Feeling Blue #1: Of Course.

A gloomy opening to Spring Training.

“Of course.” This is what I said under my breath earlier today when I received the notification on my phone from the MLB app.

Of course.

Of course the first game of Spring Training— my first taste of baseball since October 9th, 2019 when the Dodgers were unexpectedly, in the most depressing of fashions, pummeled in game 5 of the National League Division Series by Anthony Rendon’s bat and the Washington Nationals, who would later go on to win the World Series (the third year in a row the Dodgers would lose to the eventual champions)— is delayed. Of course, on this, the first day of baseball, I drive passed a cemetery and witness a funeral occurring with thirty or so attendees, all with black umbrellas hoisted above their heads.

Of course it’s raining. In Los Angeles. For the first time in weeks. After a week of perfect 70 degree weather.

Of course Spring Training starts on the eve of the new moon. At the dawn of Mercury’s first retrograde of the year. Just a few days after I decide to let go a one of the most consequential friendships of my adult life. The same week I find out that I was the victim of unemployment fraud and consequently had a significant chunk of my tax return withheld.

Of course.

It’s hard not to make these connections. Not just with the Dodgers but everywhere. This is something I have a hard time letting go: the idea that the universe is always trying to tell me something.

In 2018, when the Dodgers were generally a bland but competent team that would eventually make it to the World Series for the second year in a row, I was also romantically involved for the second time with a partner I dated in my early twenties. We were kids then and didn't work out. For good reason. And all signs pointed to us not figuring our shit out enough to make things work this second time around either. But I convinced myself that everything that happened to the Dodgers was somehow also some assessment on our second go at things. Why? Because the last time the Dodgers won a World Series was in 1988, and that’s the same year that she was born, and so 2018 marked not only the year that she would turn 30 but also the 30 year anniversary since the Dodgers’ last title. And, to make matters even more serendipitous, J and I began dating for the first time in 2008, so surely that meant something as well. Right? Like, if the Dodgers won the World Series this year, maybe that was a sign that things would work out. That they were meant to. Maybe, even though things felt tough, all of these things were lining up for a reason.

I’m not trying to blame the Dodgers on my staying in a relationship long after I realized it wasn’t working. I’m also not not blaming them.

I don’t subscribe to any single religion, but my relationship to the Dodgers is not dissimilar. The team provides me a means to ascribe some meaning to an existence made up of disparate parts that are fragmented and hard to understand. The team helps me build narrative in a life that lacks one. We all need narrative. And, sometimes, I attach myself unhealthily to that narrative, such that it doesn’t allow me to step outside of it. I have to get to that end that I’ve built in my head— otherwise, where will I go? I attach narrative to everything in my life, and sometimes these narratives stunt me from real growth, real experience, real healing.

I was close to giving up this season. The energy of this attachment to the Dodgers was just becoming too much. The loss last year, too demoralizing. The majority of the off-season was built from bricks of disappointment. I was not excited like previous seasons. Not feeling that warmth of buzz and joy as Spring Training was approaching. But, then, something happened.

We got Mookie. Mookie Betts. One of the best players in baseball.

And suddenly, the narrative turned. Maybe this year will be different? Maybe all of the hurt from the last few years was all building towards this? Maybe this is what we’ve been waiting for.

Or, maybe this will be a new way to experience the same heartbreak. And maybe we will be doomed to this heartbreak. Maybe that’s what the raining is trying to tell me. That the universe is rigged against not just the Dodgers but every Dodger fan.

Or, maybe there is no meaning. Maybe there are no signs. No connections. No narratives. Maybe I’m just, like everyone else, floating and plummeting until eventually the lights flicker off. And maybe this, though frightening and isolating, is also freeing. Maybe nothing will ever align perfectly in numbers or seasons or moon phases. Maybe I can just watch. And that’s enough.

So of course I’m back. Of course I’ll watch my boys in blue religiously again this year. Of course it will always be time for Dodger baseball. Of course.