70,000 Fans Join Dodgers in Last Laugh

“Dance, Tommie, Dance,” urged the movie house marquee on Broadway.

“Orel 4 Prez,” shouted the wild blue scrawl on a bedsheet-sized banner displayed by a group of fans atop a City Hall bus shelter.

“A very pleasant day to you on Cloud 9,” boomed the voice of Vin Scully.

To that greeting, tens of thousands of Los Angeles Dodger fans--some of whom had waited since midnight to get the best view of their heroes--roared in lustful vindication Monday at a City Hall rally, savoring a World Series victory that few expected their team to win.

Triumph of the Underdog

As Manager Tom Lasorda and Dodger stars Orel Hershiser, Kirk Gibson and Mike Marshall led the team up Broadway to City Hall in a parade of floats amid a blizzard of confetti, pennants, homemade signs and balloons, the common theme that ran between the players and the fans was the triumph of the underdog.

“ You believe it! Now, does the rest of the world believe it?” yelled Mayor Tom Bradley as the rally began.

“How sweet it is!” exclaimed Hershiser, the pitching star who was voted the series’ most valuable player.

Police said that more than 70,000 well-behaved fans flooded the Civic Center, a veritable sea of blue and white.

They came in all sizes and colors, at all hours of the night and morning.

“Of all the playoffs here, this was the best,” said Larry Nicassio, 42, a San Gabriel resident who uses a wheelchair. “It was so intense and nobody expected the Dodgers to win. It gives a lot of people a lot of hope.”

Juan Gutierrez, 23, of Los Angeles was among the first die-hard fans to arrive at City Hall--at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, more than 12 hours before the festivities began.

When police forced him off the grounds, Gutierrez said, he and three friends slept in their car until 4:30 a.m. and then returned to claim spaces in the front row behind two sets of water-filled barrels that served as a barricade.

“These are like dugout seats, only better,” said a grinning Gutierrez, who works loading trucks.

Numbered Trees

Authorities numbered each tree on the City Hall lawn to assist rescue squads ready to aid anyone falling from limbs. Troy Lowder, 12, of Mission Viejo was stationed in tree No. 21, 7 feet off the ground and 75 yards back from the podium.

“He’s going to have a sore bottom. But he’ll be able to see,” said his mother, Dana Lowder, 39, who had urged him to take advantage of the vantage point

“In fact,” she confided, “if I was a little bit younger, I’d climb the tree too.”

One of the few people at City Hall with mixed emotions Monday was Los Angeles Police Officer Michael Strawberry, brother of Mets star outfielder Darryl Strawberry.

“I thought New York should be in it,” noted Strawberry, one of 314 officers assigned to crowd-control duties. “But if it had to be anyone else, I am glad it was the Dodgers.”

And then there was Oakland Athletics fan Jean Joneson, 33, of Oxnard. Joneson was wearing a green A’s T-shirt, the price of losing a bet she had made with a friend that the Athletics would beat the Dodgers in the series. “I’m getting a lot of dirty looks and no smiles at all,” she said.

Vendors were out in force, turning several intersections into a Southern California version of a Middle East bazaar. Dozens of hawkers sold Dodger T-shirts, with the competition so fierce that several grumbled afterward that it had been difficult for anyone to make any money.

“It hasn’t been going very fast,” said Joe Punongbayan, who had cut his $10 T-shirts to $8 even before the parade passed by on Broadway.

More esoteric souvenirs included $2 Dodger fans for Dodger fans, $5 Dodger buttons, which contained a pledge of exclusivity (“Limited edition of 25,000”), Michael Dukakis for President buttons and Grateful Dead T-shirts.

Parade Vehicles

Players, wives and team officials were carried along Broadway in two vintage convertibles and five flatbed trucks decorated in blue and white.

Hershiser, who drew the loudest cheers, held the championship trophy over his head.

Rhina Munoz, a Hollywood woman, waved a blue and white sign aloft as the Dodgers passed.

“Why is the sky blue?” it asked. “Because the greatest up there is a Dodger fan too. And I’m bleeding blue since I fell in love with you, and it happen (sic) in 1952. . . .”

That was the year, Munoz explained, that she heard her first Dodger game as a girl in El Salvador, where her father used to listen to baseball.

“Ain’t this great?” said inspirational sub-turned-star Mickey Hatcher, at a loss for words. “I tell you this is great.”

It was indeed a day to crow, to savor the respect denied for so long.

Lasorda, rasping rhapsodically like a politician on the verge of losing his voice the week before Election Day, gleefully recalled the summer taunts of rival National League managers when he addressed the rally.

“Pete Rose (manager of the Cincinnati Reds) said, ‘I’m not worried about the Dodgers, I’m worried about San Francisco and Houston,”’ Lasorda said. “Well he was right . He was right! Because when we went eight games above him, they were tied with San Francisco and Houston!”

The crowd exploded.

“Roger Craig (manager of the San Francisco Giants) said, ‘I promise the Giant fans that we’ll be in the World Series.’ He was right. He was there--watching us play.”

The crowd exploded.

Poke at Astros

“Hal Lanier (manager of the Houston Astros) said, ‘We can beat the Dodgers. If we don’t beat them, I shouldn’t be working here.’ He’s no longer working!”

The crowd exploded.

“And then we went to play the playoffs against the (Mets) team that beat us 10 out of 11 times (in the regular season), and the whole world said (of the Dodgers), ‘They don’t belong on the same field with ‘em. They were right!--they didn’t belong on the same field with them!”

“We became the world champions,” Lasorda bellowed hoarsely, “because we wanted it more than anyone else!”

In recent weeks Lasorda has become fond of reminding people that at a press conference in February he predicted--to many guffaws--that Dodger fans would be “dancing in the streets” in October.

Monday, having concluded his remarks, he kept his end of that bargain. He stepped to the left of the microphone and performed what could best be described as a chubbier-than-Chubby Checker version of the twist.

The crowd exploded.