It always begins with starting pitching, literally, metaphorically, etc. No starting pitching, no chance to be in the ballgame. For Game 2 of your 2024 World Series, it all began with the home team, your La-La Land Los Doyers, naming MLB rookie hurler Yoshinobu Yamamoto to face the vaunted modern-day murderer’s row of your visitors, the Gotham Bomber Jankies.
Having visited Chavez Ravine earlier in the week, on Wednesday & Thursday, to pay tribute to Fernando Valenzuela, not the Southern California jockey but the recently departed legendary Chicano lefty responsible for the cultural craze known as ‘Fernandomania’, which began in 1981 but has never really faded away, we also had to make a trip to the Top of the Park merchandise store, looking for something appropriate to wear for our scheduled attendance on Saturday of Game 2 of your 2024 World Series.
We found nothing good on Wednesday, but on Thursday we saw something that we knew we had to get.
For whatever reason, we don’t take our pro-sports fandom to the rabid levels displayed by some of the most devoted supporters. Like when the La-La Land Los Reyes of the big-league ice-hockey were in their mid-2010s pomp and we had season tickets, we never went as far as buying a replica sweater with a name & number on the back. We always have felt that it was a little self-eradicating and maybe even voluntarily enslaving about bearing the name of another man on our back. So rather than an authentic jersey heavily brocaded with the name DOUGHTY and the numeral 8 upon our shoulders and spine, we went lowkey, maybe a touch ironically, with a simple cotton T-shirt with the Kings logo on the chest and BAILEY 72 on the back. (Bailey was the team’s playful-but-fierce mascot, a smiling lion, while the 72 referred to a little bit of La-La Land lore: it’s always sunny and 72° outside, right?
Anyway, on Thursday at the Top of the Park store looking down steeply on Chavez Ravine, we were trying to find some bit of gear to wear that might reproduce that same kind of ethos of respectfully distanced but nevertheless loyal support for the Dodgers.
And we found it here…
A simple cotton T-shirt, not a jersey, not even a replica, no overelaborate lettering or numbering on the back. Yes, Yamamoto-san’s name appears; however, we decided that its representation in Kanji or however it is known might be the sort of non-obvious, subversive touch we required. (Plus, the 18 was fortuitous in terms of that number’s significance in Hebrew numerology!)
We arrived in our seats an hour before first pitch. Maybe 30 mins. after arriving, we noticed Yamamoto-san beginning his notorious pregame throwing routine. Most starting pitchers, they simply do some light tossing, maybe harder throws from the standard 60-ft.-6-in. pitching-rubber-to-home-plate distance. But Yamamoto-san insisted on making 200- to 300-ft. throws from the centerfield warning track to the leftfield line, insane! He did more than a few of those, too, always from his unique, abbreviated windup.
The game began. Yamamoto-san seemed to labor early, running several full-counts while not getting some close calls from the umpire. Nonetheless, he powered through any jams.
NLCS MVP Tommie Edman put the home side in front with a solo shot, which was then answered in short order by soon-to-be-four-hundred-millionaire Juan Soto Jnr. clouting a solo shot of his own.
That was the only hit Yamamoto-san would give up in 6.1 innings of the most under-the-radar, understated-but-effective pitching dominance the World Series has seen. Lots of routine groundball outs, lots of bamboozled Jankies sluggers. When he was lifted in the seventh, the standing ovation Yamamoto-san received from the Dodger Stadium crowd was loud & prolonged; they knew he had more than fulfilled his duties as the 2024 World Series Game 2 starting pitcher.
Gratuitous Horse Racing Tweet of Your Day:
BestLine Racing Society Recap:
Almost down to two months remaining for your 2024, and the early-in-the-week racing action is correspondingly shrinking, what with just four daytime tracks running earlier today. No good, Chollie, no good!
BestLine Racing Society Nightcap:
Of course it’s The Mountain…
Strongshots
Longshots
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