UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays
A guide to UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers' home since 1962: the parks that came before it, its dimensions, why it has long favored pitchers, and how to plan a visit.
UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and has been since 1962. In the historical record it appears under its older and better-known name, Dodger Stadium, and the two names describe the same hillside ballpark in Los Angeles. Among the parks in use through the 2025 season, only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are older, which makes this the third-oldest ballpark in the major leagues and the oldest on the West Coast.
The park is also a numbers story. The Dodgers drew 4,012,470 fans in 2025, the highest single-season attendance the historical record shows for the franchise in any of its seven parks, and a figure that the club's earlier homes could not have approached. The same park has hosted a long line of pitching greatness, from Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale in the 1960s to Clayton Kershaw in the 2010s, and it has a reputation that matches: a place where runs are harder to come by than the fence distances alone would suggest.
This guide walks through the history of the club's ballparks, the dimensions and features the site holds for this one, what makes it play the way it does, and what to know before you go. Where a fact is a number from the historical record or the site's reference data, it is given as such, and where a detail changes from year to year, the guide points you to the club.
Seven parks in a franchise that began in 1884
The Dodgers are one of the oldest franchises in the sport. The historical record traces the club back to 1884, when it was the Brooklyn Atlantics, and it has been through a long chain of names: Grays, Bridegrooms, Grooms, Superbas, Robins and Dodgers in Brooklyn, and Los Angeles Dodgers since 1958. Each era had its own home, and the database lists seven parks across 142 seasons.
| Park | Seasons | Best home attendance for a season |
|---|---|---|
| Washington Park I | 1884 to 1889 | not recorded |
| Washington Park II | 1890 | 121,412 |
| Eastern Park | 1891 to 1897 | 235,000 |
| Washington Park III | 1898 to 1912 | 321,300 |
| Ebbets Field | 1913 to 1957 | 1,807,526 |
| Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum | 1958 to 1961 | 2,253,887 |
| Dodger Stadium | 1962 to 2025 | 4,012,470 |
Read down the right-hand column and you can watch the sport grow. The early crowds were tens or hundreds of thousands a season. Ebbets Field, the bandbox that defined the Brooklyn years, peaked at about 1.8 million. The Coliseum, a football and track stadium that the club used as a temporary home after the move west, drew more than that in its best year. Dodger Stadium has been the home for more than six decades, and its peak is the highest of all.
The story of why the club left Brooklyn is long and has been told in detail elsewhere. In short, the owner wanted a new ballpark and could not get the kind of site he wanted in Brooklyn, and Los Angeles offered one. The move happened after the 1957 season, which is why the historical record shows the name change in 1958. For the full arc, read the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Coliseum years and the move to Chavez Ravine
For four seasons, 1958 through 1961, the club played in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was a poor fit for baseball in a way that is easy to state: the stadium was built for football and track, so the dimensions of the field were unusual, and the left-field fence was very close to home plate while the right-field side was extremely far away. The Dodgers still drew well there, and the database records a best attendance of 2,253,887 in that period.
The permanent home was built on a site in Chavez Ravine, a hilly area close to downtown Los Angeles. The historical record shows Dodger Stadium as the club's park from 1962, and 1962 is the year to use when you talk about when the ballpark opened. The park was designed to be a baseball-only building in an era when many new stadiums were built to serve baseball and football together, and its hillside setting, with the San Gabriel Mountains visible beyond the outfield, has been one of its identifying features since the beginning.
Dodger Stadium has since been renovated and modernized several times, and its name now carries a sponsor's name, UNIQLO Field, in the site's reference data. As with any naming-rights deal, the label can change, and the safest way to refer to the park in historical writing is to use the name that applied in the year you are describing. A 1988 box score says Dodger Stadium, and so does most of the literature that grew up around the park.
The dimensions in the site's reference data
The site holds these fence distances for the ballpark. They are measured from home plate, in feet.
| Spot on the fence | Distance (feet) |
|---|---|
| Left-field line | 330 |
| Left-center | 385 |
| Center field | 395 |
| Right-center | 385 |
| Right-field line | 330 |
The first thing to notice is the symmetry. The two lines are the same length, and the two alleys are the same length. There are no odd angles, no short porches, no walls that jut in. This is the plain, balanced outfield that was typical of ballparks designed in the early 1960s, and it is the opposite of the quirky geometry that Ebbets Field and some older parks offered.
The second is the size. At 395 feet to center and 385 in both alleys, the park is neither enormous nor cozy. A batter has to hit the ball well to clear the fence in the gaps, but nothing here is unusually far. In terms of raw distances alone, this is a fair park, so the reputation of the ballpark as a pitcher's park must come from other things: the air, the evening conditions, the foul territory, the shadows and the quality of the pitching staffs the club has put on the mound over the decades.
Why the park has favored pitchers
Dodger Stadium has long been described as a pitcher's park. Multi-year park factors, which compare the runs scored in a park with the runs scored elsewhere, have generally shown it suppressing offense for much of its history. The fence distances do not explain that, so look at the conditions.
The site's reference data puts the ballpark at an elevation of 515 feet, which is low enough to be close to sea level in practice. At that elevation the air is denser than in a mile-high city, so fly balls carry less and breaking pitches break more. Many evening games in Los Angeles also bring cool, damp air in from the ocean, which tends to hold the ball down compared with a hot afternoon. The effect varies by season, and it is not a constant: a game in September heat plays differently from one in April.
The park's setting adds to the picture. The site data lists the surface as grass and the roof as open, so the weather applies in full. The orientation matters as well: the azimuth in the site's data is 26 degrees, which means the line from home plate to center field points a little east of north. Whatever the exact effect on shadows and the sun, an open park at this orientation has a defined pattern of late-afternoon light that hitters notice.
