Coming Home to Dodger Baseball
Since 2004 I have lived in Seattle, Washington. It’s a hell of a town. Nice scenery, friendly people, a decent play by play guy. I get to watch Adrian Beltre on TV every night in the Summer and eat gourmet Thai food at ballgames. But I’m from Los Angeles.
When you move, you realize that the place you left doesn’t wait for you. Even with all that 405 construction, the wheels never stop turning in LA. Things change so that every time you come home there are less places to come home to. Less places that stay the same. My parents house stays the same. In n’ Out burgers and Tito’s Tacos taste the same. Dodger Stadium looks almost the same, smells exactly the same, and thankfully, Vin Scully sounds perfectly the same.
When I lived in Culver City I was at Dodger Stadium as much as possible. Top deck, pavilion, it didn’t matter. Just being in the stadium was enough. It still is. I was raised to bleed blue. But it wasn’t until I left that I learned to appreciate the institution that is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I realized how much of my love for the city and for the sport was based on the team. I started to care about more than just the roster, but the state of the club. The stadium, fan and player behavior, ownership beyond the numbers.
It disappointed me when Frank McCourt hired Ned Colletti over Kim Ng to be our General Manager. Not just from a baseball perspective, but from a cultural perspective. Colletti, for all his faults as an “old school” baseball executive, has been nothing but class. And perhaps more surprisingly, so has the McCourt family. Things started rough, but I’m proud of Frank McCourt. I’m proud to have an owner willing to invest in not just the team but the aura of Dodger baseball.
Wednesday I went to my first and probably only game at Dodger Stadium this year. It was the first time I’ve been to Camp Day since I was a camper. It was a midweek day game against an opponent whose starting lineup featured no players batting over .273. It was a chance to see a Cy Young candidate in the middle of a Pennant Race. It was a shame he got raked. It was a joy to watch the washouts and youngsters that seem to balance this team like polar opposites win the most exciting game of the year. It was a blast eating my free wings after the game in a Hooters full of Dodger fans.
It was good to be home.
