What does it take to be a true-blue Dodger fan?

Lois Peralta, a longtime Dodgers fan, displays photos of her and her daughter, Laurie, taken at Dodgers games. Last August, coming home from a game, Laurie, 41, flipped her car, hit a tree and was killed. Now her mom goes to the stadium without her and says, "This is my heaven."

By Nita Lelyveld

Oct. 18, 2013 2:32 PM PT

What lengths will a true-blue Dodger fan go to in order to help the team win?

Some don’t change their underwear for luck. Some wear special shoes and hats.

“We don’t bring Mom,” Jeremy Green told me at Dodger Stadium, where I met him and his two sons, Colby and Parker, on Wednesday.

“She’s a big-time bad luck charm. Every game she watches, the Dodgers lose.”

Lois Peralta paints her toenails Dodger blue for each game. If the team loses, she wipes the polish off and repaints to give her team a fresh start.

Peralta started taking her only child, Laurie, to Dodger Stadium in 1979, when she was 8. In 2010, after their 30th consecutive opening day, mother and daughter got matching tattoos -- red hearts with “LA” in Dodger blue at their centers.

On Aug. 25, 2012, Laurie got to see Adrian Gonzalez’s first Dodger at-bat -- a home run.

After the game, driving fast on California 99, she flipped her car, hit an almond tree and died instantly.

In my latest City Beat story, about Lois and other fervent fans, I talk to her about why she keeps up the stadium traditions her daughter loved, even though it can be painful and sad for her.

Maybe reading it will put you in the mood for Friday night’s crucial game.

Want to see the people I describe in my story? Keep reading to see photos in the visual reporter’s notebook I sent out tweet by tweet on Twitter.

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