After the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn after the 1957 season, they decided to play their games in the LA Coliseum - a stadium built for the 1932 Olympics, with Olympic dimensions not easy to modify. Baseball seating capacity was over 92,000, which was far above any other stadium’s capacity in MLB . (an exhibition game between the Dodgers and the Red Sox in 2008 attracted 115,300)
Why was the Coliseum chosen over a “normal” baseball stadium such as the minor-league Wrigley Field (yes - the same Wrigley as in Chicago - the LA team had been a Cubs farm team) - which the Angels used for a couple of years? Was it to attract more fans? (during the four years they played there, the average attendance was about 25,000 - Wrigley Field sat 22,000) From the attached image of the 115k+ crowd, you can see that about a third of the fans were seated outside the dimensions of the field. Seven years ago today, a Red Sox-Dodgers game set the record for largest baseball crowd in history | MLB.com
Two other crowds are in contention for the baseball record attendance: 100k+ for an exhibition game between two US teams at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and 114k for a game between the US and Australia at the 1956 Olympics.
This article on the SABR website doesn’t shed any light on “why not Wrigley Field”, but it does indicate that the Dodgers were initially planning on playing at the Rose Bowl; when those negotiations fell through, they turned to the Coliseum.
Given the size of both stadiums, and the fact that, as the article notes, they had several very large crowds at games, I do suspect that the opportunity to have more fans in the seats was the driving factor.
Here’s a pretty good history of (LA) Wrigley Field, that is candid about the criticisms of the ballpark by the time the Angels played there: run down, bad neighborhood, lack of parking. In other words, pretty much the same objections that the Dodgers had about Ebbets Field when they left Brooklyn.
I recently found out about this. Last December I was down south, and drove over to take a look at the site. My wife and I were there on 12/26/2020. For history’s sake.
The neighborhood isn’t that great. But the park grounds and recreational soccer field looked decent enough.
The Seattle Pilots would be an example of why a minor league ball park is not a good fit for MLB. The small crowds that first season bankrupt the team and forced the sale and eventual move to Milwaukee. I attended 2 Pilots games that year, except for the stars from the other team, it was like attending a minor league game in an old stadium. I much preferred games at the relatively new Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, they were the AAA team for the Cubs that year. Much better stadium, parking next to the stadium and likely a better team.
My favorite moment was Rico Petrocelli of the Red Sox signing my Rico Petrocelli signature ball glove.
Indeed, the Pilots were doomed from the start. After being granted an expansion franchise, they had planned to start play in a new stadium 1971, along with the expansion team in Kansas City. MLB moved up the two teams’ launch by two years, under pressure from Missouri senator Stuart Symington, who wasn’t happy over the idea of Kansas City having to wait years for the return of baseball, after the A’s left for Oakland in late ‘67. Thus, they had to turn to Sicks’ Stadium under short notice, which was small and in need of renovations.
And the thread of legal actions from the cities of Seattle and Toronto (which had the Giants pulled out from under them) led to further expansion in 1977. Honestly, expansion was not so much planned as stumbled in to.
The L.A. Coliseum is an amazing facility. Built in 1923, it’s seen a lot of sports history, but 1984 was a year like no other. Raiders won the Super Bowl. And of course the 1984 Olympics.