The Dodgers beat the Tigers on Tuesday night – that’s a fact and it’s in the record books forever. But did they actually win before a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium as they are claiming?

Allow me to digress.

Prior to Tuesday’s game a discussion took place on Twitter regarding what constituted a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium. As most longtime Dodger fans know, the seating capacity at Dodger Stadium when it opened in 1962 was 56,000 and it stayed this way for fifty years. But when Guggenheim Baseball Management group bought the franchise in 2012, they invested over $100 million to renovate Major League Baseball’s third-oldest ballpark, and in doing so eliminated quite a few seats.

How many, you ask?

That’s the 100 million dollar question.

Just before opening day 2013 the Dodgers held a press conference to show off the incredible improvements made to the (then) 51-year-old ballpark. In addition to complete makeovers to the Dodgers and visitors clubhouses and batting cages, the Dodgers (under the direction of Janet Marie Smith – the Dodgers Senior Vice President of Planning and Development) also removed several thousand seats to increase space in the respective concourses and to add drink rails just above the last row on each level.

When asked exactly home many seats had been removed, or more accurately what the new seating capacity was after the renovations, you would have thought that reporters had asked Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten for the combination to Fort Knox. Not only did Kasten not answer the question, he wouldn’t even give a ballpark figure (pun intended) on the new seating capacity.

Whatever mystical number the Dodgers have for an official sellout, they hit it every year at their home opener.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka – Click on photo to enlarge)

So why to big secret?

This is something that only Stan Kasten and probably Janet Marie Smith and the rest of the Guggenheim Baseball Management group know.

During the 2013 season the Dodgers announced 29 sellouts – most on stadium giveaway nights or SGAs as they are often called. Without question bobbleheads are the most popular SGAs, of which the Dodgers had ten in 2013. As you might imagine, almost every bobblehead night was a sellout, as were the games with ‘Hello Kitty’ SGAs (don’t ask me to explain that one). But here again, what constitutes a sellout?

“There is no official number for a sellout,” said Garrett Thomas, the Dodgers Coordinator of Public Relations. “We consider it a sellout when there are no more tickets available to sell.”

Okay, that answer is about as clear as mud. It also suggests that word has come down from above not give out a hard sellout number.

So lets try to figure this out another way. At that March 2013 press conference, Kasten told reporters that the Dodgers were increasing the number of available season tickets from 24,000 (which was the cap set back in the O’Malley days) to 31,000 in 2013. As such, the Dodgers were at liberty to officially announce an attendance crowd of 31,000 even if there were fewer than that actually in the ballpark. Now granted there was rarely fewer than that number on any given night during the Dodgers historic 2013 season – especially during their 42-8 run and their stretch run to the NL West Championship.

When it came time for season ticket holders to renew their tickets for the 2014 season, Kasten reported an incredible and unprecedented 98% renewal rate. If this 98% figure is accurate, that’s a mind-boggling 30,380 of the 31,000 season ticket holders from 2013 renewing for 2014, thus leaving only 620 seats available for newcomers. Needless to say, these 620 seats were sold even before the Dodgers annual ‘Select-A-Seat’ event held each January.

So what did Stan Kasten and Vice President of Ticket Sales David Siegel do about this unexpected crisis? They offered what they described as “an extremely limited number” of additional season tickets for sale at significantly higher prices. Kasten also announced that the 31,000 cap had been raised to 34,000 and that the Dodgers had already surpassed the coveted 3,000,000 tickets sold mark even before the first pitch of the 2014 season had been thrown in Sydney, Australia.

At last Friday’s home opener, the announced attendance was 53,493 – an official sellout. Saturday and Sunday saw announced crowds of 49,520 and 48,367 respectively which were not official sellouts (although they would have been at every other ballpark in the MLB). After Monday’s off day the Dodgers began interleague play against the Detroit Tiger on Tuesday night, which was ‘Zip-Up Hoodie Sweatshirt’ SGA night and drew an announced crowd of 53,231 – an official sellout.

With 53,231 considered an official sellout but 49,520 not considered a sellout, this puts Kasten’s ever-evasive hard sellout number somewhere in between. If I had to guess I would say that it is somewhere around 52,000.

As the season wears on there will undoubtedly be additional official sellouts which will help us narrow down the raw numbers and help us better figure out what constitutes an official sellout. Until then it’s anyone’s guess what the actual hard number is. It does, however, put into perspective the facade that Giants fans live under with their consecutive sellouts streak at AT&T Park and its 41,915 seating capacity. Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully would describe a crowd of 41,915 at Dodger Stadium as “A nice crowd on hand tonight.”