Soaking Up What’s Left of the Season

Up the hill we go, then up some more, climbing into Dodger Stadium for another one of those big group therapy sessions the Dodgers hold here 81 times a year.

Much like in church, we just follow the sounds of the organ, till we are finally inside, then stagger around a minute, doing that little stutter step we do every time we enter the stadium.

“Food,” my friend says, heading off to buy pizza.

“Food,” I say, lining up for a dog.

And I stand at one of the concession areas, shuffling along in the slow line with suspicious-looking people, most of them wearing San Francisco Giants caps. Scary people. Pasty-skinned and tattooed.

“Two beers, please,” I say when I finally reach the window.

“Can I see your ID?” the woman at the window asks sweetly.

“You’re kidding me,” I say sweetly back.

This is the second time this season that I have been carded while buying beer, a small joy in an otherwise gloomy year.

“Him?” the guy behind me said the first time it happened. “He’s gotta be 45.”

Which kind of ruined the moment for me.

“Here,” I said, showing the cashier my driver’s license.

“Here,” I said, showing it to the guy.

“Oh, 1956,” she said, sort of embarrassed.

“Lady, I can’t believe they let you handle money,” the guy behind me said.

So I take my beers and head back to the seat, trying not to spill the little puddles that always form on the plastic lids, down 30 steep stairs with puddles swaying back and forth.

“Excuse me,” I say as I turn down Row H.

I make it down the row, past eight or 10 people, which is a pretty fair achievement, perhaps the most athletic achievement of this autumn evening, stepping over 20 feet and legs and discarded cardboard trays without spilling the beer on the heads of the people in front of us.

I have done that a couple of times this season, spilled beer on the people in front. It’s a terrible thing, wasting beer like that.

Usually, it’s on the head of a bald guy, never on a guy with a hat or a hairpiece. Always the bald guy. Most of the time, I just splash a little foam. Half a sip.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” I always say, not knowing whether to brush the beer off the bald guy’s head or just let it dry.

Someday, as I walk down a row, I will probably spill beer on the wrong person, a person who doesn’t like beer.

“The gunman just turned and fired,” the police report will say. “Then Karros hit into another double play.”

“He’s always hitting into double plays,” a witness will say.

And the investigation will end there.

“What took you so long?” my friend asks when I finally sit down.

“I got carded,” I tell him.

“Me too,” he says.

Apparently, this is a new policy at Dodger Stadium, installed to salvage the disappointing season.

By carding all fans over 40, they will flatter those fans and give them a small thrill at the snack counter that they can’t find on the field.

“How we doing?” I ask my friend as the Giant runners circle the bases.

“Not so good,” he says.

So we eat peanuts and talk about work and boxing and a dozen other things.

“My mom’s flying out this weekend,” my friend says.

“Good luck,” I say.

Our aging parents sometimes drive us a little nuts now, doing things that are wacky and unforeseen. They’re sort of like teenagers, some of them, apparently undergoing some seismic hormonal shift.

Once the most cogent and reliable of people, our parents now often need our help. That’s how desperate they are. They need our help.

“I think I’m taking her to a cemetery,” he says.

“To bury her?” I ask.

“To see Douglas Fairbanks’ grave,” he explains.

“She’ll like that,” I say.

“Yeah, she can tell all her friends she saw Douglas Fairbanks’ grave,” he says.

Out on the field, Raul Mondesi does something incredible. Two innings later, he will do something wacky and unforeseen. A good icon for the Dodgers, this thick-legged right-fielder, one moment brilliant, the next not.

“Look at all the signs,” I say, scanning the stands. “This place is like a beer truck.”

Last month, I sat here with another friend, Hank, who’s been coming here for decades and now cannot handle the signs, especially the ones that roll over and become another sign--first advertising auto parts, then bottled water.

The strobe lights bother Hank too, but not as much as the signs, which he thinks cheapen the place beyond reason.

But the signs are here, with probably more on the way. And next year, luxury boxes. The year after that, who knows? Big neon signs, probably. Like Vegas.

Until then, we will have beer and Dodger Dogs and one of the most picturesque backyards in all of baseball. And that kid Scully crooning from the press box.

“This is still a great place,” my friend says after we list all its flaws.

By the sixth inning, many people have left. By the seventh, almost half.

I look around the ballpark for one of the last times this year, crack open a peanut and take a sip of waxy beer.

“Want another beer?” I ask.

“I got it,” my friend says, climbing over the seats and heading up the aisle, probably hoping to get carded again.

“Try not to spill any,” I mumble as he leaves.

And, like this baseball season, he is gone.

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.