‘Something wonderful’: The tributes behind Dodger Stadium’s fan cutouts (2024)

The face that flashed across the screen hit like a thunderbolt. The ESPN camera showed Brody Stevens, the brilliant comedian and baseball fanatic, smiling with his mouth slightly opened and proudly wearing his grey “818-LA” T-shirt. He was seated by himself on the field level slightly reclined, looking like a guy who was thrilled to be watching his hometown Dodgers play their rival San Francisco Giants on Opening Day at Chavez Ravine.

But this was no ordinary Opening Day. It was the first night of baseball in a pandemic-shortened season that has forced Major League Baseball to play its games without fans for the first time in history. And even if fans had been allowed into the stadium that night, Stevens would not have been there. After a long battle with mental health issues, Stevens, 48, had tragically died by suicide 17 months earlier. Though his presence at the game that night was confined to an enlarged cardboard cutout, social media exploded with joy.

“This might be the only good thing about COVID baseball,” comedian Rhea Butcher tweeted.

“Miss you,” former MLB pitcher Dan Haren tweeted.

“Baseball just became relevant!” comedian Doug Stanhope added.

This might be the only good thing about COVID baseball pic.twitter.com/KAeSEEpLy6

— Rhea "Defund Police" Butcher (@RheaButcher) July 24, 2020

The Dodgers are one of many MLB teams that have placed cardboard cutouts of fans around their stadium in lieu of the real thing. As of Monday morning, the Dodgers have sold 9,788 cutouts, raising $1,655,099 for the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation. The initiative has become so popular in L.A. that the club recently added an entire section devoted to dogs, cats and other animals.

When the Dodgers announced they would sell these cutouts with the proceeds going to charity, Stevens’ friend and fellow stand-up comedian Tommy Godlove knew he had to buy one for Stevens.

“I hung out with him two days before he died, and we were making plans to go to a Clipper game,” Godlove said. “He loved sports so much and was a fan of all the L.A. teams, but he loved baseball the most.”

A standout pitcher for Reseda High, Stevens received a scholarship to play baseball at Arizona State. It was there where he forged the relationships that made him an “unofficial mascot” around teams like the Cubs and Dodgers.

“He was such a positive guy,” Godlove said. “He became friends with a ton of Dodgers. After their games you’d see Dan Haren, (Justin) Turner, (Andre) Ethier, (Clayton) Kershaw and others show up to The Comedy Store to support him. Everybody loved Brody.”

When Godlove got the idea to buy a cutout, he asked his Twitter followers if any other of Stevens’ fans wanted to pitch in to purchase it because he thought it would be more meaningful if it was a group activity. A memorabilia business called Rock ‘n Pins said they would put up the money if Godlove chose the photo of Stevens and worked out the logistics with the Dodgers. Stevens submitted the photo to the team and selected section 18, which is right behind the visitor’s dugout on the first-base side.

“I picked it because of 818,” he said of the area code belonging to Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, where Stevens was born and raised.

The team does not allow people to choose the row. Godlove had no idea if he would ever see Stevens’ cutout on television at all this season. During the sixth inning of the season opener against the Giants, his phone began blowing up. Not only did the ESPN broadcast show Stevens’ cutout, but it also seemed to linger on it for a good 30 seconds during a split-screen M&M commercial break.

”Brody would have found that hilarious,” Godlove said. “And now a poignant moment brought to you by M&Ms!”

The 818 aspect of the game was inescapable, Godlove said. Stevens’ cutout sat in section 18. The Giants scored one run on eight hits. They lost to the Dodgers 8-1. “It felt like Brody did that on purpose,” Godlove said.

As for what it meant to him to honor his friend with a cardboard cutout, Godlove said it was an easy decision.

“I struggle with my own mental health issues,” he said. “Brody being so honest and open about his challenges changed my life. He touched so many people. The world needs him right now, so if his face gets shown on TV during Dodger games, we’re all better off.”

Stevens may be the most famous cardboard cutout at Dodger Stadium of a person who has passed away, but he’s not the only one. Eric Bauer purchased a cutout for his mother, Alice, who died on July 18, a week before the season began. Eric said Alice had been a casual baseball fan for most of her life but began to really get into the Dodgers in 2016. Her favorite players were Chris Taylor, Yasiel Puig and Justin Turner, but she liked manager Dave Roberts best of all.

