Tony Scott and Gary Templeton, 1979
This photo is all about the colors. Dodger Stadium has been utilized in pictures for years because the seats were painted different colors and it’s like five levels. This was years ago, of course, but one section was red, one was yellow, and then they had the blue dugouts. I had gotten there once to photograph the Phillies because they had blue uniforms and their bullpen area, and their dugouts are a beautiful shade of blue. But then I realized St. Louis’s uniforms were perfect. So, I went back to Los Angeles and just waited for something to happen. I just sat in the dugout and these guys sat down there, Scott and Templeton, completely disinterested in me with their perfect uniforms and the high red stirrups. It’s one of my favorite pictures.
The dugout was a place where you didn’t have a lot of time before you got kicked out, so the biggest challenge was finding something that worked because they don’t sit there that much. They go out, they practice, they go to the locker room. So, this had to be close to almost the start of the game and then they throw you out.
People like this photo, I think, because of the colors and the faces. I mean, maybe you take a picture like this once in your life, maybe. It was shot on Kodachrome. All my photos, at the time, were shot on slide film, including Fujichrome in the following year.
Most of my best baseball pictures, nothing is happening. I mean, it’s true. They’re either standing around a batting cage. They’re in a dugout. The best baseball pictures I’ve taken are of people just standing around, or sitting, in this case.
