Dodgers do not win World Series for 28th consecutive season

It’s a tradition, see. Last year, there was a post. In 2014, there was a post. Oh, how that 2014 one is amusing in retrospect.

This year, though, I’m not as into the raw, cheap gloating. Maybe it’s because the pain of a postseason Giants loss is sticking with me. Or maybe it’s because I work with a couple of very cool Dodgers fans, and the arbitrary selection of a team just doesn’t make a lot of sense once you make it personal. The Dodgers lost, but so did the Giants, and so will 29 other teams. The Dodgers and Giants will probably lose next year, you know. The odds are oppressive.

I truly like Clayton Kershaw. I watch him pitch like I’m getting to watch Hendrix play for the first time. Or Hendricks, for that matter. Either one, same thing. I’ve been prewriting a Dodgers Win The World Series post in my head for the last six or seven years, and one of the first notes on that prewrite is always that I’m happy for Kershaw, who is transcendent. He was gassed, and he deserved better.

And Vin Scully, my word. What a gift he was from this weird world to all of us. Him getting a seat in a car driving in the postseason parade would absolutely tickle me.

On the other hand, though, not this year. Not in the first even year the Giants barfed in the even-year postseason. Don’t give us a new narrative. Don’t make the Dodgers the new even-year monsters from the deep. Not this year, please.

The Dodgers are too rich, too smart, too talented to keep failing in the postseason. It’s going to happen one year, and we’ll just have to eat it. Might be next year, might be in 20 years. I’m just happy that we didn’t have to watch them swallow Even Year Bullshit like Kirby and spit it back out at the Giants for the knockout.

Think of the worst-case scenario: Even if the Dodgers win the World Series next year, Yasiel Puig will be on the Brewers and thinking, "Aw, nuts." That’s a better scenario than any of the best-case scenarios involving the Dodgers winning this year.

It’s harder to gloat with every passing year. The Giants have a two-year drought right now, and my skin itches just thinking about it. They also haven’t won the NL West since 2012, which is absolutely obnoxious. The Dodgers have some ownage on the Giants right now, if indirectly.

But they didn’t win the 2016 World Series. After Conor Gillaspie’s triple, I was sure the Giants were going to win the World Series. After the ninth-inning meltdown in Game 4, I was sure the Dodgers were going to win the World Series. The answer is "neither," and while that’s not the best possible answer, it’s certainly not the worst.

If you feel guilty about the schadenfreude, think about Tommy Lasorda swearing a lot. That’ll do.

The Dodgers didn’t win the World Series for the 28th consecutive season. This is what a state-of-the-art Hollywood blockbuster looked like the last time the Dodgers won the pennant, even:

It’s coming, and it will be awful. But it’s not this year.

Also, the Cubs/Indians matchup sure is a whopper of a doozy, right? My stars.