On Friday evening, I received an email from a gentleman by the name of Bill Stachowiak. I am ashamed to admit that if I met Bill in person I do not remember him by his name; but then, my memory isn’t what it used to be, so this really doesn’t surprise me. Regardless, I mean absolutely no disrespect to Bill whatsoever.

In Bill’s email, he shared a great story about his very first trip to Dodger Stadium with his father on May 2, 1962 at the tender age of seven years old. His story is simply too wonderful not to share and it brought back a flood of memories about my father taking me to Dodger games at the L.A. Coliseum and later at Dodger Stadium.

Here is Bill’s story:

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It was 51 years ago today, May 2nd 1962. The Los Angeles Dodgers had “finally” moved into their new home at Chavez Ravine and the season was well underway.

My father was working for the Los Angeles Fire Department and since this was one of his “days off” it was decided that he would take me to my “First” Dodger Baseball Game!

The drive from our home in the North San Fernando Valley seemed to take forever but when we arrived the sparkle of the new stadium against the orange horizon of the setting sun was incredible.

Dodger Stadium – 1962
(Bettmann/CORBIS Images)

We parked, walked to the entrance for the upper deck area and when I walked through and saw the sprawling field and diamond below I was awestruck.

We took our seats and commenced with what is now the usual; Dodger Dogs, Peanuts, soft drink, etc. I was wearing a sweatshirt which had pictures of Dodger Pitchers on it ; Drysdale, Koufax, and Perranoski. It was a shirt I wore whenever I played street-ball in our neighborhood in Granada Hills.

THIS WAS INCREDIBLE! Here I was, a 7 year old left-handed kid, actually sitting in the New stadium, watching the left-handed wonder “Sandy Koufax” pitching against the Chicago Cubs! Little did I know then, that only 7 weeks from now he would go on to pitch a “no-hitter”…but that was later…this was “now”.

After a few innings one of the Cubs hit a long, high foul ball which ended up in our section and I was able to retrieve it. I got the ball, held it up for my dad to see and promptly “threw it back down” (not quite reaching the field). I look back on that moment now and cringe. I had thrown back a ball, pitched by Koufax, which would end up being the ONLY foul ball I would get through the years.

You see, when we played “street-ball” if the ball went into a yard, on a roof, or otherwise “out of play” you stopped playing… I didn’t know they (Big League Teams) had extras, so I threw it back so they could keep playing.

Well, it’s been a long time since my “first” game. I managed to make it to many more. Some with my Uncle John, a few with dad, some with the wife and kids, and one in particular with my oldest son Will and my dad where we had a picture taken of the 3 of us at the stadium with the scoreboard in the background. Will(iam) was just a little guy at the time and is sort of squished between me and his grandpa in the photo. He now towers about 6’7” and we hope to be able to make it back to get another up-to-date photo sometime soon.

That “first” game for me was 51 years ago, and it seems like only yesterday.

Thanks Dad! And thank you LA Dodgers!

Oh, by the way, Koufax went only 6 innings that day, gave up 8 hits and 3 runs; Dodgers lost the game but I won a lifetime of memories.

“Dodger Stadium, Where memories are made…to last a lifetime”

Bill Stachowiak