Let's do it again

 

I was out of town for a few days visiting my daughter.

 

She and her boyfriend have a new apartment, which is charming but very small, just like the last one. Housing is brutal for young adults these days. Because of that, mom and dad get a hotel room for the weekend.

 

That's where I saw the Dodgers finish off the Mets in the NLCS (and Juan Soto's HR ... gag). I turned on the hotel TV for the first time in years. The last big baseball event I remember watching in a hotel room was the All-Star Game in 2010. I hope the cheering Sunday didn't wake the neighbors.

Oddly, my daughter is now a faithful Dodger fan. She's not interested in sports hardly at all, but I guess all those games I watched while she sat in a chair as a teen not caring, had an effect. She got into the Dodgers around the time of their Series trip in 2017. She doesn't watch the games. Like most people her age, she gets an update on instagram or TikTok and she's good.

But she knows enough to be approaching the upcoming Dodgers-Yankees World Series with trepidation, just like her dad.

 

 

That's my girl. ... This is very familiar stuff. Very, very familiar.

I didn't grow up in a rooting bubble. I didn't grow up in California, so I didn't have a legion of fellow rooters cheering for the Dodgers with me. And I didn't join the Yankees cult in New York. I picked my own team .. and paid for it in 1977 and 1978 ... and benefited in 1981.

I was there for each of those Series -- 1977 is the first World Series I remember wanting to watch (the '75 and '76 Series were just on). It's been 43 years since these two teams met for the championship (so why all the social media whining about "boring"? Rangers vs. Diamondbacks is boring). 

In 1977, I received my first taste. I was 12. I had developed a dislike for the loud and brash Yankees and their fans during the regular season and wouldn't you know it, my team and THEM met for the title..

 

The Dodgers were known for their own loud and brash manager, Tommy Lasorda, in his first full year, and for the first quartet of 30-home run hitters in Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Dusty Baker and Reggie Smith.

I didn't watch very much of the series -- there were still mandatory bed times in the '70s -- so I missed out on much of the grief. I remember being pained about Reggie Jackson's three home runs (but not being surprised that they came off of Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa and Charlie Hough) and outraged by the out call on Steve Garvey at home plate in Game 1.

1978 was a rematch even though I rooted vigorously against it. The Yankees just squeaked in by knocking the Red Sox off in a special playoff on a home run by Bucky Dent (about the time that I started thinking the game of baseball was rigged toward the Yankees). I was 13.

 

Given that the Yankees were clearly the better team in 1977 and maybe not quite as tough this time and that the Dodgers were playing them again, I hoped this would be the Dodgers' year. But no. There was lots of voodoo in this series. The Yankees coming back from two games down, Reggie Jackson's hip, Graig Nettles playing out of his mind in the field and Dent and Brian Doyle (who?) getting hits whenever they wanted.

 

Another 4-2 loss for the Dodgers. I saw more of this series than the first one, but I still missed Bob Welch striking out Reggie Jackson in Game 2. Mostly I heard about it the next day by my school mates in the hallways ... and they weren't Dodgers fans.

 

 

 In 1981, I was 16. And here we were again. Even a mid-season strike and strange configuration of playoffs could not prevent the Dodgers and Yankees from meeting again. It was the 11th total meeting between the two.

But things had changed a little. Both the Dodgers and Yankees fell off in 1979. Then each team was denied in the postseason in 1980. George Brett's home run off Goose Gossage was heard up and down our house. Ding dong, the witch is dead! But both teams returned for the third time in five years.

The Dodgers returned with new players like Fernando Valenzuela, Jerry Reuss, Jay Johnstone and Pedro Guerrero. The new Yankees included Dave Winfield and ex-Dodger Tommy John. This time, the Yankees won the first two games, then the Dodgers won the next four. It was exhilarating. Game 3 Ron Cey hit a three-run home run. Game 4 was a wild daytime romp, highlighted by Johnstone's pinch-hit home run. In Game 5, Reuss out-pitched Guidry in a classic duel and Cey was beaned by Gossage. Then the Dodgers rolled as the Yankees fell apart in Game 6 after John was removed from the game.

Finally. I had something to cheer about. But there was no one to cheer with me. I went to school the next day, with all the Yankees fans, yelled "Let's go Dodgers!" at a few of them, and got stared at blankly.

 

I bought as many commemorative books about the Dodgers and winning that Series as I knew existed. I got the Series program. That's how long ago the last meeting was, books and programs were a big deal and the way of chronicling what you just saw.

So now we're here, at the 12th meeting. I'm almost 60 now. I still follow baseball and the playoffs, even if there's some of it I don't understand (but have come to terms with much of it).

I have a support group now. In person, it's my wife and daughter. But there's online support as well that there wasn't 43 years ago. I now know Dodgers fans, which I can't say I did when I was a youngster.

Still it's overwhelming Yankee-rooting near me. And for my daughter, too. Many of her co-workers are Yankees fans, including her immediate boss (who is nice, she had to add). But the Monday after the Dodgers clinched, she walked into the work place wearing a Dodgers shirt (she's as determined as they come). Her boss said, "we can't be friends for the next two weeks." Fine, I said, who wants to be friends with a Yankee fan?

I still don't know what it's like to live in an area that is filled with fans of the team you love. Except, I guess, when I lived in Buffalo when the Bills were just starting to get good, but that was nothing like the Bills love now.

How do I think the Series will go? I'm the wrong person to ask. I didn't think the Dodgers would get past the Padres (but I knew they'd probably beat the Mets). The Yankees didn't impress me too much most of the season. They've gotten better and a lot of that is Soto. I'm hoping the Dodgers can exploit the Yankees' weaknesses, but the Dodgers have weaknesses of their own.

All I've known of Dodgers-Yankees World Series is that they go six games. So I'll say another six-game series. But I'm not predicting a winner. Rooting is stressful enough.