As a little boy in the Bronx, I loved the New York Yankees and collected baseball cards.   And not only for the sugary flat slabs of gum enclosed in each pack. 

Though they were sooooooo goooooood.

These were the days of Mickey Mantle playing in the outfield and, even to this day, I could give you the starting lineup verbatim. 

It’s funny what random minutiae you will always remember from way back when and what important stuff from yesterday, last week or, even Election Night, 2024, so many of us are able to willingly forget.

But hey –

THE L.A. DODGERS JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!

IT’S THE FIRST TIME ANY TEAM HAS WON TWO YEARS IN A ROW IN 25 YEARS!! (Note:  And the last time it happened the team was the NY Yankees – a three year winner from 1998-2000).

YAY FOR US ANGELENOS AND YAY FOR ME, A NATIVE NEW YORKER AND LONGTIME CALIFORNIA TRANSPLANT!!!

I might not have a golden toilet, a remodeled marble bathroom or the world’s largest ballroom in the offing (Note: Even though I and U are paying for all of them literally, and, in oh so many other ways)  but I do have TWO winning streaks to my credit.

No LOSER am I.

Kamala and Hillary, aside.

I recently found out my husband of 38 years is a bit of a baseball fan and enjoys a good World Series game, especially when the Dodgers are playing. 

Who knew?

It’s not like I have any leftover bandwidth or RAM to integrate that AND the threat to democracy in a mind that, for whatever reason, has involuntarily chosen to recall the starting lineup to the 1965 NY Yankees.

Joe Pepitone, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubeck, Clete Boyer, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Roy White/Tom Tresh, Elston Howard and Whitey Ford.

And you thought I was joking.

 (Note: Full disclosure – I did forget Tom Tresh’s last name but knew it began with a “T,” and eventually it came to me).

As proudly petty gay men in certain moments, our household is particularly thrilled that this year the achievements of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic group of professional men, many of them immigrants, in one of the most diverse cities in the most populous state in America, has publicly shown some of what our adopted home town is made of.

Perhaps it’s even fleetingly proven to the White House that we’re not a “trash heap,” “rife with crime” and “disrespectful police,” or a “place in need of liberation,” all POTUS quotes from this year.

It won’t change the fact that just months ago he sent trucks full of  masked ICE agents into the city to start a ruckus no one asked for.  Or the fact that one such disruption in June was about to take place at Dodger Stadium itself.

Still, federal agents in tactical gear were denied entry into the stadium and its parking lots by Dodger management. The latter’s quest to chase excellence and not immigrants, and support its neighborhood instead of the cos-playing “fake soldiers” seeking to invade it, came at a particularly stressful moment for the city.

But rather than shrink away from a fight to be their best, they chose to stand up against members of an armed militia that, at the time, could easily have been perceived as infinitely more powerful.

…And guess what?

They won.

 And the real “invaders,” the fake soldiers, turned around and left without incident.

A big victory for the city and a bigger one for the Dodgers – or, as we say, Dodger Blue.

Not the biggest victory we’d have all year but, in some ways, just as significant.

Maybe even more so.

Pia Toscana – Star Spangled Banner (at Game 7 World Series 2025)