The Red Sox spring training game against the Dodgers in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on March 29th sold out all 90,505 tickets within one hour on Saturday.

The Coliseum was the home of the Dodgers after they arrived from Brooklyn in 1958, and the Sox-Dodgers game will be the first time baseball has been played in there since the Dodgers departed for Dodger Stadium after the 1961 season. Well, make that the first time real baseball has been played there -- the Coliseum was set up in various configurations to play the role of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, Washington, D.C.'s Griffith Stadium and even Fenway Park for the 2001 HBO film 61*.

There were a whole host of peculiarities about the Coliseum- which was converted from an Olympic venue to accommodate baseball. From ballparkwatch:

Dugouts, three banks of lights and a press box were added. Because of the orientation of the diamond, there was a ton of space in foul ground down the left-field line, but very little space between the right-field line and the bleachers.

The baseball diamond was crammed into one end of the stadium, resulting in a left-field line measuring only 250 feet. A 40-foot screen was constructed to counter the intimate dimensions, but it didn't do that much good: the balls flew out of the park because of the intimate dimensions. In fact, the disparity between home runs hit to left and home runs hit to right field was staggering. In 1958, 193 home runs were hit in the Coliseum -- 182 to left, 3 to center, and 8 to right.

Below is a photo of the Coliseum showing the funky outfield fence- and here's a little more on that fence:

Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick ordered the Dodgers to erect a screen in left field to prevent pop flies from becoming home runs. At its highest point at the foul pole, the fence was 42 feet high. The cables, towers, girders and wires were in play. Frick originally wanted the Dodgers to build a second screen in the stands, 333 feet from the plate. A ball hit to left would have to clear both screens to be a home run. However, the state's earthquake laws barred construction of a second screen.

Unable to compel the Dodgers to fix the situation, the major leagues passed a note to Rule 1.04 stating that any ball field constructed after June 1, 1958, must provide a minimum distance of 325 feet down each foul line.