Travel Blog

Yesterday was Japanese Heritage Night at loanDepot Park – the Dodgers were in town – and I figured it would also be the Last Game of the 2025 Season With an Open Roof.

I headed down around 5 and found the roof closed. I hesitated before entering the parking garage. I hesitated again when the man behind the ticket window told me the cheapest ticket was $40. Because of the Dodgers, he told me. It costs a lot to see the rich. I complained to him about the price as well as the closed roof.

Inside, I found a sympathetic staffer standing at the top of the escalator.

“I agree with you,” he said. “I would love to see the roof open.”

“It’s because of the weather,” the young woman at the information desk told me.

“But it’s a beautiful evening,” I said. (There was a dark cloud hovering to the north.)

I wandered the concourse, which was unusually lively. Behind the left field stands a group banged on Japanese drums, supervised by a woman in a kimono.

After the third inning I walked outside to call Hania. No rain had fallen; there was a light breeze; it was a gorgeous South Florida evening.

Back inside, I walked with authority past the usher of Section 19 – it pays to wear a dress shirt to games – and found an empty aisle seat a few rows back from the premium section. Almost immediately, Shohei Ohtani came up to bat, and I enjoyed a straight view of his towering fly ball as it headed toward the right field stands.

Instead of a soft breeze, I felt cold blasts from air-conditioners on my back. I left after the seventh inning, the game tied at 4. I used to insist on staying till the final out, but not in a stadium with a closed roof.

Outside the parking garage, a young Black man played “What a Wonderful World” on his trumpet.

“In the old stadium,” I told him, as I placed a few dollars in his instrument case, “they used to play that song at the end of every game.”

"Really?” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

I shared the elevator with two young men who, naturally, heard my complaint about the closed roof.

“Was it closed?” the one man asked. “I didn’t even notice. I was so focused on the game.”

I found his obliviousness to his surroundings so astonishing that I didn’t ask him why, after being so absorbed in the game, he was leaving in the eighth inning.