I Love the Dodgers

If you asked me last summer to name players for the Los Angeles Dodgers, my list would’ve begun—and ended—at “Shohei Otani.” And yes, I would have spelled it wrong. But out of curiosity about the Japanese baseball star everyone was calling the greatest of all time, I watched Apple TV’s Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series. It went behind the scenes of the Dodgers-Yankees battle—the edge-of-your-seat ups and downs, personal stories of the players, the ways the Dodgers came together to support each other as they captured the season-ending championship. There was so much more to the team than its GOAT.

I was hooked. Despite not knowing a thing about baseball, I started asking Siri when the next Dodgers game was. If I was driving, I made her update the score every 5 minutes. At home, watching by myself, I jumped off the sofa to cheer home runs. Together with the team, I did the celebration dances—the Freddie Freeman hip wiggle when someone hit a double, the Ohtani skin care commercial eye swipe that teammates mimic when he hits a home run (I spell his name correctly now). I can even throw out a few stats.

More than a few friends started texting, “Who are you?” I’d never been a sports fan. If anything, I was a caretaker—a lifelong worrier, usually about my family. As an adoptee, I grew up feeling it was my duty to be a good daughter. But by last year, I was exhausted and lost. I was so used to caring for the daily needs of others that I couldn’t put myself first without feeling selfish.

That’s when the Dodgers convinced me otherwise. You know the Disney movie Inside Out, about all the different emotions that live inside your head? Well, Joy, which had been missing for a while, had rejoined the party. For the first time in a long time, I felt a spark. Watching a game became my me time—except on weekends, when my husband and I headed to the bar at Nordstrom and cheered the team together over fries and Diet Cokes. He wasn’t a Dodgers fan, but he wanted to be there with me. I was grateful for his support.

My husband and I had been married four years, and at 42, I knew it was time we built our own life. Then in October, I had to put down Sadie, the pup I shared with my brother for 15 years. My brother—who is disabled, and whom I’ve looked after for years—moved out of our house a week later and into a place that worked better for him. Suddenly, I was no one’s daily caregiver. So when the Dodgers won the National League pennant on Oct. 17, I impulsively bought two tickets for World Series Game 4 at Dodger Stadium.

Photo: Courtesy of Michelle Okada

We went all out. My husband and I booked a tour of the stadium and bought fresh white Dodgers jerseys. When we arrived in “Dodgers Nation”—Dodger-speak for the team’s passionate fan base—I felt liberated. Suddenly, I was an extrovert. “Go Dodgers!” I yelled to random strangers in LA hats. I opened conversations by telling people we’d come from Hawai‘i to cheer the team. It was fun wearing Dodger blue alongside so many others. I was in the moment. It was my time. My love for the Dodgers swelled.

Even though the Dodgers lost Game 4 with Ohtani pitching, it didn’t matter. They won a spectacular World Series, and I won even more. I learned that my family can be OK when I’m not there every day. And I realized from following all the ups and downs of the Dodgers season that anything can happen—some of it bad, some of it good, and some of it unbelievably great. I can’t wait to see what the new season will bring for the team—and for me.

Michelle Okada is HONOLULU’s advertising project manager.