Inside Elton John’s final show at Dodger Stadium: Here are the stars who attended his goodbye
This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
LOS ANGELES — The lights went up Wednesday and the first bell rang as the Dodgers took the field to honor their biggest star.
Not many people knew it at the time, but on the night of January 14, at the end of a season full of sorrow and heartache, Elton John and his entourage were standing together in the visitors’ dugout, one last time in Dodger Stadium. The final time they would play together in the same stadium. John’s life changed after this final game, where he lost his wife, Pattie, and his grandson and future son-in-law, Ryan White. “The night wasn’t easy for anyone,” said John, the only man to ever be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. “But I had such a good time …”
This was John’s final game, for his retirement. Dodger Stadium, which John purchased for $40 million in 1995, was where he had started out as a kid. John and his family also attended games in Los Angeles’s Chavez Ravine, where they attended every home game as a young couple. He was so obsessed with baseball that he decided there was no better place he could retire than the Dodger Stadium he’d bought in 1984.
And that’s when he learned the stadium wasn’t ready for his final game. It did not have luxury suites, it did not have a rooftop — and it didn’t have a roof over his head. (The stadium now has one, thanks to a $100 million taxpayer-funded improvement.)
“When I saw