Asking for a show of faith, in Dodgers and baseball

There is hope for us. Amid the tattoos that serpentine down people’s legs, the repulsive things they do to their hair, the dudes with pants half clinging to their derriere, there is hope and faith ... the same faith we all have that things will work out in the end. Which they do. They almost always do.

They did for Joe Price. When we last talked to Price, the nutty professor was heading off to sing the national anthem at 100 minor league ballparks — from Washington state to Cape Cod.

He was accompanied on his quest by an old RV and a new bride of some 38 years.

Well, five months later, Price has accomplished what he set out to do, putting 28,712 miles on the RV and a good many more on the marriage.

Final score: 104 ballparks, two rainouts, a smattering of RV bills.

“It was a huge success,” he reports as he prepares to reprise the anthem tonight at Dodger Stadium. “I had no idea how much work it would be getting to the ballparks, keeping the RV running.

“It was a miracle.”

Two out of three nights, he and his wife, Bonnie, slept in the used RV they’d dubbed R-B (for rattle-bang).

In Texas, they lost the generator.

In Virginia, a balky alternator.

In Massachusetts, there were hydraulics problems and in Illinois, they had to replace some bushings.

“This was the chance of a lifetime,” the Whittier College religious studies professor says. “And by George, it worked.”

Among the highlights: watching the human cannonball perform in Lowell, Mass.

“The disappointment was he was supposed to be the ‘human home run,’ but he was shot from right field, not home plate.”

Joe knows that baseball defies gravity. It also defies dunderheads, just as it has defied crooks and creeps and scandal for centuries past.

It’s kept alive by humble, committed guys such as Joe Price.

So if you get the chance tonight, after he belts out “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Chavez Ravine, tip your cap to Price — teacher of religion, pastor of the American pastime.

In life, you have two choices: you can look forward or you can look forward. What you can’t do is look back.

Up on the reserve level Monday night, they aren’t looking back, only forward, an animated crowd, fully involved. Many of them still think the Dodgers are headed for the World Series. It’s like Granny Clampett still fighting the Civil War.

This is the last Dodgers homestand of the year and, as always, we have come to appreciate the little things about a season in which big, stupid, ridiculous events dominated.

Me, I’m savoring those toddler tantrums that Matt Kemp throws when he can’t quite make the spectacular play. Ever notice that? Love the passion. He jumps up, brings his knees to his chest and just leaps as high as he possibly can, dang it.

There isn’t much he misses, this most magnificent Dodgers center fielder since Duke full name Snider. Kemp’s a diva just the same. A lot of center men are. When he doesn’t accomplish the impossible, it truly bothers him. He behaves as if his britches just exploded.

Baseball is a strange, sometimes interminable sport. Games are two innings too many, seasons 50 games too long. When the bombastic NFL starts, it relegates baseball to standby status, which is unfortunate, because that’s when each pitch and swing start to matter.

The grand old game has its hooks in me anyway, and I think the Dodgers will contend next year, I really do. They have a true ace, two-thirds of a world-class outfield.

Everywhere else they are suspect, except first base maybe.

Yet, a lot of playoff teams are built around two or three stars, three strong starters and a gutsy supporting cast that plays bigger than they are.

Until then, there remain the little dramas that bring a ballpark alive. One night, for example, the tattooed person sitting next to me leaned down to speak to the tattooed person in front of her.

“I don’t mean to be rude but your hair’s in my beer,” she said in the nicest tones you could muster if someone had dangled their heavily producted hair in your $10 beer.

The offender apologized profusely.

That same evening, a foul ball ricocheted off one of the overhangs, kerplunked off the concrete and into the hands of the guy behind us, who did that wiggly-orgasmic-spastic thing fans who catch fly balls always do.

He proudly showed it to his seatmate, then reached down and handed it to the lad in the pew in front of him, my 8-year-old son.

And what I remember most, more than just that magnanimous gesture, more than my kid’s huge Bozo smile, is that all around us, fans stood and applauded him — maybe 100 in all, clapping and nodding their approval for what just happened.

Yep, at a good ballpark, there’s always hope.

chris.erskine@latimes.com twitter.com/erskinetimes