series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, after Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the mound Thursday on opening day, he’ll be followed by Emmet Sheehan and Tyler Glasnow. Roki Sasaki is penciled in for Monday against the Cleveland Guardians, followed by Shohei Ohtani on March 31.
Off days on Sunday and April 2 make it possible for the Dodgers to give all their pitchers at least five days’ rest between their first and second starts without needing a sixth starter.
Left-hander Justin Wrobleski is pegged to be that additional starter when the schedule features less frequent days off. In the meantime, he’ll be available to throw multiple innings out of the bullpen.
After starting the season for the Dodgers in Tokyo last year, Yamamoto is looking forward to opening day at Dodger Stadium.
“It’s going to be a different game, and with a different atmosphere,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “And then we’re coming off the championship year, then this is the first time I’ll be pitching in front of the Dodgers fans [since then].”
Yamamoto, who was on the mound for the final out of the 2025 season, hasn’t pitched at Dodger Stadium since Game 3 of the National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Sheehan claimed a regular spot in the rotation after returning last June from Tommy John surgery rehab. He had a 2.82 earned-run average through 15 appearances last season.
“I was maybe throwing bullpens right now a year ago,” Sheehan said after his last spring start. “So it’s definitely nice. That’s the main thing, to have my health. Grateful for that every time.”
Sheehan wrapped up Cactus League play with a 5.91 ERA in three starts, but he was encouraged by the progress he made in syncing up his delivery.
Glasnow capped his strong spring with five innings of one-run baseball against the Angels on Sunday.
“When everything’s lined up and feeling good … I think a lot of the other stuff follows,” Glasnow said. “And I was just able to go out and be myself.”
He recorded 11 strikeouts against the Angels, leaning on his curveball as his putaway pitch. It generated a 72% whiff rate, according to Statcast.
“Having my curveball feel so good, I kind of just leaned on it,” Glasnow said. “I’m sure things will change in-season, game to game. But tonight, it was a pretty obvious game plan for me.”
