THE LONG BLUE LINE

While the Dodgers were playing baseball at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, I was engaged in a far more taxing game.

“What’s My Line?”

First inning, a line stretching for 20 people, stretching into the second inning, people feeling as beaten as that Paul Lo Duca leadoff home run they just missed.

If you guessed a Dodger Dog booth on the loge level, you win.

“I got here at the start of the game, I’ve been in the stadium 25 minutes, and I haven’t seen a pitch yet,” said Jeff Smith of Santa Monica.

Fifth inning, a line stretching for 40 people, lasting three full innings, people numbly trying to imagine the score from the sound of the cheers.

If you guessed the concession stand behind the left-field foul pole on the reserved level, you win.

“I have scouts running in from the seats to give me updates,” said Andres Nava of Santa Ana. “It’s the only way I can watch.”

Used to be, waiting for food was rarely an issue at the Disneyland of diamonds, a place where everyone was served so fast, concession stands never even had--nor needed--television sets.

Now, during games with big crowds, long lines in certain sections are as common as baselines, and sometimes stretch even farther.

During a year when an overachieving Dodger team appears ready for a pennant race, its underachieving home park is not.

And it’s only going to get worse. The big-drawing Chicago Cubs are in town beginning tonight. The New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks are here for the Dodgers’ other remaining weekend series.

Bring your patience. Better yet, pack it in a knapsack with homemade sandwiches and store-bought sodas.

Happy 40th birthday, Dodger Stadium. Here’s hoping you don’t have to stand in line for ice cream until you are 41.

“It’s definitely worse now than it was 20 years ago,” said Sylvia Almaguer, a loge level bartender who has worked in Dodger Stadium food service for 23 years. “Staffing has been a real big issue. They aren’t giving us enough people. It’s like they want to draw blood.”

Almaguer, one of many popular employees customers know by name, is referring to Aramark Corp., the food service outfit hired by Peter O’Malley in 1994 during the cost-cutting final days of his regime.

Aramark was hired to replace Marriott Corp., whose disastrous three-year reign included the near ruination of the famous Dodger Dogs.

Marriott was hired in 1991 to replace Arthur Foods, a family-type operation that had run the stadium concessions for 29 years.

“After Arthur Foods was gone, everything changed,” Almaguer said. “The family feel was gone. Now it’s all bottom line, all business, and it affects everything.”

Dennis Lamalfa, vice president for Aramark’s Pacific region, said the vendors have added staff this season, noting the new food booths on the field level.

“We are constantly monitoring and addressing the situation,” he said.

Yet Almaguer, one of the shop stewards for the Local 11 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, says more respect is needed.

“Certain sections, we have situations where, to do the job right at one stand, we need 13 people,” she said. “Yet, they will tell us to do it with 10. That causes extra lines and angry people.”

Some days, it’s not only the concessions people. On Sunday, it was everybody and everything.

During the sold-out game, the lines were so bad that a fan showing up just before the first inning without bringing enough money could have gone home a couple of hours later without seeing a pitch.

In some places, it required one full inning to pass through the gates because the Dodgers temporarily ran out of Fernando Valenzuela bobblehead dolls.

Then two innings to get money from the ATM machine.

Then one inning to go to the bathroom.

Then three innings to buy a beer and hot dog.

By that time, it was the eighth inning.

At which point, if you didn’t want to get stuck in two innings’ worth of elevator traffic, you needed to leave.

“This is the reason I watch it on TV,” said Jim Kirksey, who was stuck Sunday in a holding pen where he waited to pick up a Fernando doll. “I drove into the parking lot in the bottom of the first inning . . . “

And he was still waiting for the doll in the third.

OK, so maybe some of this seems petty.

Some will say, bring your money and quit complaining about lines at ATM machines, which host banks are reluctant to place in the stadium because they will sit idle for most of the year.

Still others will say, elevators? Aren’t there stairs there? Can’t most of you just walk?

And, really, if you want a bobblehead doll, go to the mall.

Fine. But none of that changes the fact that one still should be able to buy a hot dog and a soda without missing one inning for each.

And big crowds are no excuse.

Remember, this was the first baseball stadium to draw 3 million fans in a season. Before this summer, seven of the top 25 crowds in National League history were at Dodger Stadium.

The 54,556 fans on Sunday night was overwhelming? Not quite. It didn’t even rank among the top 10 crowds in stadium history.

They’ve correctly handled big crowds before. They can do it again.

Or can they?

Bob Graziano, Dodger president, said it’s sometimes difficult to attract workers to the part-time job that pays about $80 a game for those working in booths.

“When other jobs are paying better, sometimes we’ve had trouble getting enough employees,” he said.

But Almaguer said that some of Aramark’s policies have hurt employee morale, making them more likely to seek work elsewhere.

“When you are understaffed and customers are complaining all the time, it’s a very difficult situation,” she said. “Some employees finally revolt. They said, ‘I just can’t go back there today.’ ”

Aramark became infamous in 1997 for firing--then reinstating--peanut vendor Richard Aller after he broke a rule about reselling free peanuts.

Today most agree there are fewer roaming vendors, which means more people leave their seats and get into lines.

“Some of our vendors complain that they don’t get enough product to make enough money,” said Chito Quijano, a union organizer at Local 11.

The union signed only a one-year contract with Aramark this year--a departure from past multiyear deals--partly because of concerns over staffing.

“We have nothing but respect for Bob Graziano,” Quijano said. “We believe he is trying his best to get Aramark to listen to us.”

Or maybe, Aramark will listen to the fans.

Any day now, they should be returning to their seats.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.