{"id":26680,"date":"2024-10-28T16:25:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T23:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cynthiapublishing.com\/hp_wordpress\/?p=26680"},"modified":"2024-10-28T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T23:25:08","slug":"first-post-monday-october-28-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiapublishing.com\/hp_wordpress\/2024\/10\/28\/first-post-monday-october-28-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"First Post: Monday, October 28, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Banzai, Yamamoto-san! Yamamoto-san ichiban!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s row of your visitors, the Gotham Bomber Jankies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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 \u2018Fernandomania\u2019, 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found nothing good on Wednesday, but on Thursday we saw something that we knew we had to get. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For whatever reason, we don\u2019t 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\u2019s playful-but-fierce mascot, a smiling lion, while the 72 referred to a little bit of La-La Land lore: it\u2019s always sunny and 72\u00b0 outside, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we found it here…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anterior…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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…posterior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A simple cotton T-shirt, not a jersey, not even a replica, no overelaborate lettering or numbering on the back. Yes, Yamamoto-san\u2019s 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\u2019s significance in Hebrew numerology!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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