Chris Gilbert – It's Time for Dodger Blog

All-Time Dodger Records Vol. I: “dodger blue” — Kendrick Lamar

In the wake of Super Halftime Show LIX, it felt like the right time to debut a segment that’ll unite my twin passions of Dodger Baseball and virtually all things music. In other words, it’s time for Dodger bass lines — and some gah gah gah gah.

All-Time Dodger Records will usually be a deep-dive into my collection of Dodger themed records; but every so often a song on an otherwise not-Dodger themed record will stop us dead in our tracks and demand our attention. Enter: Kendrick’s most recent ode to Los Angeles, dodger blue.

While ‘GNX’ will justifiably be remembered as Kendrick’s victory lap for The Beef™, the timing of the album drop (and the name-checking of Dodger Blue) made it feel like a victory lap for Kenny’s beloved and newly-minted champion Dodgers, too — especially after the team used They Not Like Us as their quasi-official anthem en route to their first full-season ring since 1988.

Although it lacks the venom and vitriol of the more robustly beefy dishes on Kendrick’s menu of this era, dodger blue is a more sophisticated, subtle attack— but make no mistake, behind the lush orchestration and angelic supporting vocals, the beef’s still well and truly simmering.

Instead of the full frenzied boil found elsewhere on ‘GNX’ and the singles that preceded it, Kendrick’s lyrics luxuriate here amidst a heady broth of shimmering 90s R&B textures and choral elements to create a borderline symphonic interlude that allows him to reflect on his own Angeleno bonafides while further chipping away at Drake’s big label appropriation of a laundry list of other cities’ scenes, starting right here in our own backyard.

“Don’t say you hate LA when you don’t travel past the 10…”

Can you think of a more honest line ever written about our city (besides “I love LA”)?

As someone who spent 10+ years living on the East Coast to start my career, I can’t tell you how many times I had to defend “The LAnd” from ornery New Yorkers disparaging it despite not really knowing it, having spent the majority of their trips in one of the city’s many insular bubbles (Santa Monica, where you at?) instead of branching out.

Here, though, the outsider is a Torontonian “pretender” who outwardly wraps himself in Hollywood’s finest trappings; more Erewhon less Vons, all-access, and all excess without the street cred to back it up. Subtle, but savage; don’t take it personal!

Final scoreline?

Dodger Blue — Kendrick Lamar
Lyrics: Home Run
Music: Home Run
Cover Art: Home Run
Dodgerness: Walk. He gets on base with the namecheck in the title, but a few more Dodger references in the track would have taken this whole thing to another level.

3–3, 3HR, 3RBI, BB; 1.000/1.000/4.000

An elite showing by any metric.

The Injury Report With Gutty — Episode 1: Freddie’s Ankle

Of all the recurring features to expect on the blog going forward, this is the one I hope to post to the least frequently; however, baseball is played at blistering pace on dirt, grass, and ankles—not on paper. As a result, injuries remain an unfortunate part of the game, and a source of endless panic for the author.

Fortunately, my cousin Matt Guttridge PT, DPT, CSCS (AKA “Gutty”) is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, and a certified strength and conditioning specialist (hence all the cool letters after his name), and like me he’s a certified blue-bleeding Dodger fanatic.

Whenever the Dodgers suffer so much as a gentle scrape, I panic, and immediately text Gutty, desperate for a prognosis.

The most recent of these exchanges occurred the night of September 26, 2024 when Dodger Legend™ Freddie Freeman appeared to “crab-meatify” * his ankle hustling to first trying to beat a routine ground-out. Below, please find a screengrab from our text exchange that fateful evening:

Admittedly, “won’t be an issue” felt like a wild take at the time — and while Freddie would remain hobbled the rest of the regular season and throughout the triumphant postseason campaign, he did end up being “spot on” about Freddie’s ability to not only play, but to thrive— en route to hitting the greatest home run ever hit, and then several more to close out the 2024 season with a ring.

*Gutty wants to make it clear that ‘Crab-meatify’ is not an actual diagnosis, rather, a term of art used by the author to properly convey the existential horror he felt witnessing the play live, and in the several slow-mo repalys that followed.

Run it back to a new beginning: scenes from Echo Park the night the Dodgers clinched the 2024 World Series

*Dodger fans flood the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue moments after now old-friend Walker Buehler struck out even-older friend Alex Verdugo to clinch the 2024 World Series title.*

“START THE PARTY LOS ANGELES — YOUR DODGERS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES!”

In a year that had been so improbable, the seemingly impossible happened; and then, the inevitable: a party—36 years in the making—erupted in the streets of Echo Park, shutting down Sunset Boulevard from Silverlake, up to the stadium itself.

*Dodger fans lighting up at the chance to celebrate a ring together in-person (without social distancing) for the first time since 1988.*

In a sudden burst of aerosol flame, and countless fireworks later, the amassed frustration from years of Dodger playoff futility gave way to a spontaneous parade-before-the-parade of epic proportions; replacing Sunset Boulevard traffic with a Dodger Blue wave of euphoric human gridlock as far as the eye could see.

*Where there’s smoke, there’s fire department. Fans hop aboard a LAFD engine on Sunset Boulevard to keep the party going.*

From moments after the final out, until my phone battery died at around midnight, I joined in the festivities to celebrate, document, and cherish just being around our fellow fans in what has to be the happiest moment of my Dodgers-obsessed lifetime.

*Echo Park bursting with fireworks, and visions of a dynasty.*

As artful artillery echoed across Echo Park, a spark of an idea hit me: I could provide “boots on the ground” coverage of moments like these from my own backyard, smack-dab in the middle of its beating, Dodger-Blue-bleeding heart.

In other words, it was time for Dodger Blog — for fans, by a fan.

*Dodger Blog, meet a Dodger Dog whose excellence transcends recipe changes, and will always be good— even if the author couldn’t quite keep things in focus.*

But not just any Dodger Blog, this one’s purposefully built different.

Ours will be more culturally and creatively lensed: a place where the “human side” of our fandom can be documented to the same nth-degree as the stats on the field; a place where Dodgers-themed street art gets as much air-time as the next marquee signing, and the Dodger Dogs are to be adored and booped; not put on a menu.

*A Dodger Luchador relays his position to his platoon while under intense aerial bombardment.*

If this project was born out of the celebratory firework ashes, it will be sustained by the unending creativity, league-leading vibrancy, and ‘never say die’ passion of the Dodger fans who make it all happen— I can’t wait to meet you all, and to help tell your stories.

With that said, all that’s left is to welcome you to the blog, and to wish a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be.