Before I Leave for Paris, I’m Taking a Long Last Look at Some of My Favorite Los Angeles Haunts, Part 1.
A Filipino-Americana baseball story about Blue Heaven on Earth.
I’m leaving my hometown of Los Angeles very soon to live a fresh life in Paris, France. There’s been a lot of things going on pour moi, this Filipino-American from Alhambra, California, by way of Flushing, New York. Los Angeles just isn’t my Los Angeles anymore. For that matter, America just isn’t my America anymore. I’ve been thinking that maybe it never was.
If you’ve read my past stories here on Medium, you’ll know that I’ve recently been jarred awake by the ah-ha moment realizing that I’ve been drinking the kool-aid of the American dream all my life. To top it off, my mom recently passed away, and suddenly, I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I never realized that for my entire life, I was carrying the burden of obligating myself to nurture a difficult symbiotic relationship with my mom. As such, I’m feeling a bit more free to live my authentic life. I’m leaving most of my past behind when I head to Paris, except for my cat Maddey and what I can carry in two big pieces of luggage. I’m going for a bit of the minimalism thing, but I’m struggling a little bit with what I should take to Paris with us.
Before I leave America, I’ve been visiting some of my old Los Angeles haunts. I’m not necessarily being ceremonial about these visits. Part of it is just being able to go out again after being locked out of my favorite places for over a year. Part of it is showing my Los Angeles to mon bon ami, Antoine Breton, a lovely and whimsical Parisian gentleman who, with his family, recently moved to Los Angeles from Shanghai. I’m leaving for Paris as he’s coming to LA, so over the last couple months, as the self-crowned Ambassador of Los Angeles, I’ve been giving Antoine my L.A. Magical Mystery Tour. This town is massive and it can eat you alive and take your soul, especially if you don’t know how to navigate Hell-A, and I don’t want that for him. I’ve been blessed with a few Parisian friends who have helped me navigate Paris, so helping Antoine is also my tip of the hat to them. More than this, however, I see all of it more accurately as a transfer of command of sorts, like when an Army general finishes his tour of duty and passes his unit on to the arriving commanding officer, in this case, a new Ambassador of LA, someone who will take care of my old town, unlike the far too many transplants who want to rape and pillage Los Angeles.
Today, I showed Antoine my favorite place in Los Angeles since 1979, the baseball cathedral in Elysian Park known as Dodger Stadium. I recently caught a Dodger game with him and his two kids. We approached Dodger Stadium coming from the parking lot towards the back of the stadium, the same way I did as a wide-eyed 10-year old laying my eyes on this majestic palace for the first time. Forty-two years later, I felt the same shiver in my soul that I did the first time. Dodger Stadium is and will always be a magical place for me (not counting the McCourt years).
As soon as we entered the gates, Théo, Antoine’s 10-year old son, who was born in Beijing and is of French and Chinese ethnicity, went straight for the souvenir stand and got himself his very first Dodger hat. He looked quite handsome in it. He wasn’t obvious with his excitement, so I’m not sure he recognized what a magical moment it was to be at Dodger Stadium, home of the 2020 World Champions. After we got to our seats, Théo asked me if the Dodgers had beaten China or Japan in their path to become world champions. I had to smile. “Nope, they sure didn’t,” I said with a smirk, anticipating the quizzical look and the next question he was going to ask me.
“Then why are they called the world champions?” he asked, right on cue.
“Because this is America. We are the world,” I quipped.
Watching Théo and his sister Émilie take in their first major league baseball game reminded me of my own first visit to Dodger Stadium, way back in 1979. It was my mom who brought me to my first ever Dodger game. It was against the Chicago Cubs and we sat in the cheap seats in right field. My mom, who had immigrated from a small province in the Philippines, had probably been in the United States all of twelve years. Except for watching me play baseball for one little league season in Hawaii, baseball wasn’t part of her life, but she took me to a game anyway.
Why my dad didn’t take me, I don’t remember. It makes sense, though, that my mom took me instead of him, because my dad was that kind of Filipino dude from Pangasinan who was more into cock-fighting, mahjong, gambling, and dabbling in other women to want to take me to a Dodger game. A major reason my family left Hawaii to move to Los Angeles in 1979 was because my mom wanted to pull my dad away from his old town Filipino homies, all of whom found their way to Honolulu from Pangasinan and inspired (enabled?) him to get into beaucoup trouble.
