Musings of a Dodger fan in San Francisco

Yes, I said it, and I say it with pride - I am a dodger fan in san Francisco. hell, I actually wear my dodgers cap to games. suicidal I know. brave, yes. admirable, of course.

I was born and raised just north of la, valencia (magic mountain for all those who have no idea where valencia is). my father was (and is) an avid dodgers fan. I basically grew up with this team, and (likely in order to impress my dad) used to call dodger talk when I was 8 to ask the sportscasters stuff about my favourite players.

flash forward 22+ years later, one strike later, and only one stinking world series appearance later (at least we won giants fans!), I still am a fan. I've lived in san Francisco off and on, mostly on, for nearly 8 years now. and I probably see 75% of the dodger giants games when there here.

being a white male, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to discrimination. just one example - my lady friend and I (she's gonna kill me that I called her that, sorry FIANCE!!) were walking to the game, and I had my cap on. we stopped in a sandwich place on the way down, and I swear, she asked for three or four different types of sandwiches, only to be told "sorry, we're out of this" or "oops, we're out of that". this is a poorly run business, i'm thinking. just before a game, hundreds streaming by, and wow, they're already out of food. then I remember the cap. then I see them serve someone else.

I was discriminated against. i've been called a Fucking bastard asshole. i've had food thrown at me. I had someone call me dirt, and mean it. i'm not really sure why there's this anger, given that when i've seen giants fans at dodger stadium, I just don't care (given that I don't usually arrive at the game in la until the 2nd inning like the rest of dodgers fans).

it's led me to think about why we love our teams, and we love to hate the other side. we are all competitors. period. nothing makes us feel better than being with a group of people who hate another group of people (well, until we decide the people in our group deserve our hate too). there is something inherent in our nature that makes us want to be different, just different enough so we're not too different to be noticed. sports allow us to do that. Sports allows us to take all that anger from the week, all that frustration, and lob it at someone else in a socially acceptable manner. which is just hilarious to me, because if one applied this principle to their hatred of some other "group", say, asians, they'd have some serious problems.

my point being this: love a sports team and yell and scream and act like an idiot. better you do it there.