Again, at last: World Champs!
the Dodgers finally win it all
I swear, I was convinced this would never happen again in my lifetime. The past few years had been so brutal, but this team not only had the most talent in MLB, they had the most belief. The greatest determination. They were not going to let this get away. And they didn’t.
So we get to exult in it: the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers are the World Series Champions. In a year from hell, it’s a heavenly feeling.
Which, of course, this being 2020, is already being undermined by the Justin Turner story, but I’ll leave that for now.
I’ve not been able to write about this series the past few days; it was just a bit too much to bear. I think I was turning off the tv as the Rays scored in the bottom of the 9th; that was just too horrible to witness. No way was I going to revisit it by writing about it. But now that it’s done and dusted, I can turn to the real reason I started this publication: to write about what makes me happy being a fan of the Dodgers, Leeds United and the Portland Thorns. (And now and then some cricket, too: Somerset and England. I did live in the UK for five years back in the day.)
October 15, 1988; I was married with a two-year-old son and my wife pregnant with our second. As game one of the World Series moved into the bottom of the ninth inning with the Oakland A’s leading 4–3, Dennis Eckersley set to close out their win, I had my son on my lap to comfort me. Then Kirk Gibson did his thing, I just jumped and hollered, scaring Alex and making him cry. The rest of my awestruck celebration was a lot quieter.
That was just about half my life ago; I was two weeks from 33 then and turn 64 in two days. Not as bad as being a Red Sox, Cubs, White Sox or Giants fan, of course, but none of those teams have gone through the kinds of heartbreak the Dodgers have subjected their fans to over the years. All that’s water under the bridge, dead history.
Today, we are world champs in what is easily the most difficult season baseball has even gone through. That’s a level of satisfaction that will last long after the happiness fades.
And yet: this is 2020. Last week, Jerry Jeff Walker died — cancer, not covid which had killed one of my all-time favorites, John Prine earlier this year. 220,000 Americans have died of covid, and more are going to continue to die unless we can get Biden into the White House and start real preventative work nationally. I want to be delirious about this championship, but I just can’t.
It’s 2020; of course even this wonderful moment is undermined. The stupidity around the reaction to Justin Turner doesn’t help, either. I think this is going to be a championship that is less about that moment — Uriás getting the final out, the dog pile, the trophy — and more about being able to look back and remember: Yes, in that year, my Dodgers were the team to get it done. They were, beyond any doubt, the best team.
And this time, no injustice, no heartbreak. This time, the trophy.
I’m listening to Jimmy Buffett right now, on shuffle, and this is the song I’ve got, and it’s perfect:
I just wanna live happily every after, every now and then.
Damn straight.
