Dodgers, Angels, and baseball’s role in family life

My novel The Remainders will be published by Black Rose Writing on September 2, 2021. I will describe my book in a series of posts. You can read other posts in The Remainders category on my website.

I cover a lot of subjects in The Remainders, including homelessness, past trauma, and my hometown of Reseda. One subject came up surprisingly in my book — baseball. It surprised me because of how much it came up and how it plays a role in the story.

I was a Little League president in a past life. A lot of those experiences worked their way into my story. (If you were in Saddleback Little League in the late 2000s, relax. It’s not a roman-à-clef, and I’m not writing specifically about you.) I would like to explain one aspect of the story readers outside of Southern California might not pick up. It’s about the relationship between the Dodgers and the Angels.

Growing up in Reseda, I was a Dodgers fan. We went to several games per season. Mom wasn’t much a freeway driver, but she was willing to get on the 101 to go to Dodger Stadium. She also got us loge seats on the third-base side and treated us to Dodger Dogs. We had many happy memories of watching Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Don Sutton, and the rest of the Dodger Blue.