I was raised with baseball. When I was a little boy, actually a toddler, my grandfather would take me to see the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field and the Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. This was in the early 50s. We would always get there early for batting practice. One of my earliest memories is of shagging a foul ball off of first base and being asked by Chuck Connors to give it back, which I did. I haven’t lost any sleep over it, but I have kind of regretted that move. Things were a little bit different back then.

My grandfather, who lived with us, had been a catcher in the Chicago Cubs minor league system, and he spent a great deal of time teaching me how to pitch. I was a pitcher in Little League and a pretty good one as I recall. I used to spend hours in the backyard pitching against a chalk drawn strike zone on our brick wall. When the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958, I attended many a game at the Coliseum, mostly with my grandfather, sometimes with my dad.

In 1984, which was a big sports year for me, I was able to purchase 20 pairs of season tickets from a friend who wasn’t able to use them. The seats were in the loge section right by third base. We knew one of the people who worked at the hot dog concession and we would get his attention when we arrived and hold up fingers indicating how many Dodger dogs we wanted and he would hold up fingers indicating how long before they’d be ready. We could then go right up to the front of the line and grab what would always be double dogs as well. That was the year another friend of mine had a client who couldn’t use his tickets to the Laker’s games and I bought 20 pair of tickets on the floor at the North basket, right behind Jim Hill. I think they were $12.50 each, and parking was $1.00. My brother and I were also able to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics at the Coliseum, and in January of the following year, I was able attend Superbowl XIX at Stanford Stadium. My girlfriend’s father was the Director of Photography for the Washington Redskins and he got us VIP tickets and all the amenities. I still have seat cushions from that Superbowl and, as I’ve share here, the 1981 World Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees.

I remained a loyal Dodger fan for the next 36 years until, in 1994, after a late season player’s strike, MLB cancelled the World Series for the first time since 1904. It was the only time it was cancelled over a labor dispute. I was livid, believing both the owners and the players were deeply disrespecting the fans, and I vowed never to give MLB another penny of my money. I kept that vow (with the exception of maybe two games I was invited to by friends) for the next 32 years. I stopped watching games on TV, though I would sometimes watch playoff and World Series games.

Baseball was still in my blood and playoff games, especially World Series games, were invariably exciting and produced some of the best action one could expect from the premier professional teams. I didn’t watch every year, but I did watch fairly frequently at the end of the season. In 2023, I was able to accomplish something a friend and I had attempted the year the pandemic hit and cancelled our plans. We went to Arizona and attended a couple of spring training games, something I had never been able to do before.

Then something changed in late October of 2025. Linda and I had been going, with another couple, to a friend’s house every Monday to have dinner and watch a movie. We decided to watch the game. Maybe it was the 18 innings. Maybe it was Shohei Ohtani’s incredible performance. Maybe it was Freddie Freeman’s walk-off solo homer in the bottom of the 18th, but I decided it might be time to cancel my grudge and get back to enjoying baseball for the wonderful sport it is.

I didn’t think about it much, as it was the end of the season (not that particular game, but after the Dodgers clinched). However, I recently downloaded the MLB app on my phone and have been listening to the games like I did when I was a kid and Vin Sculley was on the radio.

I bring all this up because many of my FB friends are Dodger fans and they have seldom heard a peep from me over the years. A few of them were not even born when I stopped watching or attending baseball games. As I get back into it and get up-to-speed on all the rules changes, as well as the players, virtually none of whom I’ve heard of before, I don’t want anyone to think I’m some Johnny-come-lately to the game, or to the Dodgers. I’m not a wild-eyed fan, but I do have some history, and I love me some baseball.

Cross posted to Facebook