This Friday evening the Los Angeles Dodgers come to town and, as is the case whenever this occurs, a powerful virus is unleashed in New York that even the CDC is unable to do anything about. We're talking about something so insidious and malevolent that it takes certain New York Mets fans and turns them into Dodger zombies, making them shed all vestiges of loyalty (and any hint of orange) to skulk into the night and root for the very team that abandoned them. With apologies to Shakespeare, they become blue-eyed monsters that mock the meat they feed upon. Where is Sheriff Rick Grimes (from AMC's The Walking Dead) when you need him?
Witness the case of one such creature. Let's call him "Hank" (name changed to protect the virulent one). Hank is a great guy most of the year. We are friendly and talk about the Mets and Jets and share our hatred of the Yankees. Hank walks around wearing Mets attire half of the year (and then dons Jets green the rest of the time), and the basement in his house is basically a Mets/Jets museum, including chairs from old Shea Stadium and a patch of sod from the field that grows inside a boxed replica of the place. But one corner is reserved for the old Dodgers memorabilia, including a huge picture of the 1955 Dodgers and a drawing of Ebbetts Field. That area is off limits to everyone, or as Hank likes to say, "It's sacred ground."
Hank is 64 years old and has never gotten over one thing in his life: the day the Brooklyn Dodgers left New York to go to California. Hank was seven years old and living on Bedford Avenue in the heart of Brooklyn when the team he loved defeated the damn Yankees in 1955, and in some ways that has been the highlight of his life. While he is married and loves his children and grandchildren, he confesses that nothing has come close to equalling that World Series Dodgers victory in 1955.
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