Not only did the Dodgers have three of the starting nine players for the National League in the All-Star Game on Tuesday, we also swept the Angels in spectacular fashion a few days earlier, winning the Freeway Series 11-4 on Friday (July 7) and 10-5 on Saturday (July 8)! It was so sweet to see those smug American Leaguers in our house having the pants beaten off them! And we tied Arizona for first to boot! Way to finish the first half!

Then — wonder of wonders! — I went to Vegas to place a bet on my perennially disappointing NL All-Star team, and miraculously, with a very scary finish, we WON! It was the first time since 2012!

What a fucking nail-biter, though! I could only barely watch. Actually, in the bottom of the 9th, after swapping 1-run leads with the AL all night, when they announced Craig Kimbrel as the closer in a 3-2 game, my PTSD set in. I felt like I would faint, or throw up, or both. So I left the room.

My brother thought I was nuts. He yells to me in then other room, “Pammy, he got the first guy out!”

“Give him time,” I say, remembering all those 9th innings last year when the Dodgers had the game sewn up only to see that Chicken Man cluck it all to hell.

“Pammy! He’s got two outs, and two strikes on the third batter!”

“Been there! Done that!”

Back in those dark days, watching his stupid wing-spread windup, I couldn’t help thinking “the first two outs are the easy ones, it’s the third that counts!”

“Oh no!” I hear from my brother.

Kimbrel has gone from an 0-2 count to walking the batter. Not once, mind you, but twice! (I wonder what catcher Will Smith was thinking. He was behind the plate on many of Kimbrel’s meltdowns for us, and now here he was on baseball’s biggest stage reliving horrors from his past.)

Two men on, two outs, two strikes. I felt like my heart would likely explode when I heard the inevitable CRACK! of the home run, and the roar of that American League stadium.

But no! After the epic disappointments we Dodger fans have suffered at the hands of Craig Kimbrel, he finally made good, striking out the Guardians’ Jose Ramirez and actually saving the game for the National League.

And not only that, but he was also one of the pitchers in 2012 when the NL won the last time. Pretty sure that’s just a coincidence. I still think he sucks. He just got lucky this time.