the express and the auto expo in a weekend

i haven't yet published my hall of famer collection post for nolan ryan, but in it i mention that my dad saw ryan pitch at dodger stadium in 1971 - an event that occurred fifty years ago tonight! technically, i could have been at that game, too, but i am certain that i was not. my dad spent the weekend in los angeles with his brother, attending the game and another event going on nearby - the los angeles auto expo.

i recently found some photos from that weekend that i found to be interesting. first, here is the program from that game

and he scored the game, too.

it was a matchup of hall of famers with don sutton going for the dodgers. you can see that steve garvey homered in the 6th, although ryan was out of the game by that point. it was garvey's 4th career homer, so 268 yet to come. my dad also had the habit of writing down the announced attendance (something that i copied from him when i would score games myself), and you can see by the notation above the cadillac ad that there were 27,801 paid attendees for the game. that matches the number at baseball reference which makes sense. the dodgers won the game 3-0.

some other elements of note from the program include a reference to the 1971 ticketron dodger cards and a summer baseball camp

i recall using sears as a ticketron outlet in the 1980s and maybe even into the 1990s as well.  it's nice to see that a "smog-free" location for a summer baseball camp was an advertising tactic even back then. i went to a couple of camps in the early 80's at my local junior college, but it wasn't hosted by lefebvre or any other big leaguer. the biggest name i recall was gary crabtree, a local standout who was soon thereafter drafted by the giants and who would go on to play in the mariner and dodger organizations as well.

here's a short writeup about the first old-timer game at dodger stadium that was to be held the day after the game that my dad and uncle attended.

we didn't make it to an oldtimers' game at dodger stadium until 1979.

the photos my dad took didn't include any game action, but there were some shots from the exterior of the stadium

the parking lot beyond the outfield is lower than the parking lots on the other sides of the stadium. you can enter the stadium from these lots, or you can climb some stairs

to get to the next levels

and then you are at "the top of the park"

he took some photos from inside, too

this was the original seating color scheme that was replaced with more vibrant colors later in the decade

the stadium today features a seating color scheme that more closely matches this one

you can't tell in these photos, but the outfield fences are 10' further back than they are today

at least by the time you get to the centerfield side of the bullpens

speaking of bullpens, it is interesting to me that it looks like the window is in place in the fence by the dodger bullpen in left field, but there is not one on the visitor's side. a benefit of being the home team, i suppose.

you can see in these photos that batting and infield practice was going on, and my dad took some photos of the action in the cage as well.

here's willie davis taking his last cut as jim lefebvre heads in to the cage while duke sims (8) and bill buckner (22) hang out

check out yogi berra and jim gilliam chatting there at the bottom of the photo, and cleon jones (20) and donn clendenon (22) of the mets hanging out as well. 

true to himself, my dad took a pic of his favorite player lefebvre in the cage

now, if you look closely here, you can see a player on the other side of the cage

where the right handed hitters would be. based on the starting lineup, that would either be rich allen or garvey, assuming it's a player waiting his turn and not a coach (like roy hartsfield) watching the proceedings. if it is a player, and with lefebvre in the cage, i'm going to go with the garv.  he would have followed bill buckner who is shown below

but my dad didn't take any other photos of dodgers taking bp so i don't know for sure. the buckner photo actually was the first bp photo he took, so the ones i showed before that would be from the second time through the order. makes sense as we see jim gilliam here before he approached yogi.

here's the last of the bp photos, and it's a treat! 

that's the mets' manager gil hodges taking some cuts. hodges never played in dodger stadium as a dodger, but he did hit there as a met in a couple of games in 1962.

that game was on june 5 which was a saturday. my dad and uncle went to the auto expo prior to the game - i'm just not sure if it was the same day or not. regardless, they took a bunch of pictures.

here's a 1939 bugatti type 57

and this is a 1948 delahaye 135m

a 135m cabriolet, in fact. this is more along the lines of my dad's interest in cars. convertible roadster, with ties to racing.

the only other photos i found were of concept cars. first up are a few photos of the porsche tapiro

when i first saw this i thought it was a delorean prototype, but no.

it was making its united states debut at the expo, after having been unveiled in a turin auto show in 1970

according to wikipedia, it was later sold to a "spanish industrialist" who used it as his regular car

it met a fiery end, unfortunately - either by arson or a crash.

last up is another concept car with an extremely low profile

the car is only thigh-high on the hostess, and i'm not sure what is going on with the steering wheel. i don't know what this is, unfortunately. after some digging, i originally thought it was the original vector that was on the cover of the april 1972 issue of motor trend. motor trend noted that the car was featured at this auto show, but when i saw the cover in question it was clearly not the same car. we didn't read motor trend in our house as my dad was a long-time subscriber to 'road & track' even though he gave up his sports cars for more family friendly vehicles as our family grew. 

since this is a card blog, i will also show an appropriate card from my topps flagship nolan ryan collection.

i have a love-hate relationship with ryan's 1971 topps card, but that's a story for another day. my dad gave me his ryan collection a couple of years ago and i'll have more about that next weekend for father's day - stay tuned!