A painful Dodgers exit and a couple series full of fan unfavorites has a high percentage of L.A. fans looking somewhere other than baseball for entertainment.
Dodgers fans generally plan their Octobers around the postseason schedules. While L.A. has only won one World Series during their 10-year reign of NL West dominance, they’ve been to the World Series three times and the NLCS three other times.
This year, unfortunately, Los Angeles fans got their earliest offseason since 2014, losing the NLDS in four games to the Padres.
And, as it turns out, quite a few Dodger fans aren’t quite ready to turn the page yet.
Nearly two-thirds of L.A. fans say they aren’t still watching the postseason. And while diehard baseball fans probably keep watching no matter what, there are a couple reasons it makes sense that those who bleed blue might not be able to stomach the NLCS and ALCS.
First of all, the NLCS is being played between the Padres, who just got done beating the Dodgers, and the Phillies, who knocked L.A. out in the NLCS two straight years in 2008-09. Watching two teams that have caused you pain — granted, the Phillies pain is almost old enough to drive, but still — isn’t something a lot of people are eager to sign up for.
And then, in the other league, you have a matchup between the Yankees, historically L.A.’s biggest American League rival, and the Astros, who famously stole a World Series from the Dodgers just five years ago and didn’t even get punished by an incompetent commissioner. Knowing you’ll end up rooting for the Yankees can be enough to make a fan leave the TV off.
Who knows? Maybe if the Phillies and Yankees end up in the World Series, Dodger fans will feel like 2009 and 1978 were long enough ago that they can just enjoy the drama of postseason baseball. But if the Astros end up in the World Series again, it might be “see ya in spring training” for L.A. baseball fans.
