Week in Review — 20240707

It turned out to be an eventful holiday week. The 4th of July was the usual: make some burgers & dogs, watch Independence Day, and listen to fireworks until about three in the morning. Oh, and there was a heat wave in progress, providing the veritable cherry on the cake.

We went to a Dodger game on Friday night and it was the best major league game I’ve ever seen live. It was Hololive Night, and though I’m old, I’m not so out of touch that I’m like some Nebraska hayseed yelling “What’s a Vtuber?!”, but the thing I genuinely could not comprehend was the line of people waiting to buy Hololive t-shirts from one tiny kiosk in the Centerfield Plaza. The line twisted and snaked around the entire plaza, then went off around the perimeter of the field area seating, past all of the Dodger Dog stands and other restaurants to god knows where. The attendance for the night was given as 49,899 and I’d wager at least 3,000 of those were folks standing in that line most of the night. It’s too bad, they missed a truly fantastic game.

The game kicked-off with a booming homer off Will Smith’s bat to right centerfield, followed up again in the third inning with another homer at his next at-bat. The Brewers were quiet until they opened up on Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow in the 4th inning with Willy Adames driving in a run off a single. But it was Rhys Hoskins who, with bases loaded, belted a Grand Slam and drove the Brewers to a 5-2 lead over the Dodgers.

Hoskins had quieted the crowd and you could feel the energy diminish. After all, two of our best sluggers–Mookie Betts and Max Muncie–were out due to injury and the big man himself, Shohei Ohtani, was the victim of an ump with a strike zone so wide you could’ve thrown a ball somewhere in the direction of Pacoima and it still would’ve been called a strike. I don’t know, maybe the ump had a hot date in West Hollywood or something and needed to get outta there by 9 o’clock.

At any rate, things weren’t looking too great but Dave Roberts, a man afflicted with a madness for swapping out pitchers so often that MLB had to institute a rule change to get him to knock it off, decided to stick with Glasnow, who settled down and denied the Brewers another run for the next couple of innings. The Dodger offense, meanwhile, brought the crowd to its feet when Miguel Vargas launched a rocket of a homer to left field, driving in another run and bringing LA to within one run of Milwaukee.

I’m here to tell you that in just 7 innings of baseball, I’d already witnessed a runner picked-off at first, two consecutive home runs from Will “No, Not That One” Smith, a two-run homer from a guy filling in for superstar Mookie Betts and said, “I can do that too”, and a Grand Slam. I’d never seen action like this at any major league game I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to quite a few in my time.

But wait, there was more.

So the Dodgers were still down by one when Will Smith comes up for his third at bat. You’re not really demanding too much from the man at this point. He’s already done his job for the night and in most games, you’d expect him to hit a pop-fly or go out on strikes, but my man’s appetite had not been sated. This dude went and hit a ball to left field that took its time heading to the foul pole. I jumped to my feet along with 40,000 other people and started waving my hands to the right, willing the ball to go fair. It hit the fair side of the post and fell quickly to earth as Smith rounded the bases to the roar of the crowd. I was jumping up and down despite myself.

With the score now tied, we headed into the 7th inning stretch as noted Vtuber Gawr Gura sang, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (both verses).

The stadium was electric going into the 8th inning. I was dreading extra innings, and it looked like the Brewers didn’t want to risk a fourth homer from Will Smith, who walked to first, after Vargas had hit a single and Chris Taylor had walked as well. And wouldn’t you know it, but Freddy Motherloving Freeman steps up to the plate and Dodger Stadium goes absolutely apeshit. The entire crowd was roaring, “Fred-dy! Fred-dy!” but he took a strike on the first pitch. The second pitch was a ball, but the crowd’s vigor had not diminished as it sent its spirit energy to Freeman and he continued to build his power by hitting a couple of foul balls and bringing the count to 2-2. The entirety of the crowd is on its feet chanting his name so loud they can hear it in Reseda, as though participating in an act of collective creation to will a reality into being.

Freeman obliged by crushing a single to center field, driving in Chris Taylor and Miguel Vargas. As he stood on first base, the scoreboard reading 7-5, Freeman barely had time to remove his batting gloves when Teoscar Hernández knocked a double to left field off the first pitch, giving Will Smith his fourth visit to home plate that night and putting LA up 8-5 over Milwaukee.

It was like something out of a movie. The epic come-from-behind victory, a crowd so electric it felt like Championship Series baseball, anime girls on the Dodger Vision screen–all of it. I’d never been a part of anything like it and as we danced to I Love LA amid the flashing stadium lights, we still had a drone show to cap off the night.

Admittedly, I’m not up to speed with all of the personalities and Hololive lore, but it was still a great show and I can see why they’re so popular. With fireworks, you get a nice boom and a pretty bloom of colored fire for a moment, but it quickly fades. The drone show allows fairly complex patterns to be drawn in the sky, complete with changing movement and multiple color changes that persist for as long as needed. You don’t get the satisfying BOOM, but the trade-off is a dynamic and engaging show in the sky, as if the stars themselves are re-arranging themselves for you.

After the show, we were leaving the stadium and noticed there was still a long line for the Hololive T-shirts. These people had been there for 5 hours, missing all of the Hololive content inside the stadium itself, as well as a barn-burner of a game. They’d basically paid a lot of money for the opportunity to purchase a T-shirt or 10. Hopefully the eBay windfall makes it up for them.

The rest of the weekend has honestly been a blur after the Friday night game. I re-potted a couple of plants, printed out some more succulent planters, and changed the theming of this here website to be a bit more reminiscent of the amber monitor of the first computer I ever used in middle-school, as well as where I discovered how to get into remote Telnet servers that I wasn’t supposed to access. Fun times!