PHOENIX — You enter the Dodgers clubhouse and the only thing missing is a red carpet and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Everywhere you turn, there are All-Stars. There are MVPs. There are future Hall of Famers. And there are living, breathing legends.
There are days this spring when there have been nearly twice as many reporters and camera crews as players.
When players walk onto the field at their Camelback Ranch spring-training complex, thousands of fans are waiting to take pictures, asking for autographs, or simply shrieking once they get a glimpse of their favorite player.
It is Showtime in spikes.
“It’s something, isn’t it?’’ said Lon Rosen, Dodgers executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “We’ve always had stars here. We’ve always had a buzz.’’
Rosen looked around, smiled and said, “Just nothing quite like this.’’
Shohei Ohtani has made the Dodgers the epicenter of the baseball universe.
Ohtani is not expected to make his spring-training debut for another week, and Japanese pitching star Yoshinobu Yamamoto won’t make his first start for another four days, but the Dodgers’ spring training home opener Friday afternoon against the San Diego Padres is expected to be a sellout.
The Dodgers’ popularity is so immense that 82% of the tickets sold for this game are from out-of-state visitors.
Just wait until the regular season when the Dodgers might sell 4 million tickets for the first time in franchise history, despite playing one fewer home game at Dodger Stadium because of their two-game series in South Korea on March 20-21.
“There’s such a big focus on Shohei,’’ Rosen said. “He’s a national treasure in Japan, and he’s a huge, huge hero to the U.S. fans. And he’s a good guy.
“You just see the amount of media attention he gets. It’s like going to a movie premier with all of the reporters and photographers. And he handles it so well. He can focus with all of this noise around him.’’’
The Dodgers have had about 20 meetings with Japanese corporations since Ohtani signed, and every office they stepped into, there were reminders of Ohtani.
“We would go to see the chairman of these companies and they had little shrines of Shohei,’’ Rosen said. “They had pictures. They had autograph balls. He’s a very, very special personality in Japan, and beloved here as well.’’
The Dodgers, spending $700 million of their $1.2 billion in expenditures this winter on Ohtani, have created the most hype around a team entering spring training since the New York Yankees’ dynasty a quarter-century ago.
And it only skyrocketed Thursday after the Dodgers routed the Padres, 14-1, in their Cactus League game at the Peoria Sports Complex.
The Dodgers scored eight runs in the first inning against co-ace Joe Musgrove and two other Padres pitchers. It took 25 minutes before the Dodgers even made the second out of the inning.
The partisan crowd of 8,677, which broke into a “Let’s Go Dodgers’’ chant just nine minutes into the game, expect the same onslaught to continue for the next six months en route to their first World Series parade since 1988.
“That was a lot of fun,’’ said former MVP Mookie Betts, who will move permanently to second base this season. “But I mean, it’s a spring training game. If we didn’t score, it would have been another story. It’s cool, but these games don’t really matter. We just need to prepare ourselves and get ready for Korea.’’
Still, the Dodgers provided a glimpse of what could be in store for the rest of their season, knowing that wherever they go, whoever they play, they will be the star attraction.
It resurrects the days of the Lakers dynasty with the likes of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Byron Scott and company, says Rosen, Johnson’s agent since 1987 and the Lakers’ former director of promotions.
“Those guys were rock stars traveling around the country,’’ Rosen said. “It’s great to have that…
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