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Los Angeles Dodgers

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond.

When Dodger fans ceased to dodge the Brooklyn trolleys and started to dodge traffic on the notorious Los Angeles freeways and finally started a local custom of leaving the ballpark early to beat the traffic. Dem Bums went to Hollywood and left behind the respected Ebbets Field. He was considered as very small by owner, Walter O'Malley and wound up in the stadium which was considered by many as the best ever built. It became the most successful sports franchise ever fielded, setting the season attendance record for many times. Los Angeles sustained the Brooklyn tradition of appearing in all the NL, National League playoff by winning in 1959 and losing in 1962 and 1980.

The 1990s proved to be a series of ups and downs for the Dodgers. It even changed the ownership after the O'Malley family's control for roughly 50 years. The Dodgers won a division title in 1995 and a wild card playoff tie up in 1996, but it was the first decade since the 1930s in which the ballclub did not make a World Series appearance. The Dodgers set a club record for home runs with 211 which was led by Gary Sheffield who tied Duke Snider in the single season club mark of 43 home runs. For the other straight season, Sheffield hit better than 0.300 with minimum 30 home runs, 100 RBI, Run Batted In, 100 walks and 100 runs becoming the first Dodger to do so for two times.

The Dodgers finished the 2005 season with a score of 71-91 which was their worst record from the 99 loss season of 1992. They came in the fourth place for the initial time since 1993. They were 5 games behind in second place on September 15 but lost 12 of their last 16 and ended 11 games behind the Padres. After the best start in franchise history with 12-2, the roster was decimated by 24 disabling injuries and the club used 20 rookies.

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