Photo: MLB

This is what it’s like to fly. 

This is what it’s like to float among the clouds. 

And look, these moments come. Moments with your family or your friends, moments of falling in love, moments of personal achievement. Moments of purity like a walk through the woods, or maybe just a thought that catches you by surprise and warms your heart. 

But when do you ever get to fly together, really fly together, like a flock of doves? How often does a breeze come and lift not only you, but everyone in your tribe, so that you dance among the heavens?

This feeling, this feeling that has been given to us by the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the 2020 World Series tonight, is worth waiting for. Over time, feeling will transform into memory. That’s what we get to keep, for the rest of our lives. For the rest of our lives!

Just from the final game alone …

… Dylan Floro whiffing Randy Arozarena when it looked like things might fall apart in the second inning.

… Alex Wood, Pedro Báez, Victor González and Brusdar Graterol pitching like men possessed. 

… Austin Barnes, suddenly the backbone of the squad, guiding all these pitchers to their best efforts and then knocking the single that (incredibly) knocked a sizzling Blake Snell out of the game.

… Mookie Betts, wreaking havoc, jumping on Nick Anderson to rip a double down the left field line. 

… Barnes and Betts making mad dashes home without a ball leaving the infield. 

… Betts again, blasting a home run to give the Dodgers room to breathe, breathe. 

… Julio Urías, indomitable. The final pitch to send us soaring. 

… Clayton Kershaw, the personification of the journey, running in from the bullpen with his head tilted skyward. 

So many moments. 

I founded Dodger Thoughts in the summer of 2002. At that time, it had not quite been 14 years since their last World Series title. In that entire time, they had not even won a single playoff game. Even Lima Time was still two years away. Drafting Kershaw was four years away. The NLCS teams of 2008-2009 were six and seven years away. The first of the current sequence of NL West titles was 11 years away. And then there were eight of those titles until we could get to where we are tonight. 

I founded Dodger Thoughts three months before my first child was born, and now she is in college. 

I don’t mean to imply that Dodger Thoughts is the prism to see this journey through. It’s just that living with the Dodgers as a writer has deepened my journey, and I feel that tonight as I float. 

Above all, it has been my introduction to so many of you. I can remember how I felt when the team won in 1981 and 1988, and the main difference is that although there was obviously the shared joy of Dodger fans, the camraderie never felt as personal as it does tonight. 

I’m so happy for the Dodgers. I’m so happy for their fans. I’m so happy we will have these memories for the rest of their lives. I’m so happy we can fly.