The traveling correspondent comes home

Adric and Michael Elizondo make it back to Dodger Stadium for the first time in three years

I confess that I did not intend or plan on going to Dodger Stadium at any point during this World Series. I have done my fair share of traveling and writing for True Blue LA this season, so this bonus field report is my final act of the year, apart from a summary year-in-review essay.

As we have covered extensively here, the tickets for the World Series were just too damn expensive for the average person. Moreover, considering the state of the World Series at Game 5, had the Series come back to Los Angeles, it would have been an unprecedented screw-up.

Needless to say, the Dodgers won and were on schedule to boot.

While we have had excellent coverage at True Blue LA regarding the long-overdue festivities, first, let us enjoy the new Guide bumper I made for Dodger Stadium.

As I am the de facto Traveling Correspondent, I find it odd but not unwelcome to put on my home whites. I do not judge fans who wear home whites to stadiums other than Dodger Stadium. I am governed by compulsion unless I try to troll the Anaheim, Arizona, San Francisco, or San Diego fanbases.

While watching everything unfold, I felt as if I had stumbled into a family reunion watching groups of fans who clearly know each other celebrate in the revelry. Frankly, I am not used to being surrounded by this many Dodger fans.

For five years, Dodger Stadium was not my home ballpark. Oracle Park was my “home” ballpark as a consequence of living in the Bay Area. Before the parade and rally festivities, I had not been at Dodger Stadium since September 15, 2021, and I had not driven to Dodger Stadium since the regular season finale in 2017. As to why I had been away so long is a raw topic for another day.

Seeing everyone be joyful, from the fans to the players, I realized that I felt differently, but to understand why, we have to go back.

The long winding road

I must confess that, based on my prediction about the Dodgers, I was slow to jump on the Dodgers’ postseason train. With the last two playoff debacles in mind, I had a simple philosophy: I was not going to watch anything live until the Dodgers were at risk of elimination or on the verge of a clinch over the San Diego Padres.

As an aside, Resident Alien is actually pretty good as Alan Tudyk is just eating all of the scenery. Naturally, I watched Dodgers/Padres highlights after the fact but I followed my mantra of avoiding things that I knew would stress me out.

Once Game 4 of the NLDS arrived, I watched it all live and frankly, I was a bit shocked. The Dodgers did something they had not done since 2021: get off the mat. And there was much rejoicing.

From that point on, I was watching every pitch live on streaming. Apart from some shenanigans involving Brent Honeywell, everything was fairly straightforward, even with the parallels to history and the sweet sorrow of saying farewell.

Where things went sideways in this story was Game 5. Once the Yankees had built up a 5-0 lead, the old, justified playoff PTSD kicked in and I did something I had not done since the regular season: vent online, order dinner, and turn off the game in annoyed disgust.

Since it was Wednesday and I had forgotten my normal television watching with the World Series, I decided to watch Shrinking on AppleTV. Season 1 was a heartful, delightful poignant meditation on grief. The currently-ongoing Season 2 is a cloying, saccharine imposter where everyone has been Flanderized. The theme song is quite good though.

A funny thing happened while I was fuming and watching Shrinking in the other room: the top of the fifth inning happened. I was completely oblivious to it because I was watching actor Michael Urie sap my will to live. My phone was going nuts with notifications about the game, which I ignored because I was annoyed.

At the episode’s end, I finally, finally looked at my phone.

I was stunned. I then had a totally normal thought: should I just re-watch the episode of Shrinking again? Realizing that said thought was nuts, I decided to watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” for the first time in years.

At this point, while watching the Peanuts special, I saw that the Yankees retook the lead via the MLB Gameday app.

Using that opening as an excuse, I raced to go grab dinner, come back, and watch just what the heck had happened in the fifth inning, which I did with great delight while woofing down Kung Pao chicken from Panda Express.

When I returned to the live feed of the game, it was to watch Max Muncy strike out on a cookie sweeper to end the top of the seventh. The rest of the game played out like we all remembered, rising blood pressure and all.

In any event, I returned to what I usually did while watching games: banter on the True Blue LA writers’ Slack chat. The Slack chat at the end of the game was just Estevão and me bickering about bullpen usage and differences between the domestic and international feeds of the game until Big Game Buehler decided to strike out Alex Verdugo in a bit of poetic irony.

Having Walker Buehler close out the clinching Game 5 was exactly and clearly how the plan was written up at the start of the playoffs.

In 2020, I remember feeling joy and just an overwhelming sense of relief and catharsis as I silently wept with my then-better half while watching the Dodgers’ ultimate victory. This time I just felt disbelief and shock, which have not worn off.

I had written the Dodgers off as mostly dead to start the postseason as there was a narrow path to glory that would need a mixture of luck, savvy, and managerial moxie to navigate, a golden path to the promised land.

Against everything that recent history dictated, the Dodgers made it.

An “interloper” returns home

With all of the above emotional soup in my head, I managed to get a decent seat at the rally at Dodger Stadium. I woke up to leave around 5 a.m. to make the three-and-a-half-hour drive to Our Blue Heaven. I finally realized that I felt like an interloper, not entirely deserving of the joy everyone else seemed to be feeling.

Even with the lingering shock of everything, it was good to meet up with friends before and after the festivities. I even got to meet Eric Stephen in person for the first time. One of the most common questions that I had never been able to answer when I am on the road is “What is Eric like?”

My common answer was “I don’t know. I’ve never actually met the man!”

Truth be told, what you see on Twitter is what you get with him and, in a lot of ways, me. For some, the rally and parade were the release of long-delayed emotion regarding this current incarnation of the team.

For me, it felt like the giant robot that had been made finished the job with a busted arm, a missing leg, and the substitute’s substitute’s substitute piloting the mecha. Heck, Shohei Ohtani literally played Games 3 through 5 with one arm, which has mercifully been corrected.

While everyone should pat themselves on the back for this year, the next campaign is upon us. Travel dates are to be set, and even if there is a moment of current happiness, its effects are temporary, and it is time to get more happiness. On that note, Mom wants to go back to Dodger Stadium for the first time in over 30 years for her annual birthday trip this year.