THE CLUB YOU LOVE TO HATE

by Scott Soriano

Nearly as important as finding your favorite team is choosing the club you love to hate. Rooting for a team to get the crap kicked out of them is as American as baseball, apple pie, corruption, crappy TV, and a decaying infrastructure.  My act of patriotism was to make the Los Angeles Dodgers my One True Hate.

With all due respect to the esteemed editor of this here blog, hating the LA Dodgers is pretty much a duty of every Northern Californian. Whether you root for the Oakland A’s or the San Francisco Giants, you must root against the Dodgers.  If you live in Northern California and your favorite team is the Royals or the Rangers, you still must root against the Dodgers.  The land north of the San Joaquin speaks to  you to root against the Dodgers.  Put your ear to the ground and listen to the earth.  It will say to you, “Screw Tommy Lasorda, that ice cream-eating bastard!”

So what about the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim?  They are from “down there,” why not hate them?  Well, until the invention of that insidious Rally Monkey (what are we, five year olds?), there was no reason to hate the Angels.  Sure they were from SoCal, but for most of their existence they were the other SoCal team, the Clippers to the Dodgers’ Lakers.  Hating the Angels, at least when I was a kid, was pretty much an act of bullying.  That isn’t to say losing teams are not worth hating.  The Chicago Cubs certainly deserve scorn - largely because their fans glory in their Loveable Losers status.  The Boston Red Sox have had many years of suckatude, but Sox hatred is pretty much granted by any American League fan who doesn’t claim Boston.  The Yankees have had a few losing stretches and stomping on them is never a crime.  But all these are iconic clubs.  Hating the Astros, the Royals, any Florida team, or the Mets (ha! The Mets!) is an act of cowardice.  So that’s why no scorn for the Angels (until the f-ing monkeys come out).

But I had a deeper reason for hating the Dodgers, one that was very personal.  You see, when I was in grade school one of my best friends was a guy named Scott De***ch.  He lived down the street.  He had a cute older sister who was obsessed with Peter Frampton and a cool older brother with Led Zeppelin records.  He also had another friend, a guy named Kenny C***sen.  Kenny was tall, played baseball and was an arrogant prick.  When Kenny and Scott hung out, I was on the outs.  Thus, I hated Kenny C***sen.  And because Kenny’s dad pitched for the Dodgers (or so he said), I had extra reason to hate the Dodgers. 

Doing research on Dodgers teams of the Seventies, I find no mention of Kenny’s dad.  I do know that he played for the Dodgers organization, so he could have never made it to the Bigs.  I also remember that he blew out his arm and that he was a red-ass of a little league coach, who leaned really hard on his son – which might explain why Kenny was such a prick.  So Kenny is off the hook, but the Dodgers are not.

Why continue the Dodger hatred?  Well, there is the aforementioned blood oath of blue bashing one must take if he/she is to consider him/her a True Northern Californian.  But there’s also the 1981 Dodgers and the Big Blue Wrecking Crew.  That the Dodgers won the World Series that year is no big deal.  It was against the Yankees.  If any other team represented the National League, I would have rooted for them against the Yankees.  No, the reason the Dodgers must always be hated is this: http://youtu.be/RsObqS_v1-M   To turn away from such a crime without comment would be inhumane.