For all of you that might be interested in meeting your favorite Dodger player or celebrity on the turf at Dodger Stadium, your wait is over – The dodgers will be auctioning off opportunities to participate in the Dodgers-Hollywood Stars event on June 21, immediately proceeding the Dodgers – Indians game at Chavez Ravine.
The event, benefiting the Dodgers Dream Foundation, will allow fans to take on an honorary role for the game – be an honorary photographer, an honorary coach, or an official Hollywood Stars batkid. Additional auction winners can read the celebrity team lineups or take the field with a celebrity at the start of the game and receive their autograph. Every package winner also gets four baseline box or field level tickets to the Dodgers-Indians game. For those of you with families. many of the experiences are open to adults and children regardless of age. Bidding is now underway online and will continue until 2 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, June 17. Go to http://www.dodgers.com/ticketauction for full details or to place your bid.
Celebrities scheduled to be in attendance include Christian Slater, David Arquette, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Van Der Beek, Sean Astin, Tom Arnold, Garry Marshall, Cristian de la Fuente, George Thorogood, and many more. Over 30 sports, music, and acting stars will be involved in this event – all for a great cause. In addition, the game will be hosted by popular E! personalities from E! News and The Daily 10 and will feature special performances by the Blue Man Group.
The event actually dates back 50 years when the Dodgers were making the move from Brooklyn. Legendary singer Nat King Cole and some of his Hollywood pals thought it would be fun to have a celebrity baseball game before the new team in town, the Dodgers, played a game that actually counted in the standings. They set up the event (then at the Los Angeles Coliseum) and the event became a regularly scheduled promotional event for the team. While the game used to be played with a baseball (but is now a softball event), there is still a lot of competition amongst the stars for bragging rights.
From the Dodgers organization:
Founded in 1998, the Dodgers Dream Foundation (DDF) was created to provide educational, athletic and recreational opportunities for the youth of the Greater Los Angeles community. In 2007, the Dodgers and the Dodgers Dream Foundation assisted more than 5,000 local youth organizations by renovating baseball fields in the community, through player appearances, and by donating more than 100,000 tickets, autographed memorabilia, donation of used equipment and much more. Last season, the Dodgers Dream Foundation affected an estimated 250,000 local youth through its various programs.