Dodgers are champions of fan experience during spring training

Spring training games can be hit and miss.

Lineups are unpredictable, especially in the early parts of the exhibition season. Players are built up gradually over camp, meaning Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman could be held out one day and Mookie Betts and Kyle Tucker the next. If they do play, they may be limited to just a few at-bats.

As it is, watching a game at the Dodgers’ spring training stadium in Phoenix can feel like you’re being subjected to a form of torture invented by the Romans. Because Camelback Ranch’s main stadium faces southeast, most seats receive maximum sun exposure. There is minimal shade, allowing spectators to congregate in the space beneath the luxury suites and press box.

There are better stadiums in the Cactus League. But there is none better facility.

Starting Friday, the Dodgers will once again open their morning workouts to the public for free.

Fans can enter the practice fields at 10 a.m. most days.

The Dodgers side of the complex is unlike any other in baseball. Even Camelback Ranch’s other tenant, the White Sox, doesn’t have a lineup like theirs.

While the White Sox have a tunnel between their clubhouse and practice fields that prevents fans from approaching players, the layout of the Dodgers’ facilities is designed to encourage such interactions.

To access their practice fields, Dodgers players must walk along dirt paths, with only waist-high steel barricades between them and the fans. Some players stop to sign autographs or take photos.

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There is a sense of closeness to the players that doesn’t exist in any other camp.

Crowds gather behind the backstops of the practice fields, as they do at high school games.

The players are there immediately.

Crowds are forming near the bullpen mounds.

The players are there immediately.

You never know what you will see.

A group of executives lined up near mounds on minor league backfields? Maybe they’ll see if Roki Sasaki can get back into the rotation. Or if Tanner Scott bounces back from a nightmare season.

A middle-aged man in uniform catches up with reporters? It could be a retired player in camp as a guest instructor, perhaps Andre Ethier.

Do you hear a roar? Ohtani is probably nearby.

Fans sprinting from one field to another? Ohtani could be on his way.

Tony Gonsolin once rolled an ankle on these practice fields, which ultimately led to him missing Opening Day that season. Long before that, the organization’s reigning Minor League Player of the Year broke his leg in a “B” game.

Under then-owner Frank McCourt, the Dodgers moved to this facility in 2009 from their old spring training home in Vero Beach, Florida. Due to their relative proximity to Los Angeles, they quickly set attendance records during the exhibition season.

Countless stars walked the complex’s unpaved paths. Manny Ramirez. Matt Kemp. Yasiel Puig. Clayton Kershaw. There was a time when Sandy Koufax showed up.

But no one changed the atmosphere of this place more than Ohtani, who joined the Dodgers before the 2024 season.

The crowds have grown. The number of visitors from Japan seems to have multiplied. Every training now feels like a big event.

All the while, the Dodgers side of the complex has retained its intimate charm.

In any case, McCourt understood this well.