It would be unfair to credit all of this to the park. The Dodgers have had remarkable pitching in almost every era, and the club's staff is a strong reason runs have been scarce there. The honest summary is that the park and the pitchers reinforce each other: the park is a mildly pitcher-friendly place, and the club has had a great deal of pitching to take advantage of it. Use a current multi-year park factor, not an old reputation, if you need a number.
The pitchers who made the reputation
The historical record lets us list the Dodgers' career pitching leaders, and the names tell the story. Don Sutton leads the franchise in wins with 233 from 1966 to 1988. Clayton Kershaw is next with 223 from 2008 to 2025 and leads in strikeouts with 3,052. Don Drysdale won 209 and struck out 2,486. Sandy Koufax won 165 games and struck out 2,396 batters in a career that included three Cy Young Awards, in 1963, 1965 and 1966.
On the shutout list, the numbers show how the park and the era interacted. Sutton has 52 shutouts for the club, Drysdale 49 and Koufax 40. Among starters with at least 1,000 innings, Kershaw's club ERA of 2.53 and Koufax's of 2.76 are two of the best the franchise has produced, behind only the deadball-era figures of Jeff Pfeffer (2.31) and Nap Rucker (2.42). Those two pitched in a different time, so the pair of Kershaw and Koufax are the best modern figures by this measure.
The awards list is just as long. The Dodgers have had a Cy Young Award winner in many eras: Don Newcombe in 1956, Drysdale in 1962, Koufax three times, Mike Marshall in 1974, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, Orel Hershiser in 1988, Eric Gagne in 2003 and Kershaw in 2011, 2013 and 2014. Kershaw also won the Most Valuable Player Award in 2014. For the full list by position, see the best players in Los Angeles Dodgers history.
Caution is needed when reading pitching totals from the 1960s. The league changed the rules before the 1969 season in response to the low scoring of the decade, and the changes affected every park. A reader who compares Koufax's era with a modern one has to remember that the whole environment was different, not only the ballpark.
Moments in the park: October and the long run of titles
The historical record shows nine World Series titles for the Dodgers, in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020, 2024 and 2025. The 1955 title was won in Brooklyn, in the club's only Brooklyn championship, and the 1959 title came while the club was in the Coliseum. The rest came while the club played at Dodger Stadium or, in the case of the 2020 season, in a pandemic-shortened year with an unusual postseason format that was played at neutral sites.
The 1988 championship is the one that is most associated with the park in popular memory. Kirk Gibson, limping from injuries, hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 against the Oakland Athletics, and the Dodgers beat the Athletics four games to one. The story is told in full in The 1988 World Series: Kirk Gibson's One At-Bat. The home run is one of the best-known moments in the history of the sport, and it happened at Dodger Stadium.
The most recent run is the most striking. The Dodgers won the title in 2024 by beating the New York Yankees four games to one, and in 2025 they beat the Toronto Blue Jays four games to three, which makes them repeat champions. The 2025 attendance of 4,012,470 came in the same year as that championship. For every October the club has played, including the many near misses, see the best Dodgers seasons and every postseason run, and for the broader history of the final series, see the history of the World Series.
The park has also been home to the All-Star Game on occasion. The game was played at Dodger Stadium in 1980 and again in 2022. If you are looking up a particular All-Star Game, confirm the year with an official record before you cite it.
The seats, the setting and the shape of a visit
The site's reference data lists the capacity as 56,000, which makes this one of the largest ballparks in the major leagues. The size comes from the way the building is laid out, with several seating levels around the field and an open design. The numbers of seats in each level and the details of the layout vary with renovations, so use the club's seating map and not a general article to choose seats.
What can be said in general is that the setting is part of the appeal. The park is built into a hillside, and from the upper levels the view takes in the city skyline in one direction and the hills in another. The trade-off for a hillside park is that the walk between levels can be long, and that the stadium is not as easy to move around in as a flat urban one.
A few practical points apply to any visit.
- Check the schedule and the weather. Evenings can be much cooler than afternoons, even in warm months, so bring a layer for night games. The schedule shows upcoming home dates.
- Give yourself time on game day. The park is large and the approach roads are busy. Leave early and treat the trip as part of the day.
- Use official channels for the details that change. Tickets, gates, bag rules, parking, rideshare and food options all change, and the club's website is the place to check them.
- Look at the ballpark data on the site. The UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium page collects the dimensions and other reference data, and the Dodgers team page shows the live record.
- Arrive for the pitchers. If you care about the craft, pick a night when a starter you want to see is scheduled and get there in time for the warm-ups.
Common questions
When did Dodger Stadium open? The historical record lists it as the club's park starting with the 1962 season. The club played in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the four seasons before that, from 1958 to 1961.
Is it called UNIQLO Field or Dodger Stadium? Both. The site's reference data uses the longer name for the current park, and the historical record and most history books use Dodger Stadium. They refer to the same building.
Is it a pitcher's park? It has long been described that way, and park factors have generally supported it, but conditions and baseballs change. The dimensions themselves are balanced, with 330-foot lines, 385-foot alleys and a 395-foot center field.
How many fans can it hold? The site's reference data lists a capacity of 56,000. The historical record shows an attendance of 4,012,470 for the 2025 season, the highest the franchise has recorded.
What were the Dodgers' other homes? The database lists Washington Park in three versions, Eastern Park, Ebbets Field and the Coliseum. Ebbets Field was the home from 1913 to 1957, and it is the park most associated with the Brooklyn era.
Where to go next
If you want the club story in order, begin with the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers, then compare the division's ballparks and eras in the histories of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres. For the club's current record and next game, use the Dodgers team page.