The thing about sitting in the Pavilion at Dodger Stadium

The thing about sitting in the Pavilion at Dodger Stadium

I’m a big believer in “bang for buck”. Not just when it comes to money, but everything. Time, work, whatever it may be. Big believer in maximizing output for whatever the input.

At Dodger Stadium, maximizing bang for buck lands you in the Pavilion. The Pavilion has two types of people: 1. People who don’t give a fuck about baseball and just want to get hammered and heckle opposing outfielders. 2. People who really, really like the Dodgers, and just want to go to as many games as possible for as cheap as possible. Theres a lot more of the first group than the second, but that only adds to the environment.

Dodger Stadium generally has 5 sections. Field Level (think big $$). The Lodge (second deck - smaller, but also $$). The Reserve (third deck - usually empty down the lines, kinda expensive near the middle). Top Deck (the fourth deck - only located for a few sections behind home plate. Its CHEAP. The cheapest. But the nosebleeds). And the Pavilion. Field Level, but in the outfield. Second cheapest prices, and you get all the homerun balls, all of the warmup balls (from the Dodgers), and, unlike the rest of Dodger Stadium, you sit on wood bleachers.

They actually just redid the Pavilion. I was mad, because tickets got way more expensive. But they’ve come back down to where they were before, so I’ve gone back to sitting there.

More than anything though, you get the atmosphere. No where else in Dodger Stadium do you get such an atmosphere around the game. Whether starting the wave, booing at pickoff attempts, heckling outfielders for no reason, or just buying and drinking a lot of beer, people in the Pavilion love chaos.

For the 2nd group of people, those who just like baseball, you get to sit field level with a decent view of both the pitches and the balls coming out, while paying the same price as the tippity top deck.

Not sure theres a better place to watch a baseball game.

A wild video - saving a snowboarder

Saw this on Twitter but wow. Scary stuff. I can’t imagine being in this scenario, on either side. You can just tell how high his heart rate is pumping. Glad everyone involved was ok.

Courtney Dauwalter is a beast

Ok so.. I like trail running. I did my first 50k last year, but have been following the sport for longer than that even. If you don’t know anything about ultrarunning, your takeaway should be this:

Courtney Dauwalter is the best female ultramarathoner in the world, and its not really that close.

She’s won just about every big race out there, including Hardrock 100, Western States 100, Leadville 100, the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (maybe a whole section on this later), and the Moab 240 where she beat everyone (yes, even the men) by over 10 hours. She’s not exactly messing around.

She also runs in basketball shorts past her knees, and is an amazingly kind person. This is her on a podcast with Cameron Hanes, and its a great backstory and intro to who she is.

An Expensive Red Flag…

The F1 race in Australia this weekend went from exciting, to boring, to WTF.

With 4 laps to go, KMag hit the wall, exploding his tire and putting ~some~ debris on the track. I thought it should have just been a safety car, clear the car, clean up the big debris, probably finish under the safety car, everyones happy enough.

But nope. Red flag it was. Everyone put on softs for a 3 lap shootout. Or that was the plan. After the standing start, chaos ensued. Alonso spun, Sargent hit NDV, Checo ran into the gravel, the Alpines hit each other and ended up in the wall, then Stroll put it in the gravel. Yea. It was a multi million dollar mess for sure, resulting in another red flag, and them finishing under the safety car anyways.

Maybe its a lose lose for the race directors, but this one was definitely a mess.

An F22 Over Pasadena

On Thursday last week, I was working from my apartment when I heard what sounded like a fighter jet flying right over my head. So I went outside, naturally, and saw.. well, two fighter jets flying right over my head. An F22 and F35 flying in formation, <5k feet over Pasadena. Not a normal day by any means lol.

It was just for Dodgers Opening Day (I figured that one out pretty quickly), but they did do multiple laps around Pasadena before flying to the stadium. Pretty wild.

Heres 2 videos that show the jets flying over Pasadena and the game - and what they sounded like.