They May Be the Bums of Summer, but They’re Ours

We saw a rainbow at night.

We snorkeled in a cove as clear as an aquarium.

We swam beneath waterfalls in pools formed by ancient lava flows.

But one of the sweetest things about my vacation in Hawaii last month didn’t dawn on me until I returned to work and encountered a colleague in a corridor.

“How ‘bout them Dodgers?” I said.

“Bums,” Henry muttered.

Yes, it sure was nice of Maui to distract me somewhat from the debacle that was our 1997 Los Angeles Dodgers. Had I been home, I’d have been suffering with every pitch. I’d have followed the action on the radio, on TV, in the stands. In Maui, I’d just look up the box scores and curse a bit. Then I’d sigh and go for a swim.

“Hang loose,” you know, is Hawaii’s unofficial state motto. Sometimes this philosophy is expressed soundlessly in a curious gesture--a waggled hand with the thumb and pinkie extended and the other digits folded down. Back in L.A., I found myself commiserating with Henry’s one-word condemnation by making a different gesture. My right hand went to my throat--the international sign of the choke.

Bums, chokers--yes, in this postseason of our discontent, these are popular sentiments among Dodger fans. “Another day, another collar,” is how Mike Downey put it. No doubt about it, these Dodgers had the talent. But as the song says: Ya gotta have heart.

This year, it was the Giants who had heart. Yes, they’ve already been swept out of the playoffs, but give the men in black caps their due.

***

OK, so perhaps you think I should be writing about City Hall or Metro Rail. Or maybe you’re just Dodgered out or indifferent or even, like my fellow columnist Patt Morrison, downright hostile to baseball. (More about Patt in the Hat later.) Maybe you just think such digressions belong on the sports page.

But remember, unlike sportswriters, I’m free to cheer. Unlike Patt, I love baseball and my Dodgers. I speak here as a loudmouth fan. And certainly everybody who’s feeling Dodger blue these days understands the need to vent, perhaps even the compulsion, after a season like this one.

Besides, there are other reasons the Dodgers seem a fit topic for the local news pages. No team, professional or amateur, means so much to Los Angeles or is so entwined with the city’s life. Oh, the Lakers have had their moments, but the Dodgers are first in the city’s heart. (Or maybe I’m just projecting.)

Los Angeles is fortunate to have the Dodgers, a franchise with a tradition as rich and meaningful as any in American sports. Consider the courage of Jackie Robinson. Remember the feckless candor of Al Campanis.

But as fortunate as L.A. is to have the Dodgers, the Dodgers are more fortunate to have L.A. We are loyal, but not uncritically so. We show up in huge numbers--more than 3.3 million in 1997, one reason some Dodger fans tend to leave early, beating traffic while still indulging in Vin Scully’s peerless play-by-play. We are knowledgeable, opinionated fans, cheering and booing not out of fickleness, but with reason.

One of the best games I ever saw was an 8-1 defeat to the Mets in the poststrike season. That was the night Dodger fans mercilessly rained boos down on those millionaire unionists for ostracizing a young teammate whom they considered a “scab.” The next day, the Dodgers staged a news conference and sheepishly made a show of welcoming the player into the team.

So to be a Dodger fan--a devotee of any team, really--is to look beyond the game that’s played between the foul lines and follow the epic saga of the 162-game season. The human drama is seldom predictable, sometimes even a soap opera. The vicarious pleasure of fandom entitles one to an opinion, informed or otherwise, regarding strategy on the field and in the front office.

None of which my friend and colleague (and KCET host) Patt Morrison could appreciate when she dropped in on a Dodgers-Padres game in the last week of the season for inspiration to humorously diss baseball as boring and wholly inferior to football.

“As long as Fortune 500 companies are buying up ballparks and renaming them,” Patt wrote, “they should make Chavez Ravine into Sominex Stadium.” Patt added that she probably would have fallen asleep “had the sportswriters a few seats down from me not been speculating about Marv Albert’s recreational underwear.”

The fashion theme carried over into the angry response. Arno Keks of El Monte offered: “After reading ‘Take Me Out of the Ballpark,’ I must reluctantly assume that Morrison will not be augmenting her lavish collection of head wear with the ever-so-stylish baseball cap. What a sad day for fashion.”

Now, Patt was gracious enough to note that maybe she’d appreciate baseball if it had been the game she learned at her father’s knee. Pity that Patt doesn’t know what she’s missing. Of course hockey fans tell me much the same when I diss a sport that, with all its fisticuffs, suggests Roller Derby on ice. Maybe if I’d grown up in Manitoba. . . .

But I grew up a Dodger fan, so I feel compelled to leave my fellow fans with a couple of thoughts. As they used to say about Dem Bums in Brooklyn: “Wait ‘til next year.”

Next year--the year Rupert Murdoch takes over the Dodgers, a source of nervousness for many of the faithful. Two words of advice:

Hang loose.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.