Eloteros are wearing their blue L.A. hats as they hawk their wares; bank tellers, grocery store clerks, and restaurant workers are all wearing Dodger shirts in lieu of the usual attire. A trip down Olvera Street will find Dodger stuff mixed in with Day of the Dead, Pancho Villa and Frida images, often blended into one item, “Dia de los Doyers, with a flowered skull wearing a Dodger hat. Every night the local news stations feature aspects of the coming series; local newspapers are running their special Dodger editions, and social media? Forgetaboutit, it's Dodgers 24/7. Dodgermania.

Significantly, a large portion of the Dodger fan base is Mexicano, Mexican American, or Chicano, with a new generation of Latinex joining the swelling ranks of loyal fans. There are also the righteous holdouts, the ones who invoke the memory of Chavez Ravine, an ugly episode in local history that witnessed the evacuation of several Latino families from their old barrio. The Dodgers wear some of that stink, but the land was long before sold off from a failed federal housing project, and the city invoked eminent domain to make room for the then new Los Angeles Dodgers. Most of the homes had been sold and abandoned for years, but a few squatters held on until they were forcibly removed; we have all seen the famous photographs.

Yet before the hue and cry died down, the Dodgers were embraced by the majority of the local Latino community, which has now over fifty years later become the largest segment of the Dodger gate. How did that all happen?

To begin, the Mexican and Mexican American community has been playing baseball as long as the mainstream, both here and in Mexico. People often think of soccer as the Mexican sport of choice, and indeed it is, nowadays, but at the end of the 1800's soccer was a sport, played by the elites only, in countries with elitist classes like Argentina and Uruguay, and the masses were not welcome. Instead, they played a game on the streets that was very popular, first in Cuba, la pelota; later, beisbol. It was our game. When Mexicanos came in droves to the US during the Revolucion, they came here already playing baseball. And they were greeted by Mexican Americans left over from the war between the nations, who were living in barrios away from the crowd, but who played baseball in their streets and parks. As the Mexican American community developed, they played ball. They became more American, and in turn, particularly since the advent of Fernando Valenzuela, they made baseball more Latino.

Look at the 2017 World Series rosters, they are littered with Latinos from the entire diaspora, although my favorite, Adrian Gonzalez, will not be there due to injury. What Latinos learned is that they cannot compete with professional basketball players due to height, they cannot compete with professional football players due to size, but a guy who stands five feet five, Jose Altuve, is the best player on the field. It is not the size of dog in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the dog.

The Dodgers arrived at the perfect time, just as the city was rising anew, and just as the Mexican American community was arising to a new day, in numbers and presence. The game had all along thrived in the barrio, little leagues, factory teams, high schools, the army, pick-up games in the park. A couple of guys made it to the bigs, (did you know Ted Williams was a Mexican American? You can look it up). But not until 1981, with the arrival of El Torito, El Zurdo, El Indio, Fernando Valenzuela, did the game begin to change; “Latinize”. The gate has changed too as the Los Angeles Dodgers have become the local heroes; Los Doyers, with a loving nod to the heavy Spanish accent. So as Jaime Jarrin, the legendary radio announcer says, Vamanos Doyers! Play beisbol!