True Blue LA has a pretty extensive piece describing the greatness of Orel Hershiser in the 80s. As I was reading through, I was struck by how hard is for me to believe there was a time when the Dodgers were so dominant. I mean, I know the facts: The Yankees had the most wins in the decade, but the Dodgers won the most World Series (2). Orel won the Cy Young award, not to mention SI's Sportsman of the Year Award in 88, too. Kirk Gibson was MVP that year. Fernandomania in 1981 (149 pitches in Game 3 of the WS!). It's just difficult to picture the Dodgers being something other than an obscure hobby that my family shares with...no one else I ever encounter.
What TBLA does in the Hershiser piece totally captures so much of what I love about baseball as a game: Yes, there are endless statistics and detail that can be broken down and analyzed so many ways for years and years, but it's combined with simple, beautifully romantic, and intrinsically American narrative. No wonder there are so many movies made about baseball.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Daniel, I hear you! My childhood years, as you know well as a Dodger historian, were filled with competitive and ruthlessly winning teams. It has been a long drought, although the recent 4 of 6 years in the post season, have given you and your brothers a glimpse of what I saw all through the 60's, 70's and 80's. The seventies team didn't win one, but they were the dominant team that took the '81 series from the Yankees.
I also want to note that anything that has been done in the post season in the recent decade is tempered by the fact that more teams are included. In the 60's you had to win the pennant outright and the Dodgers were in the series in '63, '65 and '66, with championships in two of the three trips!!!
Finally, I will say, the years '67 and '68 were the worst of those three decades, and yet I was most interested and getting really attached to the Dodgers at that time. Both teams had losing records and our homerun totals were abysmal! I still loved listening to the games-- we only had telecasts on road games in SD or SF! It was all Vinnie's voice and my imagination in those years!
Thanks for writing about the great Hershieser years. He is right up there behind Koufax, Drysdale, and Fernando and arguably had the second best season ever by a Dodgers pitcher after Koufax...
DB
Post a Comment