In the context of the Los Angeles Dodgers' tumultuous 1998 season, putting pictures on their blue outfield wall barely registered as a development. But for Imagic, a digital retouching firm in Hollywood that produces key art for film and television, Dodger Stadium joined what the company hopes will be a growing stable of sports venues.
"At first they said it's Dodger tradition, it's a clean stadium, it'll never happen," said Imagic's Stacy Seitsinger, who made the proposal after producing banners for Key-Arena in Seattle for another firm.
Seitsinger said she eventually won team executives over by using images of old Dodgers taken from baseball cards. The result was a wall featuring Dodgers hall of famers and banners on interior columns and ringing the ballpark.
Imagic has also designed the Great Western Forum for the Los Angeles Kings and Lakers and is bidding for the contract at the Staples Center, where the Kings, Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers move this year.
Because of its proximity to Hollywood, there is likely to be a lot of competition for Staples.
"Everybody has their own niche," Seitsinger said, adding that Imagic is different from strictly entertainment firms. "We conceptualize it, we produce it, we install it."
This season, the Dodgers have replaced the hall of famers with a series of Dodgers heroes and — for the first time — panels for four advertisements. Three of the ads have been installed. The fourth, which now says Dodger Stadium, will be changed soon, team President Bob Graziano said.
Graziano does not expect additional ads to be sold.
"We want to maintain the feel of watching a game at Dodger Stadium," Graziano said. "We don't want to do anything to disrupt that."
The new decor was the least disruptive of the events that followed Fox Entertainment Group's purchase of the tradition-bound Dodgers in March 1998. Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, two of the most popular players, were quickly traded, and the team manager was fired during the season for the first time since the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn in 1958.
Thanks to the technology involved in adorning the ballpark, Imagic was able to help keep the trauma of the changes to a minimum. When Piazza was traded, down came the enormous poster of the catcher outside of left field and up went a new one of pitcher Ramon Martinez.
Neither Seitsinger nor the Dodgers would say how much the process for creating the outfield images cost.
