115,300

That may seem like just a number to many, but to the baseball fan, the true baseball fan, it is the attendance at last night's major league baseball exhibition game between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In celebration of the Dodgers 50th anniversary of being in Los Angeles, owner Frank McCourt thought that it would be a great idea to have a game at the first home of the Dodgers when they high-tailed it from Brooklyn, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The Dodgers played at the cavernous, not-for-baseball Coliseum for four years before moving to the cathedral of baseball, heck St. Peter's Basilica of baseball, Dodger Stadium.
Now, the Coliseum is football stadium, but it was actually built in 1923 in hopes of luring the Summer Olympics. That came in 1932.
The Coliseum holds 92,000 when all areas are in use. And when the Dodgers came west, it created the weirdest baseball field in memory.
Because of it being a bowl, it was impossible to make legitimate dimensions. So, the left field line was 251 feet from home plate. To prevent a slew of homers, a 40-foot mesh fence was put in front of the left field stands. It did not get any better for hitters, but that is not the story.
It is at the Coliseum that the largest crowds ever attended a baseball game.
And last night, Mrs, rightviewfromtheleftcoast and I were part of 115,300 people who will be in the record books.
Now, it did take us roughly two and a half hours to get there and about the same time to get home.
Why you may ask?
Well, with little if any parking around the Coliseum, and a $25 to park, we decided that the Dodger shuttle from the Stadium to the Coliseum would be a great idea. So did about 50,000 other people. And while the Dodgers provided up to 100 buses and vans to shuttle back and forth, it still was not enough. And, we went at the worst time both to and fro.
But, the crowd was very good natured and for the most part well behaved. After all, the hangover of having the Oakland Raiders here and the "fan base" they attract does permeate in all local sports.
It was absolutely amazing to be a part of history. Positive history. So much of the kind of history we may be a part of is usually bad. But this was all done in the name of raising money for cancer research. History and a great cause, who can ask for more.
Oh, of course the Dodgers did lose to the game, 7-4.
But who cares? We were a part of history and that made all the negative worthwhile.