LOS ANGELES — You know it’s Dodgermania in Los Angeles when you’re seriously thinking of selling your 40-yard line USC Trojans football tickets so you can attend the Dodgers’ playoff game tonight.
“We’re season-ticket holders for USC games, but I can’t imagine not being at Dodger Stadium to see the Dodgers clinch,” said Allen Spooner, 69, a one-time football star at San Fernando High School, wearing a cardinal and gold USC T-shirt as he arrived at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon.
Three generations of the Spooner family — including Allen’s son Obie, 38, who works for a healthcare provider, and his granddaughter Breana, 14 — typified the fans who have been caught up in the Dodgers fever gripping the city in the wake of the team’s unexpected back-to-back wins against the Cubs in Chicago last week.
“It’s the biggest game we’ve had in years for the Dodgers,” Barry Rudin, owner of Barry’s Tickets, said of the fan demand for Saturday’s game. “It’s nice to have a buzz by Dodger fans again.”
As the series moves to Los Angeles for Game 3 — and Game 4 today, if necessary — an estimated 1,000 fans made what two elderly women described as a baseball pilgrimage to Chavez Ravine on Friday, most of them to buy team gear at the stadium’s Top of the Park gift shop or to just sit in the stands and catch the sight of the field being prepped.
“I prayed for the Dodgers to do well, and I’m here just to see whether my prayer will be answered,” said Graciela Proo of Huntington Park, who was brought to the stadium by Dora Ramirez of East Los Angeles, and talked movingly in Spanish about her love of the home team.
“Would I call it a pilgrimage for me to come here? Yes, I would, (just as) much as going to Lourdes.”
Similar “pilgrimages” were also made Friday by fans to Dodger stores at Universal CityWalk and the Westfield Topanga mall, which reported a record one-day shopping blitz.
“We’ve been busy all day since we opened this morning. It’s the busiest we’ve been all year,” said Amanda Bracamonte, an employee at the Westfield store.
By midafternoon, the store reported having sold all but one of its limited edition Dodgers Division Series caps.
But the height of Dodgermania was clearly Dodger Stadium, where fans were arriving from as far away as Montgomery, Ala.
Glenn Caffey, 52, a retired Montgomery police officer, went directly from Los Angeles International Airport to the stadium to buy Dodger gifts for friends and a new jacket for himself.
“I came to see my second wife — that’s what I call Dodger Stadium,” said Caffey, who has never lived in Los Angeles but developed an affinity for the Dodgers as a 10-year-old boy in 1966.
“This is my 89th trip to Los Angeles just to see the Dodgers play — hopefully one day but I have tickets to both, if they need to play two. I’m here by myself, but when I come back next week for the League Championship Series, I’ll be back with my granddaughter, who’s going to be 3.”
Other fans who considered their Friday trip to the stadium a “pilgrimage” were Nara Whang, 23, of Los Angeles and her two friends visiting from Korea.
“They love Chan Ho Park, who’s Korean and a national hero in Korea,” Whang said as she watched her friends roam through the stadium’s upper deck while checking out the groundskeepers grooming the field.
“They consider it a special privilege to be able to come here.”
Meanwhile, the Spooner family continued toiling with its dilemma: To USC or not to USC.
“I don’t know how I can justify not being at Dodger Stadium Saturday night,” said Obie Spooner, wearing his white Dodgers home jersey and lamenting the possibility of not being there if the Dodgers close out the series tonight.
“I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
