If Murph’s in, Wuck, <quote-01>we better get to baseball<quote-01> before he cools on this whole thing.

Let me start here: I think I always knew you were a Dodgers fan, Murph, but you didn’t talk baseball much when we were kids. We already had a shared life.

I was jealous, though, when you started nurturing Wuck’s adult fandom several years back. At first I was like, Wuck likes baseball now? But then I imagined you poring over the grand literature of the game, Wuck, with the same enthusiasm you reserve for Bach or chess, and it made sense. <quote-02>You bought a fitted Brooklyn Dodgers hat<quote-02> in that unmistakable blue and rocked it nonstop.

I was missing out, I knew. But I was busy.

Murph eventually swayed me, the former evangelical kid, with the kind of spectacle that often prompts a midlife conversion.

That summer night six years ago now, the night you brought me to your temple, was a night the spirit moved. I was down in LA with a van full of homies and nonprofit volunteers visiting a Homeboy Industries conference, and you, Murph—with an excitement I could feel through the text messages I checked while driving the LA freeways—said you were working on securing me an extra ticket to the Dodger game that night.

I remember how the entire sky was a sunset—pink and golden and perfect—and how slender palm trees silhouetted the outfield. I remember how <quote-03>Kershaw<quote-03>, whom I’d never heard of until our climb into Dodger Stadium, somehow nabbed a line drive behind his back. And how Puig fired a ball from deep right field to catch a runner at third. I stood up and screamed both <quote-04>times<quote-04>. When we won, you had to yell in my ear—through the din and the dog piles, the champagne and on-field swagger—what it meant to “clinch the division.” You had to explain why it was extra fucking sweet that it had happened against the Giants. <quote-05>You bought me a fitted Dodgers hat<quote-05> in that unmistakable blue on our way out while Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” echoed from the lips of soccer moms, open-collared CEOs, and large Mexican families alike, all of us pouring out into the parking lot to a recessional praise anthem people actually <quote-06>believed<quote-06>.

That night my heart was turned. My initiation into the fellowship continued with Dave Velasco’s MLBTV log-in so I could watch every pitch from back home in Washington. And by being added to the Dodger group text, my conversion was sealed. The buzzing of that thirteen-member community from my pocket was persistent, whether I watched the game that night or not.

So Murph got you and me, Wuck, into baseball—into Dodger Baseball—through our different obsessions, but I suppose what it’s really been about is belonging. It’s a way we can belong to each other again, season after season, especially for the three of us in our far removed corners of the country, the separate places where we’re nearing forty and becoming fathers. Baseball: our daily bread.

Then again, maybe you’ve both noticed how rarely I engage on The Dodger Thread these days. The chatter seems thinner lately, more like crumbs.

But now, Wuck, you’ve proposed this, something more substantial. Now you’re the one getting the other two into something new, something better suited for the three of us who miss each other and don’t mind being more long winded than The Dodger Thread allows.

<quote-07>So where do we go from here?<quote-07>

February 5th

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<pull-quote>we better get to baseball<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>by all means.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>You bought a fitted Brooklyn Dodgers hat<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>actually, murph bought it for me. i was broke as hell.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>Kershaw<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>the first dodger game of my adult life was also with murph, and i remember watching the pitcher, also kershaw, throw his first heater. watching pitches from the sideline was a whole lot different than seeing them from center field on the tv screen. i remember looking to murph and exclaiming, fuck, that shit’s fast!<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You were also mesmerized by how I could guess the speed of his pitches before the reading appeared on DodgerVision. Little did you know how automatic Kersh's three pitches were at that point in his career. Fastball 93, Slider 87, Curve 74, give or take a mile per hour.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>times<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Your recall of that night is pretty incredible. A quick glance at the box score reveals both a Puig dinger and outfield assist. Kersh went 8 and struck out 11.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah. It took magic to convert me.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>You bought me a fitted Dodgers hat<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>aha! who else you buy dodger hats for, murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Off the top of my head and in order? Kristen, Abram, Renzo, Grammar, Paul's Juliet, and Rachel. The unnamed Webber child will certainly receive many hats.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>unnamed webber we found out today is male<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>:-D<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>believed<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Incredibly, perhaps, the expanse of time from Wuck's jump start into Dodger baseball and your own is just a calendar year. Wuck first showed sincere interest when he arrived for Koontz's wedding in August 2013, and you and I, Hoke, attended the next year's clincher in September 2014.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>when was my first trip to the ravine with you? was it koontz’s bachelor week? i know a bunch of us sat in the all-you-can-eat section as part of your bachelor party, but that was years prior.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I just looked it up. August 11, 2013. Sunday evening game against the Rays. Kershaw went 8 that night as well!<p-comment>
<p-comment>The All You Can Eat Pavilion game was August 19, 2007. Saito struck out the side in the ninth to preserve a 4-3 lead.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Who else went with us in 2013?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>dave velasco and your mom? i'm unsure. i feel like i've been part of that quartet once or twice more since then.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>That was certainly the foursome for Game 5 of the Championship Series in 2018.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>ah, yes! well, how about that! looks like koontz is responsible for both of these trips to dodger stadium: first his wedding, then his 40th birthday celebration in san clemente.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I vaguely remember seeing photos of you all around the grill with Koontz for his 40th. That was a bad season for me. Wished I coulda been there.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>

<pull-quote>So where do we go from here?<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>objection, your honor, leading the witness.<p-comment>
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