It was a long day in Chavez Ravine, a ninetyfive degree Sunday afternoon in the middle of October. A distinctly Los Angeles brand of fall. Sun was low but still too high, beating down indiscriminately upon the stadium and the lazy brown hills in which it’s situated. The landscape is essential to the magic of Dodger Stadium, the way Elysian Park bleeds easily into semiurban sprawl beyond the outfield as the San Gabriels loom, stoic and large. One gets up to buy a beer as the game heads into the bottom of the fourth — always the bottom of the inning, never the top, so that one does not return to one’s seat to find that bad things have happened — and one is struck, gazing east across Chinatown, Boyle Heights, Vernon, by the gentle approach of twilight, the orange lights of the city especially bright against a pinkpurple sky. It is so lovely, so simple and quiet and generous, one is not even disappointed to find the bottom of the fourth has turned to the top of the fifth, that Addison Russell has sent a Rich Hill fastball into the stands in left field to give the Cubs of Chicago a lead of one run to none.
And the order of things is quickly corrected. Charlie Culberson, filling in for Allamerican Allstar Corey Seager, doubles to center, advances to third on a Chris Taylor groundout, and comes home on a Justin Turner single. The game is tied one to one. Cody Bellinger walks and Jon Lester is done for the evening, one hundred and three pitches thru four and two-thirds innings.
Already these names feel eternal, as synonymous with Dodger baseball as the logo itself. This is how it goes, living with a team for the ages; even the most inconsequential roleplayer assumes titanic status. I can attest firsthand, having grown up during the last true golden age of purple and gold basketball. As Slava Medvedenko and Devean George will be with me to the end of my days, so too will Andrew Toles and Rob Segedin. These are replacement level players, if that, bits of baseball twitter trivia, yet they are as vital as Kenley or Kershaw. They are Our Guys, ballplayers loved by us and no one else.
So the battle of the bullpens begins, a slow, terribly tense game of chicken. True playoff baseball, a test of will — who blinks first? Insofar as this Dodgers team has had a weakness, it has been relief pitching. Pedro Baez was personally responsible half the September swoon himself, when the golden boys of July and August got the yips and dropped sixteen of seventeen. That was a real bad trip, each day’s loss as certain as each day’s victory had been four weeks prior. The end of the season proved far more tense than it had any right to be, the Dodgers not locking up home field advantage until the very last week. Arizona’s victory over Colorado in the play-in game portended disaster, possibly; they had won the season series with the Dodgers 11–8, had shellacked them six separate times during the autumnal nadir. But sure as October is a different month, October baseball is a different game. The Dbax went quietly thanks in large part to a sharp Dodgers bullpen — Morrow, Cingrani, a revelatory Kenta Maeda. A bit of magic back in the air.
The Cubs would be another matter entirely. A better matchup than the Nationals to be sure, but still fearsome, their lineup full of big bats made all the more hatable by how likable they are. Twelve months ago these same players sent the Dodgers home in this same series. A game one victory guaranteed nothing beyond a slightly lighter psychic weight.
The sun set behind the stadium, the field lit up, the air remained thick into the evening. Several rows in front of me a drunken thirtysomething in a Rizzo jersey celebrated every Dodgers out too loudly, standing to holler at the crowd around him. The crowd hollered back. The Cubs fan seated next to me watched the game as I did, buzzing silently with terror and anticipation. I searched for reasons to dislike him and found none.
Sixth, seventh, eighth, no action either way. Brandon Morrow, Josh Fields, and Tony Watson took care of business. Chicago’s relievers kept pace. I remember no particulars beyond a slightly elevated heartrate and a right foot constantly taptaptapping. “California Love” hit at the top of the ninth and Kenley jogged out of the bullpen in left field, gold chain bouncing around his neck as he made his way to the mound to face the heart of the Cubs lineup. Bryant went down swinging. Rizzo went to first a pitch later after taking a ball to the shoulder; up in the reserve section the air got thin, momentarily. Then Contreras struck out swinging and Almora ground out to shortstop. The day previous he had sent a fastball into the bleachers, the fifth in two postseason starts for Kershaw. Not tonight. The stalemate held.
It was textbook storybook from there. Puig, our batflipping, pinetar licking hero, walked to first. Culberson advanced him to second and Dave Roberts went all in, pulling Kenley and inserting Kyle Farmer to pinch hit; who would pitch the tenth was a question for later. Farmer struck out swinging and we were back to the top of the order with two outs. Maddon left Wade Davis in the pen — closer don’t hold games, they save them — and brought in John Lackey to play fireman. Laconic Dodgers beatwriter Andy McCullough tweeted it would “probably work.”
Chris Taylor made his way to first after Lackey threw a ball in the dirt on a full count. The entire stadium was on its feet as Justin Turner approached the plate. Two pitches later “I Love LA” was blaring.
It was just game two. It’s just the NLCS. There are miles to go. Even if they win it all, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But there will always be last night. I will always be bouncing, shouting, screaming along with tens of thousands in the heavy night, my father beside me, my sunglasses left forgotten in the cupholder as we hike up and out of the stadium making optimistic prognostications about the next two weeks of baseball. Dodger Stadium will always be there, a landmark for generations of Angelenos. So too will the Dodgers themselves. This team, tho, is mine.
