9.26.00 LOS ANGELES DODGERS vs SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
Today I got a call from my friend Sean, he of the Dugout Club connection, who was trying to unload a couple seats for tonight’s Dodgers–Giants game. Hmmm, lessee here…lame duck Dodgers…division champ Giants…three home games left…all the free Dodgers dogs I can eat…oh, alright already! I’ll go!
As I’m doing my best to make sure I get a chance to see everyone I’ve
ever known here one last time before leaving them all behind forever, I called
up my old high school chum Brian whom I typically run into once every six
months, on which occassions he invariably showers me with unbelievably sordid
stories detailing what he and our former classmates have been up to. It’d
been about that long since our last meeting, and about fifteen years since
our last Dodger game, so he ended up the lucky recipient of the Dugout Club
Plus One award.
Dodger Stadium, late summer. Absent was the damp and chill of the other night,
and gone too was the funereal atmosphere. Maybe because the hated Giants were
in town, maybe because the Dodgers had won ten of their last thirteen games,
maybe just because nobody gives a shit anymore; whatever the reason,
tonight the mood was light, informal, festive. A good crowd—almost 44,000—had
turned out to see Darren Dreifort match up against Russ Ortiz, some of them
perhaps remembering what happened the last time Dreifort faced the Giants
here, when we were all treated to free donuts.
Our station was no less glorious than before. Right on the field, directly
behind home plate, the great sweeping horseshoe of the stadium framing the
sky above us, the familiar sights seen now from this privileged vantage point
seeming all the more beautiful. Up in the pressbox Vin Scully leaned out from
his post, smiling, chatting with an unseen interlocutor. Out on the field
Vic “The Brick” Jacobs, local sports radio court jester, in his
customary hippie/burn-out/freak garb, haranguing the suits and no doubt cursing
his “Hated Ones” at every opportunity. I could not help but be filled
with a sense of the transience of the moment, of my place in it.
Dreifort, the days until his free-agency dwindling, was magnificent, allowing
just two hits through seven complete innings. Early in the game, the man to
whom it unfortunately falls to re-sign him, the real Hated One, that
smarmy, reptilian, fork-tongued, two-faced, cloven-hoofed, ice-cream-eating
rat motherfucking bastard Kevin Malone, the man who has done as much to destroy
this team as anyone, cost a dozen less-deserving and less-responsible men
their jobs and yet somehow, still, inexplicably, sits there wearing that idiotic,
transparent, inhuman half-smile beneath his failed, cop, Nazi moustache—Kevin
Malone, I’m trying to tell you, came and sat down in the row in front
of us. The guy was five seats away. I could have killed him. Walked right
up and wrapped my hands around his skinny neck. Or at least have gone over
and told him what I think of him. Spat a half-eaten Dodger Dog in his face.
I did none of these things, of course. It was too nice a night, and I was
thinking about coming back Thursday for the last game of the season. So I
let you get away, Malone. This time.
In the meantime the Dodgers were pounding the hell out of Ortiz. Gary Sheffield
tied his career best with his 42nd home run of the year, then walked in a
run two innings later. Tommy Goodwin went four for five, and Mark Grudzielanek,
Shawn Green, Eric Karros, and Todd Hundley all drove in runs. After the pinch-hitting
Kevin Elster sent an eighth inning, 1–1 pitch from one Chad Zerbe sailing
over the wall in deepest center, it was 9–0. Not exactly what Sean, No-Cal
native and lifelong Giants follower, had in mind when he invited me.
Of course, Sean had the last laugh, even if he hadn’t so intended. As
we filed out through the concourse, it only then occurred to him to tell me:
“Oh yeah, I forgot—Heather’s dad quit his job.” I could
only stare at him. That was it, then. No more Dugout Club.
FINAL SCORE: DODGERS 9, GIANTS 0
MEMORABLE HECKLE: No question, the rousing choruses of “DO-NUTS! DO-NUTS!” directed at relievers Mike Fetters and Terry Adams in the final innings made it clear to them exactly what was on the line as they protected Dreifort’s victory.
