Walker Holmes and Big Boy are Los Angeles Dodgers fans. In both City of Grudges and Blood in the Water, I researched the actual games that were played during the time period the books are set. The games the pair watch are what actually happened on that day. (Thank you, Google)
Why the Dodgers? Most boys growing in the Mississippi and attended Ole Miss during in the seventies, eighties and nineties were Atlanta Braves fans.
Walker likes the Dodgers for two reasons, the most important being Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to ever play in the Major Leagues. Over a decade in the major, Robinson won the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first black player so honored.
In 1997, MLB retired his uniform number 42 across all major league teams. MLB created an annual tradition, “Jackie Robinson Day”, for the first time on April 15, 2004, on which every player on every team wears No. 42.
Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series championship – which leads to the other reason Walker likes the team. The Dodgers have an unlucky aspect – doing well during the season but breaking their fans’ hearts during the post-season.
Established in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York, the team joined the NL in 1890 as the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and various other monikers before finally settling on the name Dodgers in 1932. The team faced the New York Yankees five times from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, only winning in 1955—65 years after joining the National League.
The team’s fortunes changed when Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley relocated the franchise to Los Angeles before the 1958 season. The team won the 1959, 1963 and 1965 World Series – with the help of future Hall of Fame pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.
The team was a perennial contender during the 1970s, with an all-star infield of Steve Garvey at first, Davey Lopes at second, Bill Russell at shortstop, and Ron Cey at third. Don Sutton of Pensacola’s Tate High School pitched for the Dodgers from 1966-1980. The team made the World Series three times—only to lose to Oakland A’s in 1974 and Yankees in 1977 and 1978.
In 1981, Mexican phenom pitcher Fernando Valenzuela led the team as a rookie to a World Series victory over the Yankees. Valenzuela became the first to ever win the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards in the same season. The Dodgers were once again victorious in 1988, this time against the A’s, thanks to a walk-off homer by an injured Kirk Gibson in game one and the pitching of Orel Hershiser.
After a 32-year drought, which included 12 postseason appearances in a 17-year span and eight consecutive division titles from 2013 to 2020, the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series this week.