“Bonds”
Holding onto a one run lead at Dodger Stadium is always difficult, especially when the Dodgers seem intent on blowing the game. A runner on second and two out, a base hit to left sends Fred Lewis of the San Francisco Giants around third, looking to send the game to extras. But after a dead on throw by Andre Ethier, Lewis is tagged out at a close play at the plate. Dodgers win. On the third base line, a father and son sit and idyllically take in the game in a moment worthy of the Saturday Evening Post. Two seats over from them, my dad and I jump up and down on our seats making a scene. He screams profanities at the umpires, the third base coach, Joe Torre, and anyone else who will listen. I scream at Lewis, telling him not to test the arm of my boy Ethier and to enjoy his flight home. At which point, Dad and I start going off on each other. He curses the day I was born a Dodger fan. I tell him to suck it and wait till next year. Another game between the Dodgers and the Giants. Another night of male bonding.
Apart from baseball, my father and I never had any problems. And that was the problem. No abandonment issues. No enormous fallouts. None of that Harry Chapin “When you coming home, Dad?” nonsense. He taught me how to throw a curveball, how to play cribbage and how to ride a bike. I stayed out of trouble, got good grades and didn’t disappoint him. He was a latter day Ward Cleaver. Except his son grew up watching My So Called Life. Since we never fought, we never got to know each other better. The way a bone heals stronger after a break. We never got beneath the surface. Life was good. And greatness didn’t come from “good.” The Renaissance was born out of the bloodshed of the Borgias. Dostoyevsky honed his craft in Siberia. Hell, Fleetwood Mac put out its best albums when Buckingham and Nicks were at each other’s throats. Which is why the everlasting hatred between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants became our proxy war and the reason that Dad and I got to know each other.
Dodgers/Giants. It surpasses the Yankees/Red Sox and East Coast/West Coast rap as the most heated rivalry. It makes the Gaza Strip look like a game of Capture the Flag. An irrational hatred that gets passed down from father to son along with eye color and allergies. “Apparently it can skip a generation,” Dad said after seeing his son in a Mike Piazza jersey. A rivalry that made legends out of Mays, Koufax, Marichal, and Lasorda. The reason why “the shot heard round the world” is Bobby Thompson’s homer and not the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. And of course, there was the anti-Christ himself, Barry Bonds. The single most talented, steroid assisted hitter to ever walk the planet. “Barry sucks. Barry sucks.” The anthem of disappointed Los Angeles fans in the left field bleachers. The words that brought my father and I together.
It’s not that we didn’t talk. It just that when we did, it was about sports or politics or movies. A lot of “How was your day?” when he would pick me up from school. He’s an advertising producer. A real Don Draper, man in the grey flannel suit, trying to cram as much meaning into a 30 second spot as possible. He’s in the business of brevity. Mom and I have a strange psychic ability where we know what the other person is going to say. A knowing nod takes the place of a whole conversation since we’ve already said it. My father and I have a similar power, only we look at each other and realize that whatever is in our heads isn’t anything worth saying.
This is odd considering how forthright he is about everything else. Always cracking jokes, starting conversations with strangers, and never afraid to talk politics. Somewhere between Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity on the political spectrum, Dad loathes the People’s Republic of California and gets all of his news from Bill O’Reilly. The words “hope” and “change” became profanity in our household during 2008. An outspoken man on everything else, he doesn’t speak much about emotions or feelings or any of that touchy feely let’s go sing Kumbaya with Dr. Phil crap.
He spent some years in Vietnam. As he puts it, he was “bombing the rat bastard commies” as an Air Force pilot. Those stories remain untold as well. Not because they involve stomping in the muck while Charlie stabs your brother in the stomach and force feeds him his own intestines. No. I assume they’re about alcohol and flexible Taiwanese hookers and things that happen in ‘Nam, stay in ‘Nam. It’s the same reason why whenever he asks about college I simply say “Fine” and quickly change the subject.
Sports were something different though. Sports was our war. We might have been talking about distant multimillionaires, but it couldn’t get more personal. The day after “that rat traitor Jeff Kent” left San Francisco and signed with LA was a particularly ugly day. It was also his way of being supportive. I think our talk about why bad things happen to good people was when Piazza got unfairly traded to the Marlins after Fox bought the team and wanted to shed payroll. I honestly can’t remember a single sports game of mine that he wasn’t at, from Little League to high school football. It should be noted that he has also been forcibly ejected from three of those games for arguing balls and strikes.
