8.13.04 CHICAGO CUBS vs LOS ANGELES DODGERS

Thank you Frank McCourt and Dan DePodesta. Your efforts have made it possible for me to sever the last remaining vestigial cord tying me to my native southern California. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.

I was upset at first, I’ll admit. I’d been enjoying this season, enjoying the Dodgers’ successes, enjoying rooting for such a likable team.

I was stunned when I learned of the trade that sent my favorite player, my favorite Dodger, Paul Lo Duca, to the Florida Marlins in a foolhardy and ultimately unsuccessful bid to lure octogenarian Randy Johnson away from his air conditioned tomb at the bottom of the NL West.

I was stricken at the loss of a player whose fortunes I’d followed since his days as a minor leaguer, a player who more than any other in recent memory epitomized the values that characterized a once-great Dodger organization: loyalty, selflessness, humility, grit.

I grew furious as the implications of the trade sunk in, the full extent of its mind-boggling stupidity. Pooh-pooh the chemistry issues if you choose; do not, however, underestimate the intangibles that a talented catcher brings to the field everyday, and his very real influence on the success of a pitching staff. (It no doubt made terrific financial and statistical sense to the moneyballers in Oakland to send away Ramon Hernandez last winter. But don’t tell me it was a coincidence when the erstwhile “best rotation in baseball” mysteriously started sucking ass and now a team that had dominated its division for four years finds itself in a dogfight with the Texas fucking Rangers.) Nor should Lo Duca’s versatility in the field and production from anywhere in the order be discounted. And yet they sent him away, along with Guillermo Mota, an a-hole, to be sure, but an integral part of the bullpen that’s kept the Dodgers in first place all year, and for what exactly?

Best-case scenario: landing a three-month lease on the Big Mullet and a return visit from the never-loved and little-missed Charles Johnson, a guy who wouldn’t be batting his weight if he weren’t playing at Coors Field.

Reality: getting stuck with a damaged Marlins pitcher and big-bopper Steve Finley. Great.

So, like I say, I was not happy. But disappointment sometimes brings with it a certain clarity. And it was now that I began to recall details that I’d glossed over in recounting my earlier visit to Dodger Stadium, troubling items regarding our new team in the owner’s box, photogenically tan billionaire Boston developer Frank McCourt and his equally photogenic wife. Widely held suspicions about the McCourts’ long-term plans for Chavez Ravine. Restrictions, downright Foxian in their severity and insensibility, on Nancy Bea’s organ playing. And, just a couple days prior to my visit, a publicly announced investigation into the idea of a Dodgers mascot. “We’ve found that two thirds of the teams in the major leagues have one,” McCourt cheerfully pointed out, plainly oblivious to the fact that this might be something stooped, rather than aspired, to. (Widespread ridicule in both the local and national press killed the plan, mercifully.)

As I pondered these and other portents, my indignation gave way to resignation. My heart had been broken, I now realized, for the last time. In the days that followed, however much I might’ve wished the feeling away, I simply could not be bothered to check the scores before going to bed. The Lo Duca-less Dodgers no longer mattered to me, at all. The cap hanging from my closet door was no longer a symbol, but merely a cap, nothing more. Some might ridicule such sentimentality. It’s exactly this mind-set, they say, this attachment to vague and obsolescent ideals, that makes for perpetually mediocre teams. Losing Lo Duca might be sad, but winning solves everything, and the Dodgers are finally making dramatic moves to better themselves. McCourt and DePodesta are to be applauded for their audacity.

But here’s the thing. Fandom, to me, is not exclusively about the desire to win. As important is feeling good about the team you’re rooting for. When your team is competitive, that certainly helps. When they’re kicking ass, it’s terrific fun. But it’s also fun, and perfectly satisfying to me, rooting for a third-place team that’s playing way over their heads, especially when that team is as likable, hard-working, and admirably team-like as the Dodgers had become over the last few seasons. Blowing up such a team in a bid for blockbuster free agents, on the other hand, is the sort of thing that neither nurtures my loyalty nor wins my sympathy when the deal goes bad.

If we’re really going to dismiss any notion of fandom informed by sentiment, if we’re really going to become so cold and calculating in our fandom as to embrace any change that might bring about a greater possibility of winning it all, my question to Dodger fans is this: What exactly is the difference between you and a Yankees fan? Just what is it you’re rooting for? Championships? Then why not just become a Yankees fan?

It’s a funny thing – well, no, it’s a sad and awful thing when that with which you’ve most identified, most aligned yourself, that which you’ve loved over a period of many years becomes unrecognizable to you. And it’s a terrifying thing when, as a result, you find you’re no longer recognizable to yourself. Having learned my lesson in such matters, I’m doing a difficult but critically important thing. I’m cutting my losses.

I’m getting out now.

I bid you good luck, my former fellow Dodger fans. May you enjoy your run. Enjoy the countless beach balls, enjoy the never-ending waves, enjoy the Hollywood-worthy buzz as the lamest city in sportingdom gathers itself up and hops on the bandwagon. Enjoy the vinyl Dodger flags that will sprout from the windows of every Exhibition and Escalade, enjoy the sight of your gallant McCourts hoisting the trophy, enjoy subsidizing your new downtown ballpark next to the Staples Center, and enjoy the views from the City Walk–like abomination that will one day sit atop Chavez Ravine. Enjoy rooting for the Lakers of baseball, you sorry douchebags.

Sorry I can’t make the trip with you.

FINAL SCORE: Who cares?

Peter Hughes

 

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