DODGER STADIUM

Seeing the latest pictures of a flooded Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California as a result of the destructive, Oz-like tropical storm 'Hurricane Hilary' (Clinton?) got me thinking about my favorite Ry Cooder song of all time '3rd Base, Dodger Stadium' from his masterpiece album 'Chavez Ravine' (Nonesuch, 2005). Cooder does have a tendency to bleat on with his faux militant leftist bullshit at times but when he hits that sweet spot of universality that all artists should aspire to, he is gold.

Mister, you’re a baseball man
As anyone can plainly see
Greatest game in this great land
Take a little tip from me

I work here nights parking cars
Underneath the moon and the stars
Same ones that we all knew
Back in 1952

In '3rd Base, Dodger Stadium' the song is narrated by a Hispanic resident (Ry Cooder) who has had his Mexican-American community of Chavez Ravine uprooted for the development and building of the Dodger Stadium, though originally it was intended to be for modernist public housing project designed by architect, Richard Neutra.

While our narrator is showing a fan to his seat, he's explaining how he can still see his familial ghosts of summers past which the baseball diamond has now replaced.

"2nd base, right over there
I see Grandma in her rocking chair
Watching linens flapping in the breeze
And all the fellows choosing up their teams"

The song is deeply affecting and makes you appreciate how cultures are easily bulldozed and replaced when agendas take hold from political and business interests that have zero connection to what they're destroying with the unthinking click of a pen.  

Back around the 76 ball
Johnny Greeneyes had his shoeshine stall
In the middle of the 1st base line
Got my first kiss, Florencia was kind

Now, if the dozer hadn’t taken my yard
You’d see the tree with our initials carved
So many moments in my memory
Well sure was fun, ‘cause the game was free
It was free

Hey Mister, you seem anxious to go
You’ll find that seat in the 7th row
Behind home plate, we used to meet
When we were young, we had dreams