Dad grew up in central California. Farm country. A place where racism is just like breathing; you’re not even aware that you’re doing it. My mother’s family has roots 200 years deep in New Mexico. A very proud, very legal Hispanic family. I’m the product of Christina Maria Garcia and Michael Robert Davison. I can only imagine what the grandparents Davison would think about a grandson with a tan typically associated with working 12 hours in the sun picking strawberries. Or that he would be checking the box marked “Hispanic” on his graduate school applications. Dad isn’t his parents. He could care less about race. But he still feels the same amount of shame by having a son who roots for the Dodgers. “My one failure as a parent” he always remarks. “This is my son, the Dodger fan,” he introduces me to his friends. He says it as he’s saying “My son the Communist” or “My son the homosexual” or “My son the leper.” Although I suppose if I were a gay man with bleeding sores it would be less embarrassing than having a son that bleeds Dodger blue.
Dodger Stadium. The land of Fernandomania, Vin Scully, and the Dodger Dogs that for some reason are never available in October. Chavez Ravine. At least that’s what they called it before the O’Malleys bought up the property and kicked out all the Mexicans so they could build their stadium. There’s a strangely sweet mix of pollution in the air that seems just right when you sit down on the first base line. And whenever the Giants came to town, the place sold out. It was about 50,000 Dodger fans uniting against a common enemy. It was about renewing an age old rivalry. It was about Barry Bonds.
Barry Lamar Bonds. The power hitting left fielder with a bad habit of speaking about himself in the third person and sparking rumors about performance enhancing drugs. He alienated everyone in the clubhouse, refused to be interviewed by the papers and was obviously on the juice. The ultimate adversary. No one outside of San Francisco could possibly cheer for him. Except for my dad and the other displaced Giant faithful. “Barry sucks! Barry sucks!” The chorus rang out any time he got up to bat. Even after he blasted a 2-0 fastball into the parking lot, “Barry sucks! Barry sucks!” Dad pointed out that Dodger fans only yell at Bonds because they’re jealous. That’s how Barry taught me about irony.
Bonds brought up other important father/son conversations. Why do I see the ball then hear it? “It’s because light travels faster than sound,” Dad remarked. Barry Bonds taught me physics. How do anabolic steroids help your performance? “A steroid increases protein synthesis when you work out.” Bonds taught me chemistry. Why is he getting paid so much money to play a simple game? “It’s what the market will pay.” Bonds taught me supply and demand.
Even recently when a Senate investigation claimed to have found a positive test from 2004, Bonds was still educating me. “But you see,” Dad said on the phone, “even if they find a sample that tests positive for steroids, it doesn’t prove motive.” Whenever I brought up the argument that his records should be marked with an asterisk, it turned into a fatherly retort of “Then what about Gagne? Obviously on steroids.” I was silent. “All of your favorite players have probably done steroids or something regrettable in their time. Are you sure that you want to know all of that?” Dad pointed out. “A lack of transparency. That’s what the Bush Administration had going for it.”
And then one day, there was no more Barry Bonds. It seemed that no team wanted to sign the aging slugger after the ’06 season. “League collusion,” Dad called it. “They did it to McGwire and now they’re getting rid of the greatest natural hitter the game has ever seen.” Dodger fans cheered as though the great adversary was slain and little Iraqi children banged their sandals on a fallen statue of Bonds’ disproportionate upper body. But now we were without the enemy. Chanting “Nate Schierholz sucks” just isn’t the same. Dodger/Giant games got a little less intense. The insults in the left field pavilion turned from Barry Bonds to telling anyone in a Giant cap that their girlfriend was a whore. It’s different when the Giants can’t compete. It seemed like fans had to focus on the game. Dad and I didn’t have our fight.
I turned twenty one last year. Yet I’m still afraid to have a drink around my parents. Still afraid to buy my first overpriced Dodger Stadium domestic beer. Dad and I went to a game this summer. The summer before my last year of college. The last time I could use the phrase “summer vacation” and mean it. Randy Winn was patrolling left field for the Giants. Manny Ramirez was now a Dodger. 20 year old Clayton Kershaw was on the mound for the Bums. Throughout the first few innings, I plotted how I was going to head up to concessions and order a beer. Not afraid that I would get carded, but that my dad would think something different of me.
The Dodgers built up a four run lead that they would no doubt find a way to blow. Then my father came back from buying Dodger Dogs and sat down with two $12 Bud Lights. “You look pathetic right now, you know that? Just buy a damn beer.” He put the plastic cup in front of me. We didn’t toast. We didn’t clink our cups. We just sat on the third base line. Watched the Dodger bullpen blow another late lead. And drank cold, cheap beer in the warm air of Chavez Ravine.
“Dodgers are looking good this year,” I say.
“Bullshit. Derek Lowe is lucky to get out of the sixth inning and you’ve got an immobile statue playing third.”
We hated each other so much at those games. It felt good.
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