Thinking Bluer

I am from New York, my family is from the Bronx specifically. My dad was a NYC cop stationed outside Yankee Stadium and we would often play catch on the green in the house that Ruth built. Needless to say, I'm not a Dodger fan. When I moved here two years ago, I had a feeling that I would never quite belong, like Sting being an Englishman in NY, I would always be some kind of legal alien, a New Yorker in LA.

A friend, another recent transplant, suggested I get a team. My rooting for a Los Angeles something or other would make me feel like my adopted city was more my own. She suggested the Dodgers. I balked. But for two reasons, I considered it: They were originally from Brooklyn (where I was born) and they're not on the same league as the Yanks.

So last night I went to my first Dodger game. Fortunately for me, my friends know how to do this shit right. We met at the Shortstop for $1.50 PBR's ("fuck that Heineken shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon!") and we walked to the stadium, beating out tons of traffic. Unfortunately for me, it was against the Mets. Now, despite a brief rebelious run in '86 when the Mets were in the World Series and I had a huge crush on pitching hottie Ron Darling, I wasn't ever truly a Mets fan either. But just seeing the words across their shirts "NEW YORK" made me feel like a traitor. So for the first few innings I rooted for whoever made a good play. That's when the score was 5-5. As the Dodgers started losing, something happened, I found myself screaming and yelling, even chanting "Let's Go Dod-gers" following it with the prerequisite rythmic claps. (sorry Daddy!).  I found myself saying things like, "we need one more run..." We? We?! By the bottom of the Ninth we were down by 3 runs, I looked around the stadium and felt like I was a part of something, maybe not fully "belonged" yet, but I was asked to sit at the cool kids table.

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