Let's Go Dodgers?

To those who think that sounds too much like writing, just think about the Larry Sanders scene where Hank says “penis vagina” over and over, because that’s what I’m thinking about. 

I’m sitting in a dark apartment looking out a window I didn’t think to close and practicing guitar. It’s dead dark outside, quiet, no traffic. I could be in Wichita right now. I could be in Arkansas. Banging on an F chord and thinking about Hank Williams. Not because I’m moody but because I’m wondering how common two dollar bills ever were in Alabama. The only one I ever got I got from Disneyland. 

A gunshot. Another gunshot. One last gunshot. Maybe from the house next door. So I’m probably not in Wichita. Then a firework goes off across the street. Then three more. So I guess I’m in Los Angeles. The Dodgers just won the first game of the World Series.

I go outside for a cigarette and listen to distant cars merrily driving way too fast and honking their horns a bunch, strangers in the apartment complex down the street hollering like crazy. It must have been a good game. There’s way more hollering than the last time they were in the World Series. I go back inside and watch an Orson Welles documentary and that’s the day done.

To those who think that sounds too much like writing, just think about the Larry Sanders scene where Hank says “penis vagina” over and over, because that’s what I’m thinking about. 

Nobody’s surprised I never took to sports. Didn’t have a favorite game, didn’t have a favorite team, but my dad was in a better mood when the Chiefs were up so I like the Chiefs and bought the Los Angeles Times when they won the Super Bowl. I also enjoyed that game a few years back where they scored 51 points and still lost. I never took to sports but I’m a complete sucker for somebody racking up too many points at something on the TV, don’t care what it is. Watching the odometer roll over is like drinking a good domestic beer and watching stuff like that is like blowing angel dust.

Lately I’m trying to figure out what went sideways: what the hell is wrong with the electrical wiring in my brain that I never liked sports? I remember playing baseball maybe once as a kid, being sweaty, the smell of dust and body odor and the parking lot. And I remember being on a football team, playing whatever position allows you to be 6 foot 3 and do nothing. The other kids yelled sometimes and said I wasn’t good. One time a kid scored a really good touchdown while his pants slowly came completely off, and everybody laughed, so I figured it must have been the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I liked tennis but I sucked at it.

That’s all fine. It’s a type. But as I get older the more it bugs me. That experience and life trajectory is probably why I don’t like being in groups. I like being invisible in crowds but I never want to be part of anything. I was in the mosh pit at an Iggy & The Stooges show once and felt it a little bit during Search & Destroy, started to get it, understand how it could feel awesome, but I never really followed up on it. If I could have figured out how to be part of something, maybe I would have finished school or danced when I got married. Maybe this whole fucking bullshit would stop being such fucking bullshit. Oh well, too late. 

But the wanting is still there. I don’t want to go dancing but I want to want to go dancing. I want to be a baseball fan so bad. A lot of my favorite writers are huge baseball aficionados, and the early days of itinerant dirtbag baseball sound amazing. The history is rich and nuanced, it’s the history of my country as I know it. The stories are unreal. It’s an epic, but I never bought a ticket. I don’t get it and don’t know where to start. I understand a guy swings a bat and runs around some bases. I understand another guy catches it. There’s guys in a dugout and at least one old Irish guy smoking. Everything I know about baseball I know through Looney Tunes or Bad News Bears. 

I try fairly often. I keep up with news about the Dodgers so I can talk to people who aren’t me. Memorize names and learn the stories and talking points, but I have no idea what I’m talking about. Foreign language. I love the Dodgers though, and hate the Yankees for some reason. Geography I guess. Going to Dodger Stadium is a profoundly pleasant experience. Feels innocent and virtuous. Nobody can talk shit about you for going to a baseball game. It’s one of those things everybody agrees on as being fine and good. I teared up when Vin Scully retired and cried a little when he died. I loved that guy. I knew the significance, the impact he had on peoples’ lives, how many people can chart their careers concurrently with the Dodgers. An anchor for a billion memories. The thing that brings your brain back home.

If you can speak baseball in Los Angeles, you can make it in Los Angeles. It’s gonna be okay. Your mind will be occupied and you won’t think so much about dying. Won’t feel too alone. Baseball can fill any space in your head needs filling. That’s amazing, an absolute wonder drug. It doesn’t even necessarily cost money. And I can’t get there.

Last night I watched the game at some pizza joint. There, I watched Shohei Ohtani play baseball for the first time in my life. He hit his arm weird. Maybe hurt his shoulder. Then the game was over. Lots of people said woo and fuck yeah and all that stuff. Felt good to be part of it. Somebody said something to me and I guessed that I should say “man, it’s not over yet. That was rough for Ohtani. Gotta wait and see,” so I said it, but had zero idea what it meant. The alternative was saying “I know nothing about baseball,” so then the conversation is stupidly about me and the guy just turns back to his beer. 

Felt good as hell to be there though. Had no place else to be and otherwise I’d just sit on the sidewalk and play the New York Times spelling bee and get mad for the hundredth time that “elote” isn’t a valid word. But I knew I wasn’t there, not really. No sporting event could ever get me to shoot a gun in the air.

Sports are a VIP lanyard for participating in society. Keeping your feet on the ground. Part of the planet. Gets you in almost anywhere. The antidote to dead air and having nothing to do. It’s a glorious thing. Used to think I hated sports but I’m actually just mad at myself for never learning it. If I ever have a kid he’s gonna know all about the lanyard and he’s gonna know who he believes in (Mahomes), who it’s proper and Christian to support (Dodgers), and exactly what the devil looks like (it’s actually gonna always be Bill Belichick, I’m not blind). If he’s anything like me he’ll feel ripped off if he doesn’t. So I’ll whoop and holler and I’ll say it with confidence and joy: Let’s go Dodgers?