Continuing Nats320's
private tour of historic Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida--this posting will concentrate on the living quarters and accommodations offered to players, their families & team officials. The "City Within A City" concept which The Brooklyn & Los Angeles Dodgers thoughtfully provided. Not open to the public yet for tours, Minor League Baseball--under contract with Vero Beach & Indian River County is considering options on making Dodgertown an historical go-to destination stop for visiting baseball fans in the near future.
Running south to north as you enter Dodgertown, there are 92 apartments laid out on Jackie Robinson Avenue & Sandy Koufax Lane. Each lamp post throughout the facility is a baseball globe. The Walter Alston, Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella Meeting Rooms are also located along Sandy Koufax Lane.
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| BBQ Area With Western Motif |
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| BBQ Area |
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| Shuffleboard |
Two larger suites are perfectly placed at the north end of Jackie Robinson Avenue near Pee Wee Reese Boulevard. Rooms 191 & 192 overlook the swimming pool, lounging deck, tiki bar, basketball court, bbq area, shuffleboard & volleyball court.
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| Tennis Courts |
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| Florida Gator Relief At Conference Center Entrance |
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| Original Team Employee Gift Shop |
Just to the east of Jackie Robinson Avenue, sandwiched between Pee Wee Reese Boulevard, Roy Campanella Avenue & Don Sutton Court are the tennis courts and the main conference center. The conference center housed the team dining area, more meeting rooms. There are the Brooklyn Meeting Rooms named for Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider & Johnny Podres and Los Angeles Meeting Rooms named Don Drysdale, Gil Hodges, Junior Gilliam & Tommy Lasorda.
Included in the conference center/dining hall is a wonderful bar/lounge with two pool tables. To get to the bar/lounge, anyone visiting walks along the "Hall Of Fame" which includes many classic Brooklyn & Los Angeles Dodgers photos. Many taken at Dodgertown.
Coming up next--the baseball training facilities--which are extensive.
All Photos Copyrighted--Nats320--All Rights Reserved
5 comments:
What should MiLB do with this place? Build a resort hotel nearby and make it a baseball-themed resort with conferences, high school and college camps, special events -- maybe get a few retired players to occasionally show up -- and anything else they can think of. Split the revenue evenly across all of the MiLB leagues/teams.
MiLB wants to make it a training facility for the minor leagues, umpires and international teams. A one-stop place for training. There are also looking to use the place for sport camps. Remember,Dodgertown is fully functional.
They also wish to take advantage of the historical aspect and have tours. But marketing is difficult because Vero Beach is not allowed to use the "Dodgertown" name anymore.
Apparently some football organizations and soccer groups have shown interest, but we are not sure how far along those talks have gone.
The facility is not opened full time right now--only when clients rent the place. It's one of those situations that needs to work it's way out. It was sad that The Dodgers left and worse for Vero Beach when The Orioles turned down an offer on the table to move their spring training to Dodgertown and instead moved to Sarasota.
You know what is sad? The Dodgers are using the word "Dodgertown" EXACTLY the same way the Nats are using the term "Nats Town." Instead of referring to a spring training facility that's famous throughout all of baseball, it now just refers to Dodger Stadium and environs.
I can understand the Dodgers wanting a facility closer to their fans on the West Coast, but I think abandoning Dodgertown is a huge mistake.
Eddie: From talking to folks down in Vero Beach, they are clearly still disgruntled over The Dodgers pulling out here. Especially after Indian River County and the City Of Vero Beach paid The Dodgers $19 Million to purchase the facility from the team in 2001 to keep them in town and leasing the entire complex back to The Dodgers for $1 per year.
And even after Los Angeles sold out every single game in Vero Beach (6,500 per game) for years. It's just sad.
As much as I am a big Dodger fan and loved taking my son to Vero Beach, I had to agree with the Dodger's decision to leave Vero Beach.
Yes the place had a lot of history, but so did Ebbets Field and the Dodgers made the right decision to move away from there in 1957.
I agree that the distance of 2,500 was a problem and with Arizona becoming a mecca for spring training, they had to leave. It's a better fit for not only the team that can be close to there Los Angeles home, but there fan base can now go see spring training just like we Nats fans can travel to Florida to watch them.
I do feel that the Dodgers took advantage of Vero Beach and can't believe that they have left it such a shrine for the Dodgers. Hopefully they will realize, just like a woman in which her husband left here for a younger model, that it's time to move on and give it a different look. As much as the Dodgers left them, Vero Beach needs to get rid of most of the Dodger references and start anew again.
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