Eric said when Alice’s Alzheimer’s began to advance in 2018, she would still mark her Dodgers calendar every day. “She always remembered every Dodger,” he said. Though her health was in decline, Alice was able to attend a Dodger game with Eric last summer and saw Walker Buehler strike out 16 Rockies and the Dodgers win with a walk-off home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

“She loved every minute of it,” Eric said. “Even though she probably didn’t remember going a week later.”

When his mother was diagnosed, Eric said he wasn’t sure what her daily routine would look like. She had lost interest in watching TV, and he worried how she would fill her time. In many ways, the rhythm of the baseball season provided her structure.

“Starting in 2017, she would call me after every game,” Eric said. “The team was so good, and she was so excited by all their comebacks and walk-offs. I love the Dodgers, too, but I can’t even explain how happy it made me to hear such happiness in her voice.”

When Eric first heard about the cutouts, he thought they were kind of silly. Then, when he realized he could honor his beloved mother who loved her Dodgers, it no longer felt like a frivolous expenditure. Alice’s cutout is located in loge section 134 on the first-base side, a few rows up from the railing.

“I will always remember the times we spent watching the Dodgers together and how much joy they brought her in the last few years of her life,” Eric said. “If there was any way she could be at the games this year, I had to do it.”

Ronnie McGee loved baseball and the Dodgers so much that he regularly took to Twitter to speak his mind during the season. “His ranting and raving was hilarious, but at a certain point we would joke that he was muted,” said Dan Nelson, a friend of McGee’s.

McGee’s death at 37 last June was sudden and unexpected, and it hit all of his friends hard. Nelson and McGee met in college at Grand Canyon University and, along with other college friends, had played in a fantasy baseball league together for the past 15 years. When McGee died during the season, the rest of the league considered taking a year off. Instead, they decided to invite an old friend named Blake, who used to be in the league, to take over McGee’s team.

Guiding the players McGee drafted, Blake wound up winning the league.

“Nobody was trying to give it to him either,” Nelson said. “Ronnie wouldn’t have liked that.”

McGee’s favorite player was Clayton Kershaw, whom he owned in the fantasy keeper league for many years. McGee rebuffed any and all trade offers for the Dodgers ace. Said Nelson: “Now Blake won’t trade him for anybody. Even if somebody offers Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, it’s not happening.”

One of Nelson’s fantasy-league friends came up with the idea of buying a cardboard cutout for McGee, and league members soon sent a flurry of ideas and pictures of McGee to their group text chain. They selected a photo of McGee in a Dodgers hat with a goofy grin. They sent it to his family for their blessing.

“They thought it was such a great idea,” Nelson said.

McGee’s cutout can be found in section 2 on the field, behind home plate just up above the dugout club.

“He was such a sweet and special guy and, man, did he love the Dodgers,” Nelson of McGee, who was born in Anaheim but spent much of his adult life in Arizona. “Losing him has been pretty tough on all of us, but doing this feels good because we know he would love it.”

When Doug Deems died of multiple myeloma on May 14, his family lost one of its most beloved members. The grieving process has been complicated by social distancing guidelines.

“We were fortunate he did not want to be in the hospital so we could be with him in the end,” Evan Deems said of his uncle Doug. “But losing a loved one during this pandemic is bad timing and really hard.”

Doug Deems and his good friend Stephen Kaufman started going to Opening Day at Dodger Stadium together in 1987. Kaufman said they each missed only one home opener during that stretch.

“We’re both big Dodgers fans, and it meant so much to us to sit together for the first game of the year to kick each season off right,” Kaufman said. ‘We sat up in the loge together for over 30 years.”

Deems lived in Pasadena for most of his life. He and Kaufman met at UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. They took summer clerkships at the same firm in Southern California as students, and both stayed on to take permanent jobs there.

When Kaufman first heard the Dodgers were doing cardboard cutouts, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. But when he realized it offered a way for him and Deems to be together at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day again (albeit in picture form), he contacted the Dodgers and asked if they would allow the two of them to be side by side once again. The organization agreed.

Because Kafuman also owned season seats in the dugout club behind home plate, the Dodgers allowed him to buy cutouts behind the visiting on-deck circle.

“They must have liked our story because they upgraded us to front row,” Kaufman said. “They’ve got Doug right on the aisle!”

