This should be fun

The Dodgers are hosting the Red Sox at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum tonight. The Coliseum was the first home of the Dodgers when they first moved to the West Coast in 1958 and with this being the 50th anniversary season they return to the cozy confines. How cozy?

Carl Erskine vividly remembers a most distressing experience at the Los Angeles Coliseum 50 years ago. Don Newcombe easily recalls the difficulty of doing his job there.

Erskine and Newcombe had plenty of company as pitchers for the Dodgers in their first four years in Los Angeles, having to ply their trade at a facility that was never meant for baseball.

Routine fly balls, pop-ups actually, soared over a 42-foot-high screen in left field, where the distance from home plate to the foul pole was a ridiculous 251 feet.

"I won't say it was a joy to pitch in the Coliseum," Newcombe said. "You felt like you were shaking hands with the left fielder."

No. Cozier.

Actually, it will be even more challenging, because the distance from the plate to the foul pole will be only 201 feet, although batters will have to clear a 60-foot screen.

"It'll be interesting and definitely something that will be talked about for years," Boston's Kevin Youkilis said. "[Batting practice] could be interesting."

Gotta love how AP uses a Red Sox player instead of a Dodger player for a quote.

Oh, and there will be people, lots of people.

The Dodgers said Friday that the full allotment of 115,300 tickets — with all the proceeds going to ThinkCure, the Dodgers' official charity — have been sold, including about 25,000 for standing-room only behind the lower fence in right and center. Two big-screen televisions will make it possible to watch the action.

Coliseum diagram from Ballpark Tours.