It's Time for Dodger Baseball!

This spring it seems like not just die hard sports fanatics are excited about the beginning of baseball season here in the city of angels.   There is a change in the wind, I can feel it.  When the news became official that Magic Johnson and his group had bought the Dodgers, people in this town started to talk.  And what I heard was how thrilled everyone was that the man synonymous with the best part of this city was now the owner of the team in a sport steeped in American tradition and metaphors of life such as the importance of teamwork and doing your best.

It just gives me and apparently, lots of other people, renewed hope that the good guys can be in charge.  Not people interested in the bottom line, most of the time that being money, but those who understand the empowerment of what happens when people feel they are part of a community.  Yes, now that Magic owns the Dodgers I feel like this city is on the cusp of change for the better.

At this writing, the hitting stats of Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp are the best in baseball, Andre Either seems to have come out of his hitting slump and one of our pitchers, Clayton Kershaw, won the Cy Young award last season.  We have at least some of the ingredients that portend a winning season. There is reason to listen to the radio, or turn on the TV or head out to Chavez Ravine to be a part of the experience known as Dodger Baseball. However, my sense of this is that it is not just about winning games or pennants or the World Series. 

It is about being part of a positive experience, cheering for more than a victory in sports, but the triumph of feeling good about the place I’ve called home for 30 years. In the past, when strangers ask me where I am from, I responded, "I live in Los Angeles but I am originally from the east coast." But now that has changed.   For me,  Los Angeles now feels like my home.  I never thought I would ever say that.  Thank you Magic Johnson and friends.