OK, the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles have just won the World Series, beating the New York Yankers of Yankertown 4 games to 1. Tonight’s game was exciting and could have seriously gone either way. New York got up five runs to none, and then the Dodgers just kept chipping away at them until, late in the game, they took the lead by one slim run. The Dodgers did not get those runs with homers, they just loaded the bases and got base hits and racked up RBIs. A fun game, but of course, I am biased. I have been a Dodger fan since the late 1980s, when the combination of a friend who likes sports and a personal computer that could play games intersected with the Dodgers winning the World Series in spectacular fashion combined to give me a life long love of baseball and Dodger blue.
It is true that I picked the winning team in 1988. My friend at the time even warned me that I was in danger of becoming a bandwagon fan, which was bad, or something. But then the Dodgers did OK but not World Series OK for many, many, many years. To me, they were like the Portland Trailblazers, my hometown team: they always did OK in the season, and almost always made the playoffs, but rarely made it all the way through to the last series, the NBA Finals or the World Series.
So, to prove my fandom was not fickle, I stuck with them: the Blazers, and the Dodgers. The Blazers because they were my home town team, and the Dodgers because I had to dance with the one I brung. Or, um, something.
Even though I considered the Los Angeles Dodgers my team, I had a heirarchy below them. I liked other teams, for reasons as silly and as arbitrary as any other fan. After dating Corina, I rooted for the Detroit Tigers because she was from Detroit, whenever I had a chance. I would always pick a National League team over an American League team, because, of course, pitchers should hit. Though MLB has gotten rid of that distinction between the leagues for now, I have to believe that it will come back at some point. It’s traditional.
When mom was still alive, she liked baseball, too, and so when the World Series would come around, we would pick teams. I would always pick the National League team unless it was the fucking Giants. She didn’t care who was playing she just liked being a little competitive, and it gave us a reason to chat and talk. In her final days, I did ask her if she really liked baseball, and she told me that she liked it because her mom loved it, and because I loved it, and it felt like a connection. I have no reason at all to doubt her answer.
And I never ever ever root for Seattle, or the Giants, or the fucking Yankers. Those three live at the bottom of my list and I would rather throw up the contents of my entire digestive tract twice than cheer on any of those teams. I’ll turn the game off and ignore it if they are the only ones left. Which doesn’t happen often, but, still. I got standards, y’all.
And now I can spend the winter being proud of being a Dodger fan, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with them winning. I earned it by hanging on through the 36 years of enjoyment and the attention I gave them. It was all worth it, and I am glad I have a very low-stakes but intricate thing to root for in these otherwise very dire and dark times.
Go Dodger Blue.