Bluetopia

While it went straight to DVD, “Bluetopia” is a documentary that is so good and so wise that it could have played screens bigger than your living room plasma. It’s technically about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2008 season, but, at its heart, the movie is about so much more. There were points during the 90 minute running time that my eyes started to well up with tears. Not because the Dodgers lost to the Phillies in the NLCS. Indeed, even if the team had finished behind the pack in 2008, this film would have told the same story. About the fans and the truly unique folks that inhabit Chavez Ravine.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The “Bluetopia” filmmakers fill the reels with the requisite baseball stuff. The arrival of new manager Joe Torre. The surprising trade-deadline appearance of Manny Ramirez who singlehandedly transformed the Dodger season from water to wine. The usual ups and downs of a 162 game baseball schedule.

But, this is not where “Bluetopia’s” director Timothy Marx wants to concern himself. Nope, he’s looking at the people in the stands and under the stands. The fans and those that attend to the fans. You follow the Dodger season through their eyes and it is the most humanistic view of a baseball team that I have seen.

There’s the police detective who arrives in the bleachers two hours prior to game time so his son can try and snag a batting practice home run or engage Chan Ho Park in a game of catch. There’s the three ladies who come adorned with Dodger caps and pins and bleed the consummate blue. They reminded me so much of the gals who sucked me into Dodger fandom ten years ago and now, for me, there is barely any other team to follow. There’s the lifelong season ticket holder whose cancer battle is noticed by an attentive usher and she winds up throwing out the first ball last Mother’s Day. Later, she schedules her chemo treatments around the Dodgers’ postseason schedule. Sadly, we learn that she has since passed on. You meet another season ticket holder whose father was the first one in Los Angeles. When Walter O’Malley first announced the move from Brooklyn, his dad sent the first $25 deposit for tickets.

You get a wonderful look at rookie Clayton Kershaw’s first major league start (hey, I was there, too) through the eyes of his family and friends in the stands. You watch his girlfriend greet him after the game with so much love and warmth that you want to hug them both. You watch Manny introduce himself to clubhouse workers, forgetting to say hello to his new manager. No Dodger documentary would be complete without some Vin Scully, who addresses some Asian journalists with the only thing he knows how to say in their native language. “I’ll have scotch with a little water and some ice.”

At its core, “Bluetopia” shows you what it means to be the fan of a baseball team. Not just the Dodgers. Any team. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I lived and mostly died with the New York Mets. When I knew every uniform number and birthplace of every player. Jim McAndrew from Lost Nation, Iowa. Nolan Ryan from Alvin, Texas. I realized that there is still some baseball love for me to give even if it’s in another time and another place.

”Bluetopia” showed me that baseball is never outgrown. Because baseball keeps us as we should be. All kids at heart.

Dinner last night: Roast beef sandwich from Clementine's.