Happy Trails For Us: My Reluctant Blog

I am a lifelong baseball fan, the daughter of a woman who always claimed that the Brooklyn Dodgers followed her to California. My father was from St. Louis, so there are Cardinals in my bloodline as well. I remember hot summer nights in Los Angeles eating dinner in the kitchen while listening to baseball on the radio; those were nights when the team was on the road. Mine was the childhood of Norm & Larry Sherry, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Maury Wills. One magic night Sandy Koufax drove down our street in his convertible to pick up a neighbor's daughter for a date; the kids on the block, myself included, thought we had died and gone to baseball heaven.

I married a Dodger fan, and before we had children, and then while they were young, we spent many afternoons and evenings at Dodger Stadium (which was built in a area called Chavez Ravine, hence the title). There's a story about the acrimonious way in which the O'Malley family bought the land to build this field of dreams, but I'm not going to tell it here. Google Chavez Ravine if you like.

When the kids got older, they turned into soccer and football players after a brief trip to Little League and softball land, and for many years we hardly went to a baseball game, tho we did watch on tv. It seems like we lost a decade or more, or perhaps it was me. Our son Matt grew up to be a true blue Dodger fan, following his team now from his home in Sacramento.

In the last few years, with the children grown and out of the house, I have rediscovered my "inner" Dodger. Last year we went to several games, and most summer evenings, if we are home, we watch the Boys in Blue on the larger tv that I think we bought for this purpose. This year, when I realized that Opening Day was during my spring break, I decided we should go, and when the only way to get tickets was to purchase mini-package of season tickets, well, that is what we did.

So this is how I am spending part of my summer, 20 games at Dodger Stadium. We bring a picnic from home (I can only eat so many hot dogs a year, really), a bag of peanuts, buy a margarita and we're good to go. We will probably attend 15 of the 20 games (because we do have other things going on besides baseball), and on other evenings, we are at home watching on that tv. Not a bad way to spend a summer.

Go Blue!