It has been 32 years since Dodgers fans last saw their team lift the World Series trophy. Photo by Matt Weller on Unsplash.
By Jeremy Gonzalez, Sports Editor
To the average person, the month of October means scary movies, candy and creative costumes. For sports fans, this means Major League Baseball playoffs. And for Los Angeles Dodgers fans, October means this could be the year we end our long championship drought.
I sure hope so, because every year since 2013 has brought me sadness, heartache and misery. I always believe that this will be the season the Dodgers get over the hump that has cursed them for decades. But we seem to fail every single time.
The first true glimmer of hope came in 2017 when I finally saw the Boys in Blue play in the World Series for the first time in my lifetime. The excitement I felt, along with thousands of other Dodgers fans, was exhilarating. We actually made it to the big dance and the World Series trophy was within our grasps, until the Houston Asterisks defeated us in seven games to steal the trophy away from us.
2018 produced a similar result that saw Los Angeles make it back to the World Series only to be ousted by a superior Boston Red Sox team in five games.
The hopefulness still remained in 2019 when the Dodgers went 106-56 to produce the best record in baseball that year, but disappeared as we saw yet another early playoff exit, thanks to the eventual champions, the Washington Nationals.
Right before the 2020 offseason, the league-shattering news broke that the Asterisks had been using trash cans and technology to steal pitching signs from opposing teams during the 2017 and 2018 season. It was revealed that Houston had cheated during the playoff run where they defeated my Dodgers in seven games to claim the World Series.
I felt my stomach turn into a pretzel, disgusted that a team had ultimately robbed my Dodgers of the World Series title that had been escaping us for so long.
But in that same offseason, we traded for stud outfielder Mookie Betts to bolster our powerful offense, allowing us to continue being the dominant juggernaut in the National League. The emergence of young players like Walker Buehler, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger provide stability and promise to our franchise, and with veteran guys like Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner leading the way, the roster appears to have found the perfect mix of youthful talent and veteran experience.
In a coronavirus-shortened season, the Dodgers’ wonderful blend has given them the best record, the highest scoring offense and the most dominant bullpen in baseball. And while the small milestones and achievements are great, the fans only care about what’s at the finish line.
We have dominated the NL West, winning eight straight division titles and won the NL pennant three out of the last four years, but none of that turned into bigger success. Los Angeles is a title town and Dodgers fans want to party like it’s 1988 again.
Manager Dave Roberts has done well to get us into the Fall Classic, but fans are eager to celebrate a victory when it’s all said and done, not moan and groan at another failed attempt.
It becomes rather frustrating to see the Dodgers get your hopes up with a brilliant roster that performs well in the regular season, only to come up short when it matters most. Impatience continues to grow among Dodgers fans as we watch our team fail season after season.
Here we are in 2020, back in the World Series, and while I am still confident my Dodgers can pull through, I can’t help but prepare myself for another roller coaster of emotions that I’ve grown accustomed to for most of the last decade.
