wrestling with pigs

travel in fact Our traveling correspondent has begun and is currently organizing the highlights and highlights of the experience while providing first-hand coverage of True Blue LA during the 2026 season.

As the Dodgers battled in the mud with their actual rivals and dispatched their teams; in fact Dear Rivals, Before Adric and I get back on the road on the eve of the hilarious rematch of last year’s National League Championship Series, let’s take a look back at what always happened before…

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Inevitably, your first road trip in 2026 will end up being a great disappointment. To be fair, when the final act was the most sacred word in sports, followed by perhaps the greatest game of all time, what followed the next act was virtually nothing but perfect.

So I lowered my expectations, cheered myself up, and told myself I was going to enjoy this outing no matter what. Admitting that fact is easier said than done, and it gives some insight into what the Dodgers themselves must be thinking and feeling these days. Sure, they’re at the top of their sport, but it would be careless not to realize that winning sometimes beats them.

All in all, I survived, even though it was hard to muster up the courage to go to St. Louis and Houston in early May. Adding St. Louis to my 2026 itinerary was the last addition to my 2026 itinerary because it was cheaper and less hassle to get from St. Louis to Houston than from my home base of San Francisco.

In hindsight, considering my slightly bad leg, which I’ve been nursing for about a month, I probably should have paid the extra fee to play the three-game set in Houston. That being said, I captured some great footage of Busch Stadium’s affordable seating while the Dodgers hit eight double plays in two games.

Watching the Dodgers play baseball in St. Louis is like sitting at home in sweaty pajamas. People might criticize it a little bit, but it’s comfortable and sometimes that’s enough. What I found interesting was both the almost constant application of my Japanese skills in both St. Louis and Houston, and the impact my conversational Japanese would have on people who didn’t know anything about it.

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I had to play St. Louis and Houston multiple times. in fact The translator made me smile and then I called my mom. This shows that the ongoing Japanese work is still paying off.

Don’t be afraid

The best part of this trip was my first visit to Houston. To be honest, I had mixed feelings beforehand for obvious reasons. I had a feeling this part of the trip was going to be my hair shirt, and sadly, I was right. For those who don’t know, a hair shirt is generally a self-imposed punishment used to show repentance.

I ate a huge buffet. You have to take medicine to complete the MLB circuit.

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Before visiting Daikin Park, I wrote earlier that 2017 is almost over. It’s a much bigger challenge to say you’ve overcome something when you have the problems that seem to be shoved in your face at every turn during those three unforgettable days in Houston.

Imagine the vastness and majesty of Tokyo, then strip away everything interesting, strip away the transportation, and what you’re left with is a carless, logistical nightmare. Apparently Houston has a pedestrian tunnel system for navigating downtown, which is currently completely useless for navigating the area around Daikin Park.

I met some nice people in Houston, but the main things that stood out to me were both the spectacular failure of Daikin Park as a baseball stadium and the sheer unapologetic nature of the Houston faithful. The only thing I didn’t expect was the sheer audacity of the 2017 Astros’ cheating to be thrown right in my face. I went on a tour of the facility, knowing that I would be scolded. It was there, but my ultimate victory was not showing it.

After three straight games, manager Dave Roberts said he had mostly gotten over the scandal. He’s a better man than most.

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While Padres fans and Blue Jays fans can be annoying (a right without much track record) and Giants fans can be downright annoying (especially when a win over the Dodgers is the only bright spot in a dismal season), the vast majority of Astros fans I encountered seemed overjoyed by their stubbornness.

Folks, this is the hard truth. These people cannot be contacted. Normally these field reports don’t turn into dead horse history lessons, but when a dissident fan base tries to spend three days gaslighting me, my patience is stretched thin.

The poor souls who go to Daikin Park must be made aware of this fact. Locals know the Astros cheated in 2017. Either they don’t care or they try to deflect blame by claiming every team was cheating at the timequoting, sports illustrated article Written by Tom Verducci, published in 2018.

Here’s how quickly things changed, according to Dodgers officials. Three years ago, if you walked into the Dodgers’ video room behind the dugout at Dodger Stadium, you would have found Zack Greinke playing video of opposing batters, trying to find some advantage to counter their weaknesses. Walk into the same room this year and you’ll find a small army of 20-something analysts in polo shirts and slacks streaming in footage from internal cameras, much like the security room of a Las Vegas casino. Most teams train with cameras pointed at the catcher, pitcher (from various angles), third base coach, and dugout.

These cameras are not used for training purposes. These are used specifically to steal signs and decipher “instructions” from pitchers.

“We’ve reached a point where the appeal of sport as an entertainment option has been lost in the pursuit of all the advancements,” said one club executive. “And with video, things have changed rapidly. We’ve reached the point where we think we have to do something.”

