DODGER STADIUM BECOMING SCARY PLACE THESE DAYS.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

I no longer want to take my children to a Dodgers game. How very sad is that?

My childhood was filled with memories of sun-kissed afternoons at Dodger Stadium, eating a grilled Dodger Dog, cheering Sandy and Don and Maury. Seated next to my uncle, Steve Ferraro, his transistor radio at his side, everyone seemingly transfixed by Vin Scully's every word. It's the kind of memories you want to share with your children when you become a parent.

Only now that my three sons are old enough to truly appreciate that particular experience, I am uncomfortable taking them to Dodger Stadium. Where profanity in the stands has become more commonplace than a team pennant. Where the tone is often less good-humored than confrontational.

Where fights can break out. Stadium equipment can be vandalized. Offensive chants are routine. Where cups and bottles and food and other objects are thrown on the field.

Where there is just a tone that feels slightly threatening.

That feels like a place where it may not be wise to take your family.

And how very sad is that?

My youngest, 9-year-old Eric, struggled with the idea of a summer without visiting Chavez Ravine.

``We're not going to any more Dodger games?'' asked Eric. ``Not any kind of games? Not even if they're in the World Series?''

Still in my possession is a $12 field box ticket stub from Game 3 of the Dodgers-Yankees World Series at Dodger Stadium. That was me in Aisle 48, Row R, Seat 10. Sat there frozen as Joe Pepitone flied out to Ron Fairly on the warning track in right field, seemingly right in front of me, for the final out in Don Drysdale's masterful three-hit, 1-0 victory.

I was 11 years old. What a great time. What a special memory.

How joyless to think if such a moment should come again, I would hesitate to have my sons there to share it.

Dodger Stadium remains the most beautiful ballpark in America. I've probably watched a thousand games from the press box, and still I sit there and marvel over its unique setting.

It's a place that offers a singular family experience, something to be shared.

Yet for the past several years, the fan atmosphere has seemed to slowly deteriorate. More and more there appears a gang element, a macho tenor that has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

It has become most underlined with the dismal outcome of the team's well-intentioned $2 Tuesday promotion. It seemed like a wonderful idea. A chance for fans to see a game inexpensively, and for the Dodgers to fill pavilion seats that otherwise might go unused.

But for every parent trying to take his family to enjoy a ballgame, there seems some would-be thug intent on causing havoc. Almost as if the hooliganism common internationally at soccer games has found a home at Dodger Stadium.

Raiders fans, or at least the infamous ones who became synonymous with ruining the NFL experience at the Coliseum, are reincarnated as supposed Dodgers fans.

Only these aren't Dodgers fans at all. Many seldom even seem to watch the game. They're too busy throwing something, making an obscene comment, yelling sexual comments at young women, playing craps, trying to act tough.

There have only been two of these Tuesday promotions, and attendance was down almost 14,000 for the second one last week.

Although the bleachers are the most glaring aspect of rowdy fan behavior, it is far from limited to the pavilion.

Last year I sat in almost the exact field box seat where I had witnessed that 1963 World Series game, and was shocked at how many of the fans conducted themselves.

If you sit there with a child, how long can you try to act oblivious to the offensive language? It's not as if it's only hurled at players. Wear another team's jersey and it's an invitation to trouble.

Much of it is good-natured, but much is not. Those people aren't fans, they're punks. They're ruining the fan experience for others and don't care. Some act like that's their goal.

These are not your father's Dodgers fans. They have spilled throughout much of the stadium, to almost every area where season tickets haven't been sold. And the season-ticket seats are not immune to this element, either.

Don't tell me the fan base is simply reflective of the greater Los Angeles community or it's a societal problem or it's just as prevalent at other sports venues.

The problem is not unique to Dodger Stadium, but locally it is most glaring, most disconcerting at Chavez Ravine. And it's a growing problem.

Attendance continues to boom at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers lead the National League at 46,210 per game, second in baseball only to the Yankees.

Yet I doubt I am the only one put off by the unruly behavior. It's one thing to witness the mayhem of Tuesday and be scared out of the bleachers. It's another to be leery of a box seat.

Stadium security cannot be everywhere. But every observed instance of a fan throwing something - on the field or at another fan - should warrant an immediate ejection. Every fan who utters a single profanity should be automatically ejected. There needs to be a zero tolerance policy for bad fan behavior.

The Dodgers are living large right now, but ultimately there will be many who not only hesitate to attend games at Dodger Stadium, but who actually stay away.

Then, maybe like me, they'll look elsewhere for a family-friendly baseball environment, a new place to discover and share new memories.

Like at Angel Stadium.

And for the Dodgers, how sad is that?

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Photo:

These fans at a recent Dodgers game are having fun, but it seems more fans are intent on causing mayhem.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer