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Transcript

Ain't Baseball Great? · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

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  3 balls, 2 strikes, 2 outs and they pick up the percentage.
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  Now Paul Blair will be off as soon as Welsh starts to the
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  plate. Quite possible he could score on
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  that long single percentage to go to three and two and the
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  swings to the Yankees and Jackson makes the get way.
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  Then second Blair at first, two outs.
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  There they go. This is possibly live the
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  official podcast of The Dave Bowman Show.
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  Where I grew up in Colorado, we didn't really have much of a
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  baseball tradition. We had the Denver Bears, but
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  they were AAA team, and for the life of me I couldn't even tell
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  you what Major League team they were the minor league team for.
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  No idea. But in October of 1978, I fell
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  in love with the Los Angeles Dodge.
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  Now, at the time in 1978, there were a lot of Yankee fans, lots
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  of everywhere you turned, everybody was wearing a Yankee
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  hat. They all loved the Yankees.
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  But loving the Yankees meant loving Reggie Jackson.
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  And for whatever reason, and I don't know what it was, but back
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  then I loved to hate Reggie Jackson.
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  Now that is not the case. Today I don't feel that way
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  anymore. But at the time I despised
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  Reggie Jackson. And the year before 1977, which
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  I had not watched in the World Series, he had destroyed the
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  Dodgers. Most of you are familiar with
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  this, the the three home run game, three home runs, three
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  swings. And maybe that's why I hated
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  him. I don't know.
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  He just the whole Reggie Bar thing, the straw that stirred
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  the drink, all of those things added up.
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  But in 1978, the Dodgers, back against the Yankees again, had a
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  young pitcher by the name of Bob Welch who would go on to great
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  fame later on, particularly with the Oakland A's.
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  And at the time, he was a reliever.
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  Later on, he would become a starter.
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  But at the time, he was a relief pitcher.
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  And he came in, in the 9th inning of Game 2, four to two
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  Dodgers bases. I think there were two on, two
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  out. And here's Reggie Jackson
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  against Bob Welch. And it was 5 minutes of why
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  baseball is so dramatic this young.
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  It was, it was like right out of the script of The Natural.
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  I mean, you can, if you watch the movie The Natural and you
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  watch this at bat, the announcers, it's, it's almost
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  there. It's like they're reading the
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  script for the Natural, the young fireballer, the the
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  grizzled old power hitting veteran.
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  I mean, it's the same thing. And so Bob Welch strikes out the
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  guy that I hate the most, Reggie Jackson.
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  Again, I don't feel that way about him anymore.
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  But at the time I did strikes out Reggie Jackson.
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  And that is the literally the moment that I became a Dodger
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  fan. My best friend Charlie was a die
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  hard Yankee fan. And of course, you know, the
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  next morning it was all me up in his face about Bob Welch
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  striking out Reggie Jackson. Well, he got the last laugh
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  because the Dodgers lost four straight and ultimately the
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  World Series. What I hadn't realized at the
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  time though, was that my Dodgerism was going to become a
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  source of great joy and great pain. 79 was not a great season.
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  1980 came down to, if you remember the the last day of the
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  season, the Dodgers had to win a game to tie the Astros.
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  And back then they didn't have wild cards and all that stuff.
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  So they had this one game playoff and the one game playoff
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  against the Astros was at the same time that I was in the
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  dentist chair. I was having some, I wouldn't
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  call it major surgery, but I had an impacted cuspid that had to
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  be removed. And so that was the day they did
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  it. And the dentist handed me a pair
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  of 19791980 ERA headphones and said, what do you, what kind of
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  music do you want to listen to? Said I want to listen to music,
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  I want to listen to the game. And it was the only time in my
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  life that what I was listening to was more painful than what
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  was going on in the dentist chair as the Dodgers just
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  absolutely collapsed in that game.
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  And there you go. But by 1981, things were
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  different. And in May of that year, I
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  joined the Navy. May 28th, 1981 and joined the
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  Navy. And by that point, Fernando
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  Mania had exploded. He was going crazy.
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  My favorite Dodger of all time, Mike Socia had had made the
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  majors and he was catching Fernando and Bert Hooton and
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  Jerry Royce. It was exciting, but it was all
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  overshadowed by this looming strike man, it was fun.
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  And that was that was the first year.
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  And this is, you know, this is before ESPN folks.
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  This is before, you know, TV packages and MLB.TV.
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  The only time you got to see the Dodgers was on maybe on a
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  Saturday, maybe on a Monday night if they were doing Monday
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  Night baseball. I don't remember that.
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  But you, you read the Sporting News, you read the paper the
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  next morning. You read all of these things.
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  And of course, living in at the time, Utah, we were, we were
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  able to get this occasionally you could get the ball game if
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  it was, especially if they were in Cincinnati, you could, you
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  could pick up the game because you could get that radio station
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  out of Cincinnati. It was going so well.
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  And then that strike just murdered everything.
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  It wrecked everything. Eventually they get it
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  restarted. I'm getting ready to go in the
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  Navy. The second-half of the season is
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  anticlimactic because the way that things were set up, the
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  first half winners weren't playing for anything.
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  There was nothing to play for. And by the way, if you're a
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  Saint Louis Cardinals fan or a Cincinnati Reds fan, stop
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  bitching #1 it's been, you know, 40 some odd years and and #2 you
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  knew the rules going in, so stop bitching.
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  But an amazing thing happened to those play UPS in late
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  September. The Dodgers are down to the
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  Astros in early October, I guess down to the Astros in the NLDS,
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  2 to nothing, down two games to none.
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  And I was thinking to myself, here we go again, freaking
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  Astros. Fernando came on to pitch game
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  four and the Dodgers end up coming back to win that series
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  three games to two. And it's this comeback, this
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  idea that we don't give up, don't surrender, never, never
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  give up, never surrender. That it just appealed to me.
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  And then the in the middle of the NLCS against Montreal, I go
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  to basic training, so I miss. In fact, I went to basic
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  training the day of Game 1. So I missed games 123 and four.
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  Of course, the Dodgers are down two games to one, but they come
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  back again now Game 5, which is the penult is, is the ultimate
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  game here. I hadn't been assigned to a
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  company yet, so I was just armed out to clean offices and do busy
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  work. And I happened to be in an
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  office with a chief Petty Officer who was Hispanic,
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  Mexican and who loved the Dodgers.
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  And he found out that I love the Dodgers.
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  And so we actually, instead of pretending to work, we sat in
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  his office and listened to Game 5 on the radio.
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  And when Rick Mundy hit his home run to win the world, to win the
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  National League Championship Series was incredible.
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  Then I got assigned to a company and I've never to this day have
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  I seen a pitch or a single play of the 1981 World Series.
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  Everything I saw, heard about the 1981 World Series, I got
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  second hand. You know, you're going around to
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  these appointments and stuff and you're, you're getting all your
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  medical stuff taken care of and boot camp and, and you're asking
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  people what happened, what happened?
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  And they're telling on October 26th, 1981, I was in the dentist
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  chair, had two small cavities that needed to be filled,
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  nothing big. And I asked the dentist what
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  happened? What, how's the World Series
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  going? And he said, and I quote, those
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  damn Dodgers won again last night.
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  Now they're up three games to 2. And I humped my fist and went
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  and he looked at me and said, and I quote, oh, Dodger fan,
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  huh? No novocaine for you.
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  Now in my head of heads, I know he was joking.
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  I, I know he was joking because I got the shots.
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  I, I, I, I, I know that. But somehow or another that got
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  in my head. And to this day, even last
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  April, it still causes me dental PTSD.
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  It was the most pain. It was one of the most painful
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  things I ever went through. And then last April, I'm in the
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  chair again, Again, a minor cavity, and I am going into a
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  meltdown. I am literally having to tell
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  myself to calm down. And it all traces back to that
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  moment. But the Dodgers won.
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  Then, of course, a night later, they would win the World Series.
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  I wouldn't find out till the next day.
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  And I've never seen it. I've, I, I have the tape, I have
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  the, the film vintage World Series films of the Los Angeles
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  Dodgers winning stuff. And it's 59636581 and 88.
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  Of course it doesn't have the 2021 there, but I, I've never
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  watched the 1981 one. And there's a reason for that,
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  but it's there. It's served as my motivation.
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  Boot camp was I, you know, I talk a lot about how much I love
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  the Navy. Boot camp was not fun, nor was
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  it easy. I was barely 18 years old, from
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  a very sheltered family and a very religious family.
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  I was hearing, learning, seeing things that I, jeez, never even
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  imagined that people could talk like that.
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  It was difficult and physically it was difficult.
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  And yet what kept driving me forward was, hey, the Dodgers
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  came back on the Astros, the Dodgers came back on the Expos,
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  the Dodgers came back on the Yankees.
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  If they can do it, I can do it. And I'm not kidding when I say
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  to you that they were my motivation for getting through
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  basic training. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the
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  1981 Dodgers, Fernando Socia Sachs, Davey Lopes and Ron Say
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  got me through basic training and they're hold a very, very
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  important place in my heart, especially Fernanda, who we lost
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  this past week. 1988 was a great year.
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  It was fun, it was exciting. My boss was was also a hardcore
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  Dodger fan. And the thing about that year
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  was that a lot of the games were afternoons, especially those
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  games against the Mets. And he would give me afternoons
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  offs to go to go home and watch the games.
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  And it was great. And when Kurt Gibson hit his
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  home run in game one, Oh my gosh.
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  Now remember, I'm in the Eastern Time zone now.
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  So this was very late at night. My, my neighbors ended up
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  calling the cops because they thought I was being attacked.
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  Since then, though, it's been kind of a dry spell.
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  And even with the 2020 World Series, when I was not able to
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  watch it, something happened between 1999 and then and I just
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  wasn't able to watch Dodger playoff baseball.
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  I watch a regular season game no problem.
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  Playoff baseball find myself getting really worked up and
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  really tense. And I just, I finally had to
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  stay just can't watch it. I can check in later, but and of
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  course, checking in later, the exception of 2020 was a problem
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  that the 2021 World Series, I would, I would click in, click
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  out, click in, click out. 2016, I think I watched several of the
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  playoff games against the Cubs because half the lawyer and I
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  would would watch those together because he's a big Cubs fan.
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  But in 2012, something remarkable happened. 2012, I was
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  working for the radio station and one of my collateral duties
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  was, of course, I was the technical producer for the
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  Stockton Ports. Ports were supposed to have Jose
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  Canseco come visit, did an interview with him, talked about
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  this in the past. When I got done with the
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  interview, I called up the the promotions manager at the ports.
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  I said, I hope you got an alternate plan because he ain't
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  coming. What how do you know?
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  So just trust me, he's not going to be there.
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  And the next day they announced that Steve Garvey would be there
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  and that it was pretty exciting to me because Steve Garvey, of
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  course, one of my World Series heroes from 81.
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  And one of the things about this was because I was part of the
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  broadcast team, not on the air, but, you know, Zach got to have
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  him for an entire inning. And as he was waiting to go on
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  with Zach between the innings, I got a chance to talk to him.
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  So here I am standing here with Steve Garvey, my hero, one of my
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  heroes. And I said to him, I got to tell
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  you this story. I won't bore you with all the
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  details. And I told him the story of 1981
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  and me getting through basic training because of the Dodgers
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  and how the Dodgers inspired me and how every time I felt like
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  quitting, I'd just say, you know what?
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  The Dodgers didn't quit. When I got done with this story,
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  it probably took a couple of minutes.
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  He looked at me, Steve Garvey looked at me, put his hand on my
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  shoulder and sat, quote, ain't baseball great, UN quote.
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  Now, I don't know that anybody's ever said anything so profound
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  to me in my life. I really don't It's become kind
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  of my mantra when when things get a little, I just remind
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  myself, hey, ain't ain't ain't baseball great.
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  This past week the Dodgers Fernando passed away after
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  battling liver cancer was unexpected.
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  I don't think anybody knew that this was coming, but it's still
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  still kind of a gut punch. And tonight, for the first time
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  in what, 42 years, 41 years, we get a Dodgers, Yankees, World
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  Series. Something else remarkable
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  happened this year, and that is that for for the first time
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  since 1989, I was able to watch Dodger baseball during the
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  playoffs without panicking myself.
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  I don't, I don't know what changed.
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  Something clicked and I just said to myself, you know what?
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  I'm just going to enjoy it this year.
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  I'm not going to get upset. I'm not going to get worked up.
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  If we lose, it doesn't matter if we win, you know, yay, but it
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  isn't the bend, the end of the world if we don't.
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  And I and I was able to relax and enjoy it.
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  And of course the Padres series was great when we came back and
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  and the Mets series was equally as good.
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  And I I kind of like the Mets too.
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  So the whole Mets story this year was fantastic.
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  Them and the Tigers were just they were worth watching and I
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  was excited. I wasn't necessarily pulling for
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  the Yankees on the American League side, but you know,
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  there's something about a Dodgers Yankees World Series.
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  This will be the 12th time they've met in World Series
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  history. And of course the Yankees have
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  the upper hand in that. But hopefully not this year.
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  Just like 1981, we not this year.
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  But it doesn't really matter. I'm going to enjoy it and I'm
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  going to tape them and I'm going to watch.
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  And maybe when the whole thing's done, maybe I'll watch that
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  1981. I have all six games of that
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  series on tape, by the way, video I've, I've long ago
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  converted them to MP4 format and I don't know, maybe I'll watch
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  them, maybe I won't. Because for me, I don't need to
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  see it. I listened to Steve Garvey that
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  night in 2012 as Zach asked him, and I think Zach asked him for
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  me to describe the final out of that series.
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  And he did it so vividly and so word picturish that I could just
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  close my eyes and see what was happening on the field.
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  I didn't need to watch the video like I have it in my head from
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  that, Fernando's gone. All of those players have moved
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  on. Many of them have passed away.
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  Tommy Lasorda has passed away. It's it's still a huge part of
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  who I am. I know it doesn't make any sense
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  to you, and I get that, but you need to understand that to me,
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  that 1981 Dodger series, season and series are inspirational on
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  a level that I can't. I can't say that there's a whole
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  lot else in my life. I know there are other things
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  that have inspired me. I can't say there's anything
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  that has inspired me as much as that 1981 series did that that
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  whole season for me. The 81 Dodgers will always be
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  the greatest team ever. They may not have won as many
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  games, they may not have hit as many home runs.
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  They may not have been as exciting.
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  I don't know. I don't know how you can say
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  that about any team with Fernando Valenzuela on it, but
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  they are my Talisman. And yet at the same time, there
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  was bad that came out of it because of that dentist thing,
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  which to this day, 40 plus years later, I still have.
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  I, I'm embarrassed to say it, I almost had a mental breakdown at
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  the dentist because I, I felt the same things again.
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  So it is something that matters to me.
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  It's something that I carry with me every day.
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  I'm not a I'm not one of those obnoxious Dodger fans.
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  I don't, you know, I'm not always talking about the
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  Dodgers, but and I like the Mariner.
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  They love the Mariners, but they suck.
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  I think I just love them because they suck so bad.
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  But but for me, the Dodgers are my team.
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  And I can tell you that tonight I will be watching first Dodger
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  Yankee World Series game since 1981, and I'll be doing it with
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  joy. I'll have food, I'll have a
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  drink, and I will just enjoy myself.
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  Because no matter what happens, no matter how this thing goes,
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  no matter what happens in my life tomorrow, no matter what
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  happens the next time at the dentist, no matter what ends up
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  happening with the V8, no matter what, I'll always have that
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  moment and I'll always have those words.
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  Ain't baseball great the game right now?
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  Does that look like high fly on the right field?
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  She is gone.
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  In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has
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  happened.