Nineteen seventy-four was a banner year for the Dodgers. The team won a league-best 102 regular season games that season and featured both the National League's MVP and Cy Young Award winners.
That was also the year I attended my first game ever at Dodger Stadium. But I really don't have much recollection of either my first visit -- or of that season as a whole -- mainly because I didn't turn 1 until spring the following year.
Fast forward to 2010 and much has changed. The soon-to-be one-year-old visiting Dodger Stadium for the first time is now my daughter, the Dodgers are concluding a disappointing campaign, and an organization once known for its stability is shaking at its very foundation as it finds its owner(s?) competing against each other on a different playing field altogether.
But to me, the Dodgers brand and all that it represents -- both mythical and real -- remain a constant. The voice of Vin Scully over the airwaves, the smell of Dodger Dogs, the jewel of a stadium nestled in Chavez Ravine. Tommy Lasorda and the big Dodger in the sky, the rich history of the organization, the joy (and heartbreak) of following the team I've known virtually as long as life itself.
Those things have never changed.
Those are the reasons why I keep coming back. Game after game, season after season.
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