Breathe
By Rosa Covarrubias
In sports there is no perfect script, even if you try to write it, even if in the minds of the fans and the protagonists themselves it exists, despite the strategy, the game plan, something always happens that changes the story, in baseball, the ball is capricious.
Fernando Valenzuela's number 34 on the Dodger Stadium mound in the first game of the World Series, the ball, that friend with which he achieved great feats and with which he conquered thousands of people, was placed on the mound. This time, there was no pitch, Orel Hershiser left "Doña Blanca" on the side of the 34th in tribute to Valenzuela, three days after his death.
The Dodgers, who had the better team, came out inspired to play the World Series against their fierce rival, the New York Yankees. In the first game, Dave Roberts' Dodgers suffered too much and it was thanks to a grand slam by Freeman that they turned the scoreboard around, one out away from losing the game; in the second game, the locals won again and, although in the third game the New Yorkers put them in trouble again, the ninth Angelina silenced Yankee Stadium.
The fourth game was a thrashing for the Dodgers, Yankees polished the cannons to win 11 runs to 4.
When it seemed that history could repeat itself, defining the series in 6 games like 43 years ago when these teams faced each other in the World Series, the Dodgers came from behind, after being down 5 runs to 0, in the fifth inning the Los Angeles Dodgers woke up, a 5-run rally and the scoreboard was tied, before an astonished Yankee Stadium and a Gerrit Cole who seemed not to find a way to get that third out.
Nine innings full of excitement and expectation... a scoreboard in favor of the Dodgers in the ninth inning, 7 runs to 6; Walker Buehler on the mound, Mexico's Alex Verdugo fanning for a strikeout and the Dodgers celebrating in New York for a new title, the eighth for their trophy cabinet.
In Mexico, November 1st is celebrated as All Saints' Day, but this date marked the birth of one of its great sportsmen, this day Fernando Valenzuela would have turned 64 years old; perhaps, if the Dodgers had been crowned this Friday, November 1st at home, leaving the Series 4-2, like 43 years ago, the script would have been worthy of a Hollywood movie, but in sports nothing is written.
Los Angeles celebrates the eighth title of its Dodgers, the team that Fernando Valenzuela gave an identity to, a team that the Latino community adopted, right at the funeral of their beloved "Toro".
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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