Twenty one year old Dahlia became a Dodger fan the same way that millions of Dodger fans became Dodger fans. At no time in her life could she not remember the golden tones of Vinny, it was what spring and summer were all about. Winter became dreary without his voice, no deuces wild, no stories, no Chavez Ravine.
A working class family, when they went to the Dodger games they ended up in the pavilion, the general admission top deck was simply too high up for her Mom. The pavilion was crude but that was where her people were. That was where she serenaded Barry Bonds, where beach balls were as important as home runs, where the chants of "Giants Suck" were sung by all as a passage into Dodger fandom.
Her friend Arnuldo had been pestering her to read True Blue LA, one of a litany of fine Dodger blogs, but she found her brain easily numbed by the constant referrals to statistics she knew nothing about. She loved the players, not the numbers behind them, plus it seemed to be about 100% dominated by males, and she had her fill of men. Spring gave way to late summer and Arnuldo was adamant that she give them another shot, saying that things had been changing in a way she might welcome. A younger group had taken over the posting so no matter what the story was about, the posting became about them, not the story. So she gave it a try and much to her surprise she found herself drawn into their lives. She found before long that she could not make it through a day without checking into TBLA, they had wormed their way into an integral part of her on line routine, as she, like many other Dodger fans, used the blog to help her get through these Dodgerless months. For weeks she read the bizarre blog as it transformed from one of the best Dodger blogs in the business to an amalgamation of the best of what facebook could be. She found herself hanging on the multiple conversations going on at any one time. The playful conversations never ended, only the threads. The good-naturedness of just about all the posters put her in good spirits no matter what the news about the McCourts were. Within a few weeks she felt she knew them all. She had her favorites, while at the same time admiring the spirit of Maddz and Josie as they competed for space with the young male dominated group.
She would never comment though, while she handled herself extremely well in person, when it came to writing she felt her ignorance would betray her, so she stayed a lurker, always wanting to comment but never feeling that she could do so without embarrassing herself. It seemed that only college graduates or students commented, so she just couldn't get up the nerve to tell them that Humma was right, Ray Davies was the greatest song writer of all time. She was not old enough to know that but her Dad had been telling her that for all of her 21 years. Of course he also told her that Eric Karros was the Dodgers best 1st baseman, and based on what she had read if she had said that, she would have been showered with more stats then Vinny could shake an adjective at.
She was talking over this dilemma with a friend when the friend suggested that she try posting one word at a time. "Be mysterious," she said, "males go bonkers over that stuff when it involves a skirt." They discussed what her screen name should be and came up with the perfect name. She gave it a shot and OMG what a reaction she got. Chills went down her spine when that simple word got such a reaction by the hard core posters. They loved her but she decided not to push her luck and kept the words to a bare minimum. She had always been able to seduce men in person, to be able to do it with a simple word gave her enormous amounts of satisfaction.
Now that they knew she existed, she felt she could interact with them, now she just needed one of those get togethers to make it happen. When Josie posted about Karaoke night she knew she had to go, but not to sing, she had bigger things in mind. She contacted her friend Arnuldo, and confided to him a plan that was beginning to ferment in her mind which just might shake up things at her favorite blog.