Dodgers fans pack sports bars, eateries for another evening, hoping anew for a championship clincher

Decked out in Dodger Blue garb, fans again rolled into sports bars all over Southern California on Wednesday evening, Oct. 30, to cheer Angelenos’ beloved National League champions as they aimed to clinch a World Series title over their American League rivals, the dreaded New York Yankees.

Playoff fever has gripped the region the past couple of weeks as the National League champions survived a fraught series against the division rival San Diego Pirates and then dispatched the New York Mets to win the pennant — and advance to the World Series in a classic Major League matchup.

At Far Bar in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, the nightspot was packed as the first pitch was thrown. Fans chanted “Shohei! Shohei! Shohei!” in honor of Dodgers star Shohei Otani.

Things didn’t get off to a great start for the Blue Crew.

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Groans and booing erupt from the crowd after Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm hit back to back home runs and the Yankees leap to an early 3-0 lead.

“Rough start but I think we can rally,” said Jeremy Stephenson of East Hollywood, hunkered down for the game at Little Joy in Echo Park.

Stephenson watched Tuesday’s 11-4 loss from the same spot.  “Everyone was excited,” he said.

“The game just didn’t end the way we wanted,” he said, clearly hoping against a repeat performance.

“It’s still early, only the first inning,” said Carlos Argueta of East Hollywood. “We can come back. Our offense has to wake up.”

Some fans, however, were clearly experiencing some stress, including Leanna Robinson of Pasadena.

“People are saying that they want the Dodgers to lose tonight so they’ll win at home,” she said. “They want to jinx us — and they may get what they want.”

“We want them to win now,” said Misty Navarro, a lifelong Dodgers fan and Highland Park resident.

“We want them to win now,” said Misty Navarro, a lifelong Dodgers fan and Highland Park resident. Photo: Julianna C. Lozada, for SCNG

Sara Cazares of Echo Park was ready for any scenario, so long as the Dodgers win the series: “Worst case scenario,” she said, “we win in Dodger Stadium.”

Sara Cazares, Echo Park, “Worst case scenario we win in Dodger Stadium.”

For more than a decade, the Dodgers have been among baseball’s best. They’ve made the postseason the last 12 years, winning the National League West all but once during that span.

And the season they fell short of the division title, in 2021, they still won a then-franchise record 106 games — a mark they broke a year later, when they won 111 games.

The Dodgers have also made the World Series four times during that span, including this year. But they only have one Commissioner’s Trophy to show for it. And that trophy never had much luster because of circumstances outside of the Dodgers control: They won the World Series in 2020, a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic shortened the regular season from a 162-game marathon to a 60-game sprint. Fans were absent from the stands for most of the postseason, though a smattering were allowed during the National League Championship Series and the World Series, both of which were played at a neutral site in Texas.

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That ring elicited euphoria among fans, to be sure. But there was no parade, no chance for fans to shower the team with adoration and gratitude. And for many non-Dodgers fans, the championship carries an asterisk.

The last time the Dodgers won the World Series in a full season, meanwhile, was in 1988.

That World Series, against the superior-on-paper Oakland Athletics, could soon be forever linked to this year’s, should the 2024 blue crew finish the job. During Game 1 of the 1988 Series, the underdog Dodgers were down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning.

There was one man on, two outs and future Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley on the mound. Out of the tunnel and up the dugout steps emerged Kirk Gibson, the Dodgers’ hobbled MVP.

Despite having two bad legs, Gibson worked the count full. Then, on the eighth pitch of the at bat, Gibson swung at a backdoor slider — and sent the ball into the frenzied right field stands. The Dodgers won 5-4. And they would go on to brush aside the demoralized A’s in five games.

On Friday, this current Dodgers team also found themselves down a run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

They weren’t the underdogs this time, per se, with most experts predicting the battle of the MLB bluebloods would go seven games. But things were less than ideal.

They had the bases loaded, sure, but their last hope was also a hobbled hero: First baseman Freddie Freeman, who has been playing with a severely sprained ankle for the better part of a month. He stepped to the plate having only had one extra base hit all postseason — a triple earlier that night.

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Freeman swung at the first pitch. It went high and far into the night, landing in almost the same spot as Gibson’s home run 36 years before.

The crowd erupted, also like 36 years before. And television announcer Joe Davis, somehow keeping a level head amid the chaos, marked the moment by quoting the words the late, great Dodgers announcer Vin Scully used in describing Gibson’s walk-off blast: “She is … gone!”

The Dodgers then beat the Yankees in Games 2 and 3, setting the stage for Tuesday night.

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Yet, even though the Yankees have struggled offensively this series — and, at times, have looked dejected and demoralized — they are still the Bronx Bombers. They are still at home.

And they did what many Dodger fans thought was unlikely — win Game 4 and become the first World Series team to overcome a 3-0 deficit.

The Yankees once again unleashed their  familiar devastation onto the Dodgers — and all those watching, whether from home or out at a sports bar — as the team widened its lead throughout the game. The Dodgers were all but done for at the bottom of the eighth inning after the Yankees hit a three-run homer, pushing their lead 11-4 by the end of the game.

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