While I firmly believe that money can’t buy you happiness, it should be able to purchase a reasonable facsimile.
The Dodgers with their $400 million dollar payroll should have provided fans with a baseball juggernaut. Instead, the team continues to flounder about like a kid on a first date; sometimes it looks like they will never get to first base.
While there have been flashes of brilliance, this season has often been frustrating for fans to watch. This was supposed to be a romp to back-to-back World Series titles.
A friend of mine assured me that LA is simply letting Toronto win as the Dodgers are a mega-corporate entertainment company and the losses are meant to inflame fan interest. Instead, these losses tend to inflame fan angst and frustration.
A Dodger loss could have international implications. Fan frustration has even shaken the White House. While Donald Trump is no fan of Los Angeles, he does not want to be the first US President to have a foreign team win the World Series on his watch. Trump has allegedly called Dodger management and threatened to have ICE at the gates of Chavez Ravine next season if the team does not kick the ass of those smug Canadians. Supposedly Steven Miller is looking into having any Dodger with a funny sounding surname deported.
I console myself with the fact that there may be a silver lining if my home team blows the World Series. Tradition dictates that the winning team gets invited to the White House for a photo op with the President. I’m sure the Blue Jays would be delighted to oblige. They could re-enact the burning of the White House during the War of 1812.
A World Series loss would not be a total catastrophe for Los Angeles. Given our reputation as the entertainment capital of the world, I am sure there is a hungry writer in West Hollywood banging out a screen play about how a scrappy Canadian baseball team kicks ass on its over-paid American rival while driving the Orange Menace to declare war on Canada. The downside is that it would be filmed in Canada. I suppose the other downside is that Trump might actually invade Canada.
Writing this after the WS victory, I just gotta say — are you really a baseball fan Steve? If so, you must know that baseball has a kind of “fairy dust” that is uncontrollable, even with lots of money. I love living in Dodgers world, thick and thin.
Thankfully the Dodger prevailed. In baseball, you never know who the hero will be. In this case it was Yamamoto, Smith, Rojas, Pages and Dave Roberts. Talk about diversity! Starting with Jackie Robison, the Dodgers respect talent, from wherever it eminates. Who will be the first gay Dodger hero??
But Steve – nothing left to burn at the White House, Trump beat the Canadians to the East Wing!
Steve Martin’s wit is a West Hollywood treasure.
Let’s hope Roberts brought a handy rake for all these tempestuous leafs tonight (and tomorrow, fingers crossed)