Friday, September 28th, 2007...9:07 am
Thanks anyway, Big Blue
Though my Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles were mathematically eliminated earlier this week, the 2007 baseball season will officially put an end to our misery on Sunday when the Blue Crew finish out their 162nd game of the year against the San Francisco Giants.
Though this season started out full of hope, with many fans and analysts picking a Dodgers-Angels World Series, only eight teams not named after Brooklyn’s now-disintegrated trolley system will continue into the playoffs. LA, currently 80-78, will go home and regroup for next year.
I’m not going to analyze the Dodgers’ season over what went wrong. I’m just going to think about a time when my favorite baseball team WAS magical.
It was 1988, a season that should not — could not — have happened. The Dodgers won 94 games in a year that started with a first-pitch homerun by Steve Sax and ended with Orel Hershiser on the mound in Oakland. That was a year when the names Mickey Hatcher, Tim Belcher, and Mike Scioscia took on mythical meaning. When the number 59 became synonymous not just with Orel’s record scoreless streak but became as ingrained in my memory as 755, 56, and .366.
Game 1 of the World Series, of course, featured the greatest moment I have ever seen.
Down 4-3 in the 9th inning against a powerful A’s team, Kirk Gibson came up to bat with the tying run on base. He could barely walk. He could barely swing. I was at home watching in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed as my mom yelled at me to take out the trash, staring at my 13-inch TV hoping against hope Gibby could draw a two-out walk against Dennis Eckersley, then the best reliever in the game.
My best friend Blue was actually at the game. I saw every Dodger fan, more than 54,000 in attendance, on their feet. Gibby worked the count full and then hit the most dramatic homerun in Dodgers history, belting it deep into right field as Vin Scully uttered the lines that, to this day and even as I write them, give me chills:
“In a year that has been so improbable, the IMPOSSIBLE has happened!”
Wait ’til next year.
16 Comments
September 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am
I blame Alyssa Milano.
Me .
September 28th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Not to be gay or anything, but I miss you - drinks soon question mark?
And the Dodgers suck. Almost as much as our ladies did yesterday against Brasil.
Yeah, but I’d take a 50+ winning streak any day.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:46 am
In the end, we knew it wouldn’t work with Grady Little. If we don’t re-sign Mike Lowell, there is a chance he could join the rest of the Sox out in LA.
At least now you can root for your LA footba….oh nevermind.
I really could not care less about the lack of an LA football team. The Redskins are my team.
Red Sox West is getting out of control.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Just grinnin’ baby. Juuust grinnin’.
Notice I failed to mention the bet I (surprise!) lost.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
“I don’t believe what I just saw” was pretty sweet too. You’ll always have spring?
We all do, that’s the great thing about baseball — eternal hope. Unless you’re the Devil Rays.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
So this means I get to start looking for Jeter pictures, yes?
Sadly, yes. Knock yourself out.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Great baseball moments are awesome. My Mets shoulda beat you kids that year. Stupid coke.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Kathryn; Make sure you find a good one of Wilson Betimit, too. Afterall, he’s the only guy that played for the Dodgers this year going to the post season. It’s just that he’s going with the Yankees.
Don’t encourage her. Though I doubt she’ll need any.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I know that you have your Redskins love.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Fact, the run of 51 games was pretty damn impressive. Too bad American media refused to mention the girls at all.
What the hell do we have to do to make American media get something right for once?
September 28th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
The American media could have turned themselves Dodger blue spewing complements on the women’s soccer team but the following would still be true.
1. There is so little parity in women’s soccer that had they gone 51-3 it would be a raging disappointment.
2. No one cares about women’s sports. Not saying this to be sexist. Saying this to tell the truth.
3. This is the same reason New Yorkers don’t really give a shit about A-rod one way or another.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Fact about the disparity of women’s soccer. But people DID care about women’s soccer when we hosted and won in 1999.
We are one of the dominators in global soccer for women and the American media can’t be bothered to mention it. It’s not like this is a niche game like curling or fencing, so you’d think that they would at least attempt to mention it.
Alas, no one will ever care about women’s sports if they continue to be ignored and derided.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
OMG we beat Norway! Norway is almost as good as France! France doesn’t have a coach!
I mean for real real, women’s soccer is better served by the U.S. losing this year (and poorly served by games being on at 4 - 8 am.)
If it makes you feel better, if we were global dominators in men’s soccer, no one would really give a rat’s ass either.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:33 am
It’s not like I’m a diehard advocate for women’s sports by any means, I just find the hypocrisy of the American media at large enormously entertaining and mildy infuriating. They can create a firestorm out of nothing over what they deem sexist and then report on this minute “story” ad nauseum, but can’t be bothered to discuss the Women’s World Cup.
Yet another reason why I basically refuse to read or watch any of it.
September 30th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
That’s such garbage, Hershiser was throwing spitters that entire season. Damn cheater
October 1st, 2007 at 10:36 pm
tommy lasorda rides a cockhorse
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