2008-09 NBA CHAMPIONS

It begins with three chords that ring familiar to Southern California fans.

The D major to the F sharp minor to the A major.

The opening strains of “I Love L.A.,” blasted from speakers at Staples Center or Dodger Stadium, signal that the home team has just won another game.

The unofficial city anthem -- satirical as it may be -- is getting a lot of play lately, with the Lakers now NBA champions and the Dodgers holding the best record in Major League Baseball.

It has been a while since both teams have been at the top of their games at the same time, which leads to a question: Are the people of Los Angeles happier when their teams are winning?

As a professor of sociology and gender studies at USC, Michael Messner examines the relationship between sport and society. He has been struck by all the Lakers flags on cars and the cheers when Bill Cosby mentioned the team at a jazz concert in the Hollywood Bowl.

“It creates a temporary community,” Messner said. “It doesn’t really run that deep beyond the moment, but I think people experience it as something meaningful.”

Amid the troubles of the world -- no winning team can boost the economy or lower the crime rate -- what difference does that fleeting sensation make along the streets of Randy Newman’s song?

Rolling down Imperial

Highway . . .

Or, perhaps, hitting the brakes when Clydean Bass steps off the curb in her bright yellow jacket and white gloves, holding up a stop sign.

The 70-year-old crossing guard said she can tell when the local teams are doing well because there is a buzz among kids as they come and go from a nearby Inglewood school.

“You hear conversations,” Bass said. “Who won. Who’s gonna win.”

To which Bass replies: “I couldn’t care less.”

By her way of thinking, all this attention seems misdirected. The Lakers and Dodgers might interest her more, she said, if the teams took some of their athletes and “made them do community service.”

“They get mega-bucks,” she said. “And the poor kids can’t even afford to go to the game.”

Century

Boulevard . . .

We love it!

Skepticism finds no place amid the T-shirts and hats, flags and banners -- a hodgepodge of purple and gold -- displayed on folding tables that Moses West sets up in a parking lot near Los Angeles International Airport.

The Lakers’ success offers him a chance to generate cash by selling team merchandise on the street. Yet, clad in a Kobe Bryant jersey, his beard bushy and white, he is looking for more than profit.

“People are excited,” he said. “It’s the come-together where you’re all family.”

That means something to a 69-year-old man who is going through a bitter divorce.

West eagerly chats with customers who pull over, arguing over who’s a bigger fan, pointing to the veins in his wrist and saying they pump Lakers blood.

“I’m stressed to the max, but when I get out here it’s an escape,” he said. “I’m interacting with people who aren’t worried about tomorrow’s problems.”

Victory

Boulevard . . .

We love it!

Well past dark, kids play baseball on the lighted fields at Reseda Park and teenage girls practice softball on a stretch of grass behind the recreation center.

Aaron Cornacchio, still wearing a chest protector after umpiring a youth game, explains that despite the park’s swimming pool and tennis courts and continual pickup basketball games, one sport predominates.

“The area is mainly Hispanic,” he said. “You’re talking about the Dodgers bringing in one of the greatest hitters ever in Manny.”

When slugger Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games for violating baseball’s drug policy, a sense of disappointment permeated the fields here. But since the team has kept winning -- and the star outfielder is due back early next month -- the mood has brightened.

Reseda Park has gang problems and the occasional fight, Cornacchio said. The 21-year-old, who works nights while attending junior college, believes that baseball makes his job easier.

If people start arguing, he breaks in with a quick, Hey, how about those Dodgers?

“It kind of eases the tension,” he said. “When the team goes well, the city goes well.”

Santa Monica Boulevard . . .

We love it!

Sitting in front of a Starbucks in West Hollywood, checking her cellphone, Maria Langford winces at the mention of the Lakers. It turns out her boyfriend is a rabid fan.

“All I hear are Kobe Bryant stories,” she said. “I’m done with it.”

For her, the give-and-take of modern romance includes sitting in front of the television on game nights, watching a sport that has never interested her much.

But the 35-year-old from Culver City has to admit that a winning team makes for a happier significant other, which isn’t all bad. She can see how this dynamic might apply on a large scale.

“People are a little overboard,” she said. “But if watching a game makes them happy, let them be happy.”

Sixth Street . . .

Lunch break ends and the construction workers at a downtown building return to work, busting out chunks of concrete, hauling them to a dumpster in back.

The foreman watches, dusty jeans, hard hat in hand, taking in a few minutes of fresh air.

“Most of my guys, they don’t speak English,” Alex Mojica, 29, said. “But they watch the games.”

There was a problem recently, one of the crew openly rooting against the local teams. The other workers threw his tools out and the guy switched to another shift, Mojica said.

Otherwise, the boss figures that things go better on the work site when the Lakers and Dodgers play well. It’s like all those voices shouting in unison at the end of Newman’s song.

We love it!

We love it!

“Of course it brings Los Angeles together,” Mojica said. “We’ve got to have something.”

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david.wharton@latimes.com