Watchdog

I did a lousy job during my vacation of collecting sports-related blog material, other than the guy I overheard at Disneyland telling friends he just had run into Rodney Peete and his wife, Holly.

I did take a tour of Dodger Stadium, though. I would have preferred a game, but the Dodgers were in New York and I was in L.A.

The tour ($15 for grownups, $10 for kids) was so-so, lowlighted by a 10-minute infomercial on the team's plans to modernize the stadium without tearing it down.

(As opposed to what other teams have done, which the Dodgers' video pointed out not-very-subtly by showing a picture of old Yankee Stadium.)

But Dodger Stadium itself is a gem, from its setting and views to its elegant simplicity.

One thing I found interesting was that for all the grief the Yankees take for the concrete moat surrounding their most expensive tickets, the Dodgers have one, too.

It encloses a premium area created by squeezing the distance from home plate to the wall behind it, and by moving the dugouts farther into foul territory.

Don't worry, I won't bore you with the rest of my L.A. area adventures. That's what Facebook is for.

One thing, though: I did notice the traffic hadn't eased up since my last visit in 1980.

Photo: Getty