Nirvana.

Let's Go, Dodgers!

Here we are in October, one of my favorite months--setting sun and all. It's baseball playoff time, and although summer is gone, its game is only now heating up.
Readers of JackRabbit Cafe´ may be aware that I was a long-time New York Yankee fan. But time, distance and Take Me Out to the Ballgame have converged to change all that.
Growing up where I did can result in some twisted allegiances. I was a fan of the long-gone Montreal Expos and Yankees, yet I loved Boston's Celtics and Bruins. I was a New York Giants fan with little regard for the Bills, Jets or Patriots. I left the North Country in '87--in mind, even before then--and have been an expat East Coast sports fan (almost) ever since.
The Expos are no more, and, sadly, I really don't follow hockey any more. And this year, I crossed the Yankees off the list. (The Celtics stay. Period.)
Take Me Out to the Ballgame reminds us to "root, root, root for the home team." So now I bleed Dodger Blue (but I still think Tommy Lasorda was and is, well...)
Time and distance and a sentimental song all have their place, but so did the decision by a bunch of greedy bastards to abandon the shrine that was Yankee Stadium to build a $1.5 billion gussied-up replica. Luxury--at a bunch of taxpayer-funded dollars--for struggling straphangars and lunchpail Larrys. Oh, and they threw Joe Torre on the garbage heap after the '07 season and killed acres of Bronx park land in the process.

(In a related story, I didn't notice the Red Sox building a fake Fenway or the Cubs publicly funding cushy new friendly confines.)

As long as Jeter, Rivera and Posada wear pinstripes, I'll always have a little Yankee in me. But give me the wistful vistas of Dodger Stadium, the poetry of a Vin Scully-called game and please, please, please give me a Dodger-Yankee World Series.

(While you're at it, give me a ticket broker who won't want a kidney for a Series ticket, too...)