May 4, 1958

By Keith Thursby

Times Staff Writer

  It’s a familiar story when a sports team trades in its home for a bigger, brighter facility with more luxury suites and a higher price tag.

I remember when Anaheim Stadium underwent a face lift to lure the Rams out of Los Angeles. I started going to Angels games in 1967 and for the most part the teams were awful and the crowds small. But the stadium was comfortable and convenient with its own special touches.

There were no seats in the outfield and you could watch freeway traffic beyond the fences during a game. Cars stopped on the freeway shoulder to watch the game and eventually a police car would arrive to clear out the cars. That was the highlight some nights.

Then the powers-that-be decided to enclose the stadium to add seats for the Rams, ruining the place for pure baseball fans. There was money involved, of course, but back then, multipurpose stadiums were popular. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, San Francisco and San Diego all had stadiums that were shared by the football and baseball teams. Not pretty places, but functional.

Now we’re in a retro phase that started when Camden Yards was built in Baltimore. It’s the fashion to find a downtown area that needs freshening up and put in a ballpark with good views, close seats and a feel for the city and its history. And only baseball is played on these fields.

The latest version of Anaheim Stadium, or whatever it’s called these days, is closer to its original design. Much of the touches added when the Rams moved in are no longer part of the ballpark (it’s probably the best thing Disney did as the team’s owner). The seating capacity is smaller and the bad seats for baseball are for the most part gone.

The Dodgers’ plans to build around Dodger Stadium can be lumped in this group, because part of the stated idea is finding a way to keep the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium.

Back in 1958, baseball was undergoing one of those generational shifts caused in large part by the Dodgers and Giants moving to California. A story published in This Week magazine, which was distributed in The Times, offered a sense of desperation and inspiration from the game’s leading official.

Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick suggested a new kind of ballpark that he said could solve the game’s problems. The stadium could be used all year, in any weather, for everything from baseball to curling matches. He called it a sports palace.

What kind of features would be part of this palace? The story includes an artist’s conception of the super stadium with a movable or translucent roof, multi-level parking, air conditioning, restaurant, movie theater, race track and subway station. Frick called the concept an ultra-modern community center. Oh, yeah, there would be a field for baseball too.

"Sure, it would cost a fortune," Frick told writer Al Hirshberg. "But so does a one-sport park. Why spend something like $10 million for a park you can’t use in winter or bad weather when, for a few million more, you can build the kind of plant I have in mind? It would pay for itself in a few years."

Some of the commissioner’s comments about financing such a venture seem, well, refreshing.

"As a baseball man, you’d go to a city and offer to pay your share. You can’t say, ‘If you don’t build a sports palace I’ll take my ballclub somewhere else.’ "

Frick served as baseball commissioner from 1951 to 1965. The closest thing to a sports palace built during Frick’s era probably was the Houston Astrodome, which opened in 1965 and was home to baseball’s Astros and football’s Oilers.

keith.thursby@latimes.com