So last night I went to the Dodger game at Dodger Stadium against the Phillies. Let me tell you, the game was fun-nomenal. Thanks to my friend Luis, we got unbelievable seats (around $120 a pop), second row, one section off the dugout, (which was one section from Larry King (who happens to be very tan). Funny enough, we also sat behind Kenny Landreaux, of Dodgers ’81 World Championship fame (he caught the final out of the '81 World Series). These were the best seats I’ve had at Dodger Stadium since I was a kid when I used to sneak down to the front row and plop my feet up on the dugout.
Anyway, being able to see batting practice, stretches (including an awkward moment when we were on the wrong end of Nomar doing toe-touches), and all the kids running out to take positions with the players at game start and sign autographs from that up close was pretty cool. I mean for crying out loud, I could smell Manny’s dreads!!! And as they do in an oft repeated tradition, in the opening ceremonies and lineup role call they played the Imperial March (from Empire Strikes Back) for the visitors and the Victory Procession (from the end of Star Wars: Episode IV) for the Dodgers.
Killer.
Anyway, they all played really well, the crowd was into it the whole night, super electric, even when they were down already by 2 way early on in the 3rd. The folks in the Left Field Pavillion were rowdy, excited, and had plenty of Miller Lites by the bottom of the 1st, which actually helped the rest of the Stadium stay on their game and keep cheering (the Left Field Pavillion even booed the rest of the Stadium when "the wave" started breaking up…they’re so awesome!).
Eventually after 5 frustrating QUIET BAT innings, we finally tied it up in the 8th, and as they went into the bottom of the 9th the game changed….
Visualize the jumbo-tron… you see some video cuts of people with their heads in their hands, or maybe arms stretched back in their chairs behind their heads letting out big sighs…at first, you’re thinking that this is live footage as the fans were anxious at this bottom of the 9th tie game…but just then, you hear the opening first notes of one of the only songs that can lift a Stadium and its players to a victory… that’s right, it was the Star Wars main theme. Saving the best for last. As you continue to watch and listen and wait for that big buildup and entry into the main climactic melody, who appears on the video screen in slo-mo? Yessir, you guessed it…Mr. Walk Off himself: Kirk Gibson, coming up to the plate, as if the jumbo-tron was telling the 47,000 anxious fans in this tied up bottom of the 9th, “that’s right you clowns, let's do this.”
As the crowd gets fired up, they then show a quick montage of current players hitting walk off HR’s and hits and celebrating at the plate. We end up getting men on 1st and 2nd, and then Andre Ethier comes up, line drives into left, Russell scores (just barely sliding in at the plate before the tag), and the crowd goes nuts.
I haven’t seen the Dodgers win at the Stadium for the last 3 games (2 this year, 1 last year, and I didn’t go in 2005, and I honestly can’t remember if they won or lost in ’04 when I went vs. the Cubs…so it’s been at least 4 years (but only 3 games, so it’s not as bad as it sounds)). I always and only seem to see them win at Petco, but never Dodger Stadium for some reason, so to hear Randy Newman sing “I Love LA” at the end and be with in crowd for a walk off victory was the best way to end that awful personal streak.
Oh yeah, and I got a Joe Beimel bobblehead for Micah.
But, I have to say that another major highlight of the night was that Luis and I sat next to a couple of super sweet Jewish guys. I knew they were Jewish because of the hat that one of them, Stan, was wearing (no, not a yarmulke, that was underneath):
Yeah that's right, it says Dodgers in Hebrew, and I've only got two words to describe that: A-mazing. It truly made my night.
Well...that and the walk off victory.
By the way, I told Stan that at the 2004 Dodgers vs. Cubs game I went to there was a kid in front of me wearing a Cubbies yarmulke. It had "Cubs" around the rim and the big red "C" in the center. It was sweet.
Good times.