Yes, there’s a big difference between a monitoring system to learn more about what a pitcher does and creating a real-time system to partially solidify Clayton Kershaw’s legacy of playoff failure. During the trip, my mind kept recalling relevant passages from his biography. The Last Man: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness Written by Andy McCullough (excerpt from pages 249-251):

This rumor led Rick Honeycutt to recruit pitchers before the series. Honeycutt encouraged teams to protect their grip, monitor glove position and change signs frequently, as if there was a runner on second base at all times. Especially when the Astros are playing in Houston, where they haven’t lost in the postseason. This message resonated with some people more than others. Not every player was as paranoid as Utley, who helped decipher the Dodgers’ signs in Philadelphia over the past decade. “I was like, ‘How the hell did this turn out to be a shitty thing?'” Brandon McCarthy recalled. “I thought that was strange and overly protective,” but McCarthy followed the instructions.

When he pitched in the Game 2 loss at Dodger Stadium, he employed an elaborate sequence without runners. George Springer still hit the winning home run. Darvish refused to take similar precautions in Game 3 at Minute Maid Park, failing to complete the second inning. In Game 4, Wood decided to change his sign every 10 pitches. “I was hearing whispers about the shady things they were doing,” he later said. With the visiting team’s bullpen over the fence in left-center field, the Dodgers’ relievers stared at the Astros’ bullpen, trying to discern a pattern. Several pitchers tracked down a person in an Astros uniform who appeared to be relaying the signs. The Dodgers thought that if Astro stood up straight, it signaled that a fastball was coming. For off-speed pitches, Astro leaned on his elbows. “I could see something suspicious going on in their bullpen,” Stripling recalled…

Before Game 4 in Houston, Kershaw sat in the video room studying the scouting sheet in preparation for Game 5. Pratt voiced his concerns. “I think something strange is going on,” he said. Pratt suggested that Kershaw guard his signs more carefully, as Honeycutt had advised. Kershaw dismissed the idea. He intended to leave a runner on second base and switch signs every two pitches. But it felt foolish to change his entire approach. He thought that would mess with his head and mess up his timing. He didn’t want any distractions, not when he felt the threat was so far away…

…It wasn’t arrogance that doomed Kershaw, it was a lack of imagination.. He understood that with a runner on second base, the risk of technical theft was even greater. But the concept of teams using illegal cameras to relay signs in real time felt impossible. “I just can’t understand how that is happening,” Honeycutt said.

(Emphasis added.)

Even though I’m lightly poking fun at Toronto fans, I understand both the pain of losing a close World Series and the pain of losing a not-so-competitive World Series. It was (Wait a minute, and Ryan Madson…) Then, that pain came again when it was revealed that Houston had been cheating. I felt guilty for all the unkind words I said about Clayton Kershaw and others, and that pain turned to anger when the commissioner refused to strip me of the 2017 title.

“I am open to and willing to listen to debate and criticism about whether the punishment imposed in this case was sufficient,” Manfred said. “The only thing I take issue with is the idea that everyone within the Houston organization got away with impunity. If you look at the faces of the Houston players who bring this up publicly, I think they’re hurt by this. They’re going to live with the question of what happened in 2017 and 2018 for the rest of their lives. And frankly, it’s rare for any transgression to be punished in a way that you have to live with for the rest of your life.” ”

Then, after calling the trophy “a hunk of metal,” which he has deservedly booed ever since, he issued a no-beanball edict in the hope that everyone would move on, once again shirking the Astros’ responsibility. Baseball was like that. So did most Dodgers fans.

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I relive this history because, while in Houston, I was exposed to the “Lost Cause” version of these events by people trying to recover from me. It was like fighting a pig in the mud. What you have to remember is that it’s a pig. I’m enjoying it Therefore, the best solution is not to play. And my outward asceticism worked, even if I was frustrated in private.

I could spend hundreds or even thousands of words about the substandard food, facilities, and lighting while ranting about how underwhelming the experience of watching a Dodgers game at Daikin Park was, and how amazing and underwhelming Houston’s barbecue was (see below), but then I’d be left with no entry to write in my guide the next time the Dodgers visit.

Dear reader, if you still want to be pissed or gloated over the end of the current Astros bracket, then do so.

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The experience of going to Oracle Park, Petco Park, or Rogers Center may not be for everyone, but at least in the first two instances you’ll be in an otherwise respectable ballpark. Daikin Park cannot claim any of these characteristics. You usually don’t have to wrestle a pig to find out what a bad idea it is, but sometimes you just have to wade through the mud to get around 30 MLB Parks.

Anyway, Ballpark 28 went out of business. Next up is a social vacation to Milwaukee, where I’ll try to both fight ghosts and tread where David Wasseg once dared to tread.