Los Angeles County has 14 area codes. Not zip codes, area codes. (It has 320 zip codes.) Its population is larger than that of 42 states, its area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. It has two mountain ranges, five rivers, two deserts, six major valleys, and a boundary that runs 70 miles along the Pacific Ocean. Its 88 incorporated cities make for a decentralized power structure: No Tammany Hall or James Michael Curley calls the shots or doles out patronage. Only three things are common to all of Los Angeles: choking traffic, cloudless skies, and the Dodgers.

Since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1958, and since Dodger Stadium opened in 1962, roughly 3 million people have attended games every year, perennially the most in the National League and 33 percent above the league average. That means, over the course of a season, a million more people go to Dodger home games than to games in other National League parks, even though Dodger Stadium has remained essentially unchanged for 55 years. For most people in Los Angeles, especially those born after 1958, it is impossible to imagine Los Angeles without the Dodgers.