Nostalgia fills left-field stands

The first ball hit out of the baseball field the Dodgers jammed inside the Coliseum on Saturday night rocketed over a 60-foot screen and landed on a plastic seat with a crack. Batting practice was on, the hometown team was up, and the first ball, so far as I could tell, landed in Section 20, Row, 20, near seat 110.

George Ray had a clear path to the ball. Ray is 61, but he ran like the school kid he was when he first went to Dodgers games in this stadium, when the team arrived from Brooklyn. He stumbled to his knees, scooped up the ball and held it aloft. “Yes!” he shouted. “Yes!”

A celebration was on.

Walking and talking my way through the left-field seats Saturday night gave a glimpse of what it was like to play in the tightly packed, oval-shaped stadium for those first L.A. Dodgers team in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. It also gave a glimpse of what it was like back then to be a fan.

“Ridiculously fun,” said Ray, dressed in a white jersey affixed with logos from every major league team. Like so many others, he brimmed with nostalgia. He spoke of his childhood and coming early to watch batting practice, spoke of watching Wally Moon and catching a ball from the great Clemente. “Had to come out to left field again,” he said, holding his ball. “Had to. Watching games here was just, well, different.”

The Coliseum -- oval shaped, primed for football -- is as odd and funky a place to host a big league game as there is, now as much as it was in 1958. Much discussed in the run-up to this game was the geometric quirkiness. There’s the right-field wall that seems as if it’s a time zone away from the batter and catcher.

But the quirkiest element is left field. There, the foul pole stands a scant 201 feet from home plate. That’s a good dimension for your kids’ Little League games, but every Dodgers and Red Sox player on the field Saturday night could hit a ball that far while dreaming.

To give the game at least a fraction of authenticity, the Dodgers hung a 60-foot mesh screen over the left-field wall -- reminiscent of the screen the Dodgers had in place on opening day, 1958. A homer would have to clear the screen. Anything bouncing off the screen would be in play.

Watching batting practice from behind that screen was fun in the way going to Disneyland is fun, the way video games and Cirque du Soleil are fun -- a knock-off of reality, all odd shapes and exaggerations.

“I wanted to be here to see the moon shots,” said Michael Oxley, referring to the lofted homers sliced over the netting back in the late ‘50s by Wally Moon. Those homers gave Moon, a journeyman, a touch of immortality. You heard the name Wally Moon mentioned so many times in left field Saturday that you’d think he’d been as great as Willie Mays.

Near Oxley stood Al Gutierrez, 57, a locksmith from Chino, speaking of how when he was in grade school he used to bike and take the bus to games, all the way from Commerce and all by himself. Near Oxley stood Rick Wallace, a real estate agent from Malibu, who said he was on hand largely because his father had gone to games 50 years back and had always talked about the odd shapes and vastness. Near Wallace was Juan Ayala, a salesman from Tustin.

Each of these fans kept eyes fixed on the sky, partly to make sure they wouldn’t get knocked silly by a falling baseball. Sure enough, a ball screamed over the netting. Ayala, deft and casual, used his Dodgers cap to catch it. Fans cheered. Ayala puffed his chest.

Of course, at any game, the outfield stands provide an intimate touch. But not 201 feet from home plate intimate. As the players swung and made contact, the sound of each hit sliced into your eardrum with a snap. Since the left-field wall was about head high for the players and there wasn’t any warning track, you could hear the sound of their cleats skimming the grass and hear them chatting.

“Hey, I’m going to take infield out here,” said one of the Dodgers. When the Red Sox were on the field, fans ribbed a pitcher and he told them to get off his back. Fans fawned over Alex Cora, once a Dodgers favorite, now playing for Boston.

“We love you here, Alex,” one fan said.

“Nah, if they loved me I wouldn’t be in Boston,” he said back.

Finally, David Ortiz, a power-hitting titan, strode to the plate and the fans focused. Some of the players had tried hard but failed to hit many balls over the wall. But Ortiz seized the moment, smacking ball after ball into right field, center, and over the mesh. Watching those baseballs screech through the air, I tried to interview a man wearing a Red Sox jersey. He just stood there, speechless.

6:25. I watched the last of the batting practice hits: a hard line drive. Nobody in the left-field seats seemed to mind. They’d had their thrills. The game beckoned.

“Can’t wait to watch it,” said James Williams, a title officer from Ladera Heights. “Wow, this is incredible. I’m in the Coliseum watching baseball. The Dodgers in the Coliseum again. There’s something really nice about that.”

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Kurt Streeter can be reached at kurt.streeter@latimes.com.