Anyway, my first time to Dodger Stadium, as my mom and I were walking in from the parking lot, I remember being in awe of its grand presence, particularly the backdrop of the multi-colored wedding cake-like seating tiers and the two big, tall, iconic polygon-shaped scoreboards that make Dodger Stadium so unique. (Fun fact: the state of the art square Mitsubishi video board arrived the next season in time for the All-Star Game. For 38 years, this square board towering over the left-field bleachers disrupted the perfect symmetry of Dodger Stadium, so I’m happy to see they’ve finally corrected the problem.)
At one point in the seventh inning, with the Pirates leading 1–0, Théo observed, “it must be so disappointing to lose in front of everyone…?”
I was only 10 years old, but having taught myself to keep score back in Hawaii listening to Vin Scully on a transistor radio, this was the first time I kept score at a major league baseball game. There wasn’t a lot of offense, however, and I was way too young to appreciate the art of a pitcher’s duel or good glove work, so in the fifth inning, bored out of my mind and making too many mistakes in my game program, I interrupted my mom, engrossed in a grocery store romance novel, and nudged her to buy me a mini bat and my first Dodger dog.
We didn’t have too many memorable moments, my mom and I. I started to get misty-eyed, remembering all of this. Théo snapped me back to the present with another question, his first Dodger Dog crammed into the corner of his mouth. “Who is number forty-two?” he asked, referring to the statue of one of the most famous, historic baseball players in history.
“That’s a statue of Jackie Robinson,” I told him.
“Why do they have a statue of him?” he asked.
“Because he was the first black player to ever play major league baseball.” Théo was utterly confused.
“There was a time they didn’t let black players play?”
“Oh yeah,” I lamented. This idea, this notion, that fundamentally and morally, black people during one long point in time weren’t allowed to play major league baseball, was surreal to him. Like the idea of aliens living on other planets.
“So he was so good they had to let him play?” he surmised.
“Something like that.”
As I do in fulfilling my role as Ambassador of Los Angeles, I wanted to show Théo a memorable time. During the entire game, he asked me a ton of questions, and while it disrupted my game watching (remember — while I wasn’t being necessarily ceremonial, I was still experiencing deep sentimentality about my favorite L.A. haunt), I answered every single one, because kids want (and need) to be heard. They need to have their questions answered, and I, myself, didn’t get this satisfaction as a kid. I grew up in a home surrounded by a lot of closed-mindedness. Any yearning for exploration beyond the parameters of parental rules and their narrow-minded points of view were mostly regarded as childhood extravagance. It was a literal fight to look under rocks and explore or go down rabbit holes for pure curiosity’s sake. Curious questions about anything were met with stern backlash, because those questions were interpreted as scrutinizing their parenting, being stubbornly resistant, or violating God. All I wanted was clearer answers.
Théo asked how the scoring worked and how the strike zone worked. He was curious about the finer aspects of the game, but more so about human existence, like the way I have always been. At one point in the seventh inning, with the Pirates leading 1–0, Théo observed, “it must be so disappointing to lose in front of everyone…?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because there’s so many people watching,” he said. Clearly he hadn’t seen or experienced any bottom of the ninth inning moments in his young life, I surmised.
I took an iPhone video to capture this moment and when I showed Théo, he was disgusted. “I look too yellow,” he said. “Yellow is the color of pee,” he continued.
“Yeah, but it’s also the color of sunshine, bro,” I countered.
I was taken aback by this little 10-year old who was keenly feeling that the color of his skin made him feel different, because it’s the 21st century and I guess I’m naive to think that we’ve evolved significantly since I was 10 years old, a time when my mom would chide us for being in the sun too long lest we be too brown. I felt a very connected empathy for him, as someone who has suffered through my own cultural schizophrenia my whole life: I’m American, but I’m brown, so not quite American; I’m Filipino, but I bleed red white and blue, so not quite Filipino, either. Théo is a special human being and he doesn’t even know it. The kid knows two or three languages, for chrissakes. I wondered if the French or Chinese influence from his parents may have contributed to the pessimistic stance for which he seemed to have a more instinctual propensity.
