On the Emotional Rollercoaster of Being a Fan

From the day I was born until shortly after my 26th birthday, the Los Angeles Dodgers (my favorite sports franchise by a country mile) had never made the World Series. Honestly, they’d never even been that close. While teams like the Red Sox and the Cubs were breaking their generations long title draughts, Dodger fans were stuck watching highlights of the 1988 World Series, hearing the legendary Vin Scully call Kirk Gibson’s straight-out-of-a-sports-movie game 1 winning home run.

Growing up, the Dodgers were perennial also-rans. They struggled to make the playoffs in the 90s, not winning a single post season game. Those were dark times. I remember one of the few bright spots, a generational slugger of a catcher with a name like an Italian dream, Mike Piazza (don’t look up his recent political opinions. SPOILER ALERT: they’re bad). A kid from nowhere drafted as a favor to a Dodger legend. He ascended to superstardom and became my favorite player. Then he became a fateful lesson for a young chubby Will Peterman: life isn’t fair. The Dodgers traded him in 1998 and I cried the way only a fat kid can cry. 

The next fifteen years or so was a parade of mediocre teams, bad trades, and worse owners (the dodgers won 1 playoff game from my birth to 2008 where the winning pitcher José Lima [shouts out to those who remember Lima Time] also sang the national anthem, what an icon). The less I type about the McCourt family, the better. If you want to know about them, check out Molly Knight’s book “The Best Team Money Can Buy”. But thankfully in 2013 a massive ownership group, headlined by Magic Johnson purchased the Dodgers and immediately put more money into the team than they’d ever had.

Things were looking up! The Dodgers started winning National League West titles (They’ve won the NL West 8 straight years!) but they still couldn’t reach the World Series. Until one fateful night in October of 2017 when the Dodgers won the first National League Pennant of my life. It was a glorious, wonderful night that I’ll never forget.

One thing I would love to forget and that we’ll skip over (mostly) is how the Astros (objectively confirmed and punished cheaters) cheated during the 2017 season and stole a championship from the Dodgers. We’ll also skip how the 2018 Dodgers made their second World Series of my lifetime only to get steamrolled by a historic Red Sox team. And we’ll ALSO skip how the 2019 Dodgers lost in the first round to the eventual champion Nationals. 

So, there we were, in a pandemic, the 2020 Dodgers down 3 games to 1 to the Atlanta Braves. Facing elimination in the National League Championship series. About to conclude another season full of promise with nothing to show but despair. Until something miraculous happened. The Dodgers found something within themselves. They rallied. They won three games in a row to punch their ticket to the 2020 World Series. 

Once there, the Dodgers (for the first time in my life) played on the biggest stage, like the team we all knew they could be. And they did it. They won the fucking World Series. For the first time in 32 years, a Dodger season didn’t end in sadness. But it did end in tears. I stood there, alone in my apartment sobbing with joy (I cried again watching the championship DVD, and I’m on the verge of tears right now just thinking about it). In a year where we couldn’t hug, we couldn’t gather, we couldn’t wrap our arms around each other and sing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” the Dodgers gave me something I so badly needed: a miracle.

So how about you, what’s been your greatest moment as a fan (of anything)?