Dodgers Zoom Party

Spring training had started and suddenly was cancelled. All the players went home and stayed there. Being with their families, working out on their own. Opening day was postponed, the All Star Game will probably be cancelled. No concrete news on how and if, when the regular season will start. Corona is a bitch and I thought I would not see my boys in Blue live in any capacity this year.

Then the Dodgers organization came up with the idea of a Zoom Party. Active and former Dodgers just chatting away from home, with the occasional celebrity added in the mix (Cedric the Entertainer in this case). Now that sounded sweet, so I tried to get an access code. No such luck the first time, but lo and behold, I got access to the second Zoom Party. Okay, so did more than 11-thousand other fans, but who’s counting? It felt special.

Fifteen minutes before the Zoom Party started I got my login information. And on May 5th 2020, at 3am (yes, it was an early morning for me here over in the Netherlands) Alanna Rizzo and Joe Davis came online to welcome the fans. They were surrounded by so many great names. Lucky for me there were a lot of personal favorites among them.

Rizzo and Davis were accompanied by: Orel Hershiser, Adrian Gonzalez, Steve Garvey, Justin Turner, Ross Stripling, Kike Hernandez, Kenley Jansen, Cody Bellinger, Clayton Kershaw and André Ethier. Now, that’s a lineup!

Alanna and Joe moderated the party and the banter started from the get go. Joe asked Jansen about him playing basketball when Kenley’s feed froze so Belli told him: ‘Kenley, you’re rich, get better wifi’. Watch that clip! Ethier, who was in full gear, including the pants, told his kids were streaming Youtube videos all day (on four iPads and six tv’s).

But it wasn’t all fun and games. Some serious topics came up. Private issues like homeschooling the kids. But also baseball related stuff like the chance that Orel’s consecutive scoreless innings record could be broken. Watch the clip!

It was fun, good to see how they had a blast together. It shows on the field but it was good to see it still works in these weird times. It felt good to see them. If you haven’t had a chance yet, try to get into the next Dodgers Zoom Party on Monday the 11th at 6pm, pacific.