Two days before Opening Day, Kaufman went to read the New York Times’ preview of the MLB season. He was shocked to see Deems’ cutout photobombing Justin Turner in the picture that led the story.

On Opening Day, the Deems family’s text chain lit up with delight as the public address announcer introduced the visiting Giants. Doug was right there in the frame. “Somebody drew a word bubble with the word “BOO!” in it over his head,” Evan Deems said.

Evan said the Deems family is so grateful to Kaufman for coming up with the idea. Kaufman said it feels good being able to honor his friend.

“The cutouts took a really negative situation and turned it into something wonderful,” Kaufman said. “We had so many laughs and memories in that stadium.”

It was never a given that Emma Fox would ever be able to attend a baseball game in person. Born at just 26 weeks on Feb. 18, 2016, she was diagnosed with both hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy. Still, she beat the odds. Countless trips to physical and occupational therapy allowed her to sit up and communicate with family.

“We didn’t want to let her disabilities hold her back,” said her father, Travis. “We wanted her to experience a normal life and go to all the favorite places (my wife) Alison and I went to when we were kids.”

Emma loved attending baseball games at Dodger Stadium, Camelback Ranch and Chase Field and going to Disneyland. In her four short years on Earth, she loved going to baseball games because she enjoyed being outside with her family and hearing the sounds of the crowd. She passed away peacefully on June 19.

Travis has been a huge Dodgers fan his whole life, while Alison, who is from the East Coast, roots for the Washington Nationals. When Travis first heard that people were ordering cardboard cutouts of loved ones who passed away, he thought it would be a great way to honor Emma and also have her represent her parents and three younger siblings at Dodger Stadium this season.

“It’s such a cool remembrance of our little girl,” Travis said. “And if the Dodgers win the World Series, I think we get her cutout back!”

David Kussin attended Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, but he didn’t use his seat that much because he stood the whole game. “My dad rarely, if ever, bragged about anything,” his son Michael wrote in an email to The Athletic. “But if there was one moment in Dodgers history he always talked about being present for, it was the Kirk Gibson walk-off home run.”

David, a longtime season-ticket holder, took Michael and his daughter Sarah to countless Dodgers games while they were growing up. “My dad had to be the American dream of Dodger fans,” Michael wrote. “He worked hard to (earn the money) to allow himself to watch the games from where he wanted to.”

Michael said when he was a kid his father had season seats with friends just up from the Dodgers’ dugout on the field level, where he and Sarah could interact with players and try to snag foul balls. David moved his seats behind home plate where the scouts sat and he even got to hold the World Series ring of a Yankees scout that got passed around his section. A few years ago, he shifted into what he thought were the best seats in the stadium: section 15, row E — just behind the owner’s box between home and third base. He especially enjoyed seeing Tommy Lasorda in those seats every game, Michael said.

David was notorious for running out of gas on the way to Dodgers games, Sarah said, and when the 76 station in the center field parking lot at Dodger Stadium stopped selling gas, it caused a bit of a family crisis. His nephew Sam Kussin-Shoptaw said David always bought a double margarita from a stand behind left field on his way into the stadium. Sarah said he joked with people who sat with him that they could do anything but order the garlic fries, because garlic fries reminded him too much of the Giants. The only other rule he had was that his group could never leave a game early.

David died suddenly and unexpectedly in Los Angeles during the National League Championship Series in 2018 while the Dodgers were on the road in Milwaukee. He was buried in his grandfather’s Talit, a Jewish prayer shawl. He also was wearing his 2017 World Series hat, Dodger blue Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops.

His devastated family decided to attend Game 3 of the 2018 World Series at Dodger Stadium a few days later because they knew he would have wanted it that way.

“The first game I attended with my brother after his passing was the 18-inning game,” Sarah wrote in an email to The Athletic of the Dodgers’ 3-2 win over Boston that lasted seven hours and 20 minutes. “We obviously could not leave early.”

The friends who shared season tickets with David purchased his memorial cutout. It is located in section 13, across the aisle from his old season tickets. Michael says his dad was a “selfless fan,” always giving his seats to his children’s friends without expecting anything in return except for them to have a good time.

“In my opinion the coolest thing he was at Dodger Stadium for was the 1988 World Series — which he attended every game of,” Sarah wrote. “But if he were still alive he would tell you the coolest thing he ever did in that stadium was watch games with friends and family.”

(Top photo: Kirby Lee / USA Today)