The Dodgers have the best record in baseball. They just finished a sweep of the San Francisco Giants, their great rivals. i caught two of the three games on TV. Each game was a one run victory. i don't think i've ever seen the Dodgers sweep a series with San Francisco, although i'm told they did it when Pac Bell opened.

Now my best friend Betty, who grew up here, is needling me to be a Dodger fan. i'm also feeling the pressure from Scof, way over there in Texas. But you know the Dodger-Giants rivalry is bigger than you or me or anyone. It's been going on for 100 years! It just might be the most heated rivalry in all of sports. It's certainly up there with the Yankees-Red Sox, the Raiders-Broncos, or even the Celtic-Rangers rivalries for longevity.

Still, i've never really been a big Giants fan. i always followed them, but i grew up in Oakland and i'm really an Athletics fan, if you wanna know the truth. i still remember vivdly one of the greatest, and most disappointing, events in all of sports history: Kirk Gibson's two strike, two out, pinch-hit walk-off homer, bottom of the ninth inning, game one of the 1988 World Series, off ace reliever Dennis Eckersley, to spur the Dodgers on to upset my A's for the World Championship.

Can i forgive them? Well, they're in different leagues, so i can conceivably root for both my A's and the Dodgers. i do like a team with history, and the Dodgers have that. So, now that i am a resident of Los Angeles, i will give it a try. And it helps, too, that i have Odalis Perez, Guillermo Mota, and Adrian Beltré on my fantasy team. Go Dodgers!

That said, there's no way they deserved to win today. How the hell do you pitch to Bonds with first base open, when he's doubled and homered already against the same pitcher? What kind of Jim Tracy brain fart was that? i could see if Gagne were on the mound, but Jeff Weaver? Come on! The Dodgers were lucky to escape with a one run win today.

Posted by: annika at 06:50 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Well, Annika, I'm an As guy, and I was at Cal when Kirk Gibson hit that damned home run and broke our collective green n' gold hearts. But I have no particular brief for the Giants. I rooted for the A's in the quake series of 1989. And I have gradually come round to the Dodgers; it was Mike Piazza's rookie season in 1993 that did it for me. I don't care much for baseball, of course, so it's easy for me. It's not like I am being asked to switch from Cal to Stanford, or Celtic to Rangers, or the 49ers to the Rams, or Newcastle to Sunderland. Those would be hard. Blithely adopting Dodger Blue is easy. Oh yeah, and Go Sharks GO!

Posted by: Hugo at April 18, 2004 08:08 PM (TOkNs)

2 The Dodgers? The team we love to hate; it seems we're getting to be a lot like the Cubs fans, doesn't it? We all ridicule them, then go out and die with them. I've been ready to give up my primo four field box seats in aisle 6 for the last five years, but somehow when renewal comes around, my masochistic self won't let me just tear up the piece of paper. Maybe next year? (Don't ever believe they can stay where they are now with the crap pitching they've got, especially Weaver)

Posted by: shelly s. at April 19, 2004 05:16 AM (rZmE1)

3 Isn't it amazing how much stock we put into what teams we root for? I caught myself trying to frame an argument for not rooting for the *spit* Dodgers. LOL Raiders. Sharks. Giants. Yay!

Posted by: Ted at April 19, 2004 07:12 AM (blNMI)

4 Oh happy day! go annika and go dodgers!

Posted by: Scof at April 19, 2004 07:48 AM (XCqS+)

5 Yes, Dodgers-Giants is definitely one of the great rivalries, but nothing else comes remotely close to the Sox and the Yankees: that's metaphysical, on a whole other plane. Unless you're a part of it--unless you've melted into the mob at Fenway or, um, that other place somewhere in the Bronx--you simply cannot understand. It is NOT pretty. It's really quite scary. But that said, Dad's from Brooklyn, and though he never forgave them leaving, he still couldn't hate them for it. Go Dodgers! I'll take my Sox over them in the World Series if it comes to that (and my adopted state's Marlins in the NLCS), but for now I can have my cake and eat it too.

Posted by: Dave J at April 19, 2004 01:01 PM (VThvo)

6 Go Dodgers!! #$%@ the Giants. The A's are a respectable team that you can be proud of, even though the pitchers don't hit.

Posted by: Steve S. at April 19, 2004 09:26 PM (AT2MA)

7 See what I mean annika? Dodger fans have no class.

Posted by: Ted at April 20, 2004 07:14 AM (blNMI)

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