Dodgers Win the World Series — NOW VOTE! (No excuse to wait any longer!)

October 20, 1988 – October 27, 2020

I was still 40 years old the last time the Dodgers won the World Series. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 32 years and one week since that triumphant moment. In the interim, I’ve been happy to see other cities have a chance to celebrate a championship, and I hope that we in Los Angeles will not be begrudged this moment. Here is a list of the teams that have won the World Series since 1988:

Washington Nationals; Boston Red Sox (three times); San Francisco Giants (three times); Houston Astros; Kansas City Royals; Chicago Cubs; Philapdelphia Pillies; St. Louis Cardinals (twice); Chicago White Sox; Florida Marlins; Anaheim Angels; Arizona Diamondbacks; Atlanta Braves; Toronto Blue Jays, and the Minnesota Twins. Yeah, and some team named the New York Yankees (five times).

Less than two weeks after that World Series championship in 1988, though, Michael Dukakis lost the president election to George Herbert Walker Bush, in large part because he failed to capitalize on his successful convention. Instead of hitting the campaign trail with the vigor he showed in the final ten days of the campaign, Dukakis went home to Massachusetts and resumed acting like a governor. If you want to be President, it helps if you commit to leading the nation with urgent sagacity from the very moment you are acclaimed the nominee. Dukakis let us all down, and it was a sour end to the year.

The Lakers won a championship in 1988, too, and since they won in 2020, I fear that this dual claiming of sports trophies again might presage a Republican victory in the Presidential race. I choose not to be superstitious, however.

Each of us is the “Tenth Man” in this election. The Democrats have a team of candidates for the White House and Senate that may be far from perfect, but they will help us reclaim our dignity as a nation allegedly devoted to some minimal form of democracy. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET VOTED, GET IT DONE! Almost SEVENTY MILLION of your fellow Americans have cast their ballots already. By tomorrow, it will be over 75 million. WHAT ARE YOU WAIITNG FOR? Nobody wins a prize for being the 100,000,000th voter. Make sure your ballot arrives by Monday, November 2nd. Otherwise, you may have to wait as long as any team not named above for something resembling dignified governance to emerge again in the United States of America.

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