In yesterday's post, Dodger fans from all over the world, it was very interesting to see the geographic diversity of the members of this blog. It seemed the community covered more than half of the United States along with several other countries around the world. It made me wonder how or when everyone became Dodgers fans. I'm sure for a lot of people it was as simple as "I grew up in the Los Angeles area" or "the Dodgers were the team on TV". Still, if you read and comment on this blog, there was probably a point when you decided to become a life-long Dodger fan. I'm guessing there are a lot of interesting stories out there, especially from those from outside the LA region.

As for myself, I clearly remember the moment I became a Dodgers fan. It was the Summer of 1987 and I was 5 years old. We lived in the LA area and one day my Dad was in the family room watching a Dodger game. For some reason he used to like to lay on the floor and look up at the TV. In retrospect, I'm guessing it was because sports didn't look great on TV in the 80's and he probably just wanted to see it more clearly. Anyway, he was laying on the floor, perched on one elbow with his head in his hand, eating some mixed nuts and drinking a beer.

I remember walking down our long hallway into the room and sitting down cross-legged next to him. He asked me if I wanted some nuts, and I said, "No, but what are you doing!?" He replied with a trademark grin that I can only describe as warm and chiseled and said, "I'm watching the Dodgers game, you wanna watch the game with me?" I did. Like any kid who looks up to his Dad, I wanted to sit there with him, so I watched the whole game, asking basic questions about the game and this team, the Dodgers. And that was it.

From that point on I was a Dodgers fan and I was hooked. I started learning everything I could about every player, collecting baseball cards and pretending to be Steve Sax in the driveway. The next year in 1988, I started going to games, and of course they won the World Series which really sunk in the hook.

An interesting thing to me is that while I am a huge Dodgers fan, I have two older brothers who grew up in the same circumstances and neither of them are Dodgers fans. Part of that is simply that they were never big baseball fans, but I think a larger part is the small, otherwise ordinary connection I made with my Dad that day. If I hadn't walked into the living room that day, maybe I would have never been a Dodgers fan or even enjoyed baseball.

So, that is my story. How did you become a fan?