I did not go to my day job last Monday. Not because — as I have in the past — I feared for my life due to insanely violent protests in this fair city, but because of the citywide celebration of the Dodgers’ World Series victory.
All the streets and freeway off-ramps I would have normally used were blocked off to make way for the Dodgers’ parade route and to accommodate several hundred thousand rabid fans.
Watching the news the night the Dodgers won the championship also played a part in my decision-making process. People just cannot help wading into the streets to celebrate until things come to a point where buildings are vandalized, cars are overturned, and the police disperse the crowd with tear gas. It is not a new phenomenon — it happens in cities across the country, not just in Los Angeles — and it happens regardless of what sports team has won a championship.
All the celebrating does not completely soften the fact that it is not as easy to be a Dodgers fan as it used to be. Yet, I am still a Dodgers fan. Sports used to be an escape from certain vulgarities of the modern world, even if that more wholesome patina was equal parts legitimate and artifice. The reality is the Dodgers are no different than other sports franchises that are now billion-dollar businesses. They want to appeal to specific demographics and make that swath as wide as possible. A city the size and breadth of Los Angeles means the Dodgers will be celebrating Pride Nights every June. OK, so we as a family would sit that one out.
But a couple of years ago, the Dodgers doubled down and “honored” a group of men who dressed as garish drag versions of nuns. I have siblings and good friends who have sworn off the Dodgers forever since that unmitigated and vile insult to the Church, religious sisters, and common decency.
It is not that I think my brothers and friends who checked out from all things Dodgers are wrong. Because a “love” of this baseball team is a connection I have to the memory of my dad, who also loved the Dodgers, I have been conflicted ever since that incident. It does not help that before that incident, I was following in my dad’s footsteps and brainwashing my own kids about the “importance” of being a Dodgers fan. I do think if my dad were alive when this awful thing happened, he might be on the side of my siblings and friends.
My rationale for remaining a Dodgers fan is that if I demanded certain moral standards be adhered to by those who provide the entertainment portion of my life, I would have a lot fewer movies (from any era) to watch, fewer works of literature on my bookshelf, and my vinyl record collection would be missing a lot of music.
It saddened me that the wholesome family entertainment façade of the Dodgers was exposed as gossamer-thin by that offensive act. But the more I thought about it, professional baseball has always been a business, and if the bottom line says they need to show a segment of their revenue base that they are synchronized with the cultural zeitgeist, they will do that.
I did not go to many Dodgers games this year — not because I was making a statement, but because to go to a game with my wife, our daughter, and our grandson entails coordination on par with the Sicily Campaign of the British 8th Army, and just as expensive. So, we pick our dates carefully. Although I like the sights, sounds, and even the smells of Dodger Stadium, I have never liked the crowds.
Which brings me back to the reason I did not go into the office during the parade. I have never been comfortable in a space where there are thousands upon thousands of people all pulling on the same end of the rope. Ironically, and that is why God knows best, the one place I feel most at home with lots of people all in the same place for the same purpose is inside a church at Mass, or in a long and winding line of a Eucharistic procession, or any other liturgical date on the Church’s calendar.
I guess you could say I just feel safe at home.