Ten minutes after Théo’s observation about the impact of losing in public, in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Dodgers came roaring back. Billy McKinney hit a home run to tie the game. An inning later, Max Muncy hit a home run that would eventually be the game-winner. When the crowd erupted upon the Dodgers taking the lead, fist bumps were made with strangers seated all around us. Truly communal. I was thrilled that the Dodgers came back to win, but I was more thrilled that Théo saw first-hand the existence of a come-from-behind victory; that maybe he’d see that these sorts of things were indeed possible, not just in baseball but in life, which might soften his stance on being resigned to lose, but I wasn’t sure he noticed.
I don’t remember the result of my first Dodger game, but the Dodgers probably lost (the ’79 Dodger team wasn’t a good one). I seem to recall going back to the parking lot a bit dejected. My mom and I had many of those kinds of bland moments in my life; that’s probably a contributing factor as to why I left home when I was eighteen.
As an immigrant from the Philippines, mom was more concerned with satisfying the obligations of my basic survival. This is what our relationship was often like — she was only obligated, rarely interested. My first time at Dodger Stadium wasn’t anywhere close to Théo’s first time.
The Los Angeles Magical Mystery Tour I’ve been giving Antoine has been filled with these types of moments that bring me back to my own childhood, my twenties, my thirties, even my forties; often, they’re moments that continue to challenge my old ideas of America, and yet, they are also moments in which I witness the fresh eyes and ears of Antoine and his family taking in my L.A. stories with awe and fascination, filling me with a pride for my hometown the way the Parisiens share their unique and candid experiences about theirs.
Unexpectedly, Théo wanted to stay until the last out, which was quite surprising given the well-known reputation of fans who tend to leave the game early to supposedly beat the traffic. I mean, only real Dodger fans stay ’til the end.
When the game was over, we all hung out in the parking lot and talked until we were practically the last cars in the 16,000+ car parking lot. Théo could not stop talking, which I suppose meant he was not only genuinely excited about his first ever Dodger game, but that maybe the Dodger comeback victory did give him hope.
I was happy to see Théo giddy. I hope when there are moments in his young life when he gets pissed at his dad for some transgression against his wishes, that he will remember that Antoine gave him his first Dodger game experience. I had initially only invited Antoine, but he was very thoughtful about inviting his kids, acutely recognizing that the kids’ first game at Dodger Stadium had all the potential of being a significant cultural and American moment to experience. My first Dodger game wasn’t that memorable, except for what I’ve mentioned here. I remember feeling like I forced my mom to take me to the game. She wasn’t interested in cultural or social development. As an immigrant from the Philippines, mom was more concerned with satisfying the obligations of my basic survival. This is what our relationship was often like — she was only obligated, rarely interested. My first time at Dodger Stadium wasn’t anywhere close to Théo’s first time.
Still, I got bit by the Dodger bug. A few weeks after attending my first game, I wrote a letter to Tommy Lasorda, the Dodgers manager at the time, asking him for an autograph. Having mapped out how long it would take for the Dodgers to get Mr. Lasorda’s autograph and mail it to me, I must’ve checked the mailbox everyday for three weeks. A few weeks later, and I will never forget this, I opened our compact-sized mailbox at the bottom of the apartment building stairs and saw a brown envelope with the Dodgers logo stamped in the return address corner, peeking out of the box. I was as close to exploding as a 10-year old could get, but I didn’t want to blindly rip open the envelope, so I had to calm my 10-year old ass down. I gently peeled the sealed flap open using my index finger as letter opener and pulled out an 8x10 photo of Tom Lasorda, inscribed, “To Vince , a future Dodger, Tom Lasorda.” It was in his very own handwriting. I’ve been bleeding blue ever since. All because my mom brought me to Dodger Stadium for the first time. I have to give her credit for that.
In the massive purging of belongings that I’ve undertaken to reduce my footprint before heading off to Paris, I found my photo of Tommy Lasorda. Interestingly enough, even as the faithful fan that I’ve been for over 42 years, I’ve never, ever, put it up on a wall. But I think I’ll bring Tom Lasorda to Paris with me and Maddey. Truthfully, I don’t have a lot of good stories to tell about Mom and me, but when my Parisien friends ask me about Tom Lasorda hanging on the wall of my petite apartment, I’ll tell them about this one. C’est ça.
