Life is pain

A very good post at Memories Of Kevin Malone that channels the damaged psyche of the generation of Dodger fans who were traumatized by the continuous failures of the 1990s. There are lots of good comments, too, including one from Megalomaniac that I'll quote at length:

Sure enough, in 1991, the Dodgers had a very good team and played very good baseball. It was a great summer. They had the best record at the break, 49-31. For 18 years, that record at the break has been a benchmark for me. I measured this team against it. Weird. And then heartbreak. The Braves, 7 games down at the break, caught them, and then passed them. I was devastated. I still hate the Braves because of it.

In 1992, I watched or listened to nearly every game. And that was before all games were on TV, so it was a lot of listening. 99 losses. And with each one of them, the elation from '88 and that awesome summer of '91 felt another hundred miles away.

And then it just got weird. Five rookies of the year, the rise of Piazza, knocking the Giants out in '93. Rather than winning anything, that stuff became the measure of a good season. And when the playoffs did happen, the goddamn Braves just swept the Dodgers right back to reality.

That really, really nails it. As I think I've written before, 1991 was the year I first achieved baseball consciousness (I was only 7 during the 1988 Series), and it was heartbreaking. And then, the next year, which was really my first year of being a bonafide, stats-mongering baseball fan, I had to endure 99 friggin' losses (on TV sometimes but mostly radio). It's the sort of thing that builds a lot of character. And ingrains in you a life-long hatred of the Braves. (Actually, it was a bit of a trip going up against John Smoltz of all people in the last series...gave me flashbacks to the bad old days.)

Anyway, the point is, it's really nice discovering that there's this whole Lost Generation of Dodger fans--folks who were too young to really experience the 1988 World Series, and who have grown up with the bizarre and disappointing experience of rooting for a franchise that was on the one hand one of the most storied in baseball, and on the other, completely unsuccessful. In other words: we're completely unaccustomed to success, and yet we're steeped in a tradition of success. It's a weird place to be. And it will continue to be that way until we get a Dodger championship that we can call our own.

(Photo from this site of Jose Offerman, who hit a homerun in his first career at bat--which was exciting, until we all realized that he lacked the ability to throw a ball to first base.)

UPDATE: It is worth noting that in that 1991 season, it was still the old playoff format where only two teams from each league went to the playoffs (and for some reason, the Atlanta Braves were shoehorned into the NL West). These days, the Dodgers simply would have made it in as the wildcard.