Despite the anxious messages hitting his phone Wednesday evening, San Gabriel Valley native David Gonzales didn’t fret.
The army veteran was about two hours into a 12-hour drive from his Rio Rancho, N.M., home to his cousin’s house in El Monte for a long-planned family reunion — a family of baseball fans.
Game 5 of the World Series was in the third inning at the time, and Gonzales’ Los Angeles Dodgers had fallen five runs behind the New York Yankees.
“Friends and family were very nervous,” Gonzalez said about the rush of texts. And they had right to be: No team had ever come back from a five-run deficit to clinch the World Series.
Not Gonzalez, though. “I wasn’t too concerned,” he said. “I was wearing my lucky jersey and I knew we would come back.”
Gonzales was one of several fans attending Friday’s victory parade who said they had patted shirts and jerseys, kissed rosaries and prayed during the postseason games, turning to faith, ritual, superstition and luck in the hope that it would push their beloved team over the top.
Gonzales departed at 4 p.m., about an hour before the first pitch of a game in which the Dodgers rallied to defeat the Yankees, 7-6, to clinch their eighth title.
He wore the Nike blue-and-white Dodgers jersey that he’d purchased in 2006 right after returning home from deployment in Iraq. His cousin, Christine Ortiz, had ushered him back into civilian life by taking him to a Dodgers game, but Gonzalez wasn’t quite ready for it.
“I didn’t have a shirt for the game, so I bought one of the first ones I saw along with my cousin and we’ve kept them ever since,” Gonzales said. “They became our lucky shirts, including for Game 5.”
Gonzales and his wife Teresa reached El Monte on Thursday morning, washed his shirt and jammed themselves into the crowd at 5th Street and Grand Avenue for Friday’s street party.
“We didn’t get one of these in 2020, so it was nice to finally do this,” he said. “If our shirts could survive 17, 18 years since we bought them, they’ve got to be lucky.”
Gonzales was part of a group of seven family members that included his aunt Debbie Villescas, 69, whose lucky device was the light blue Dodgers sweater she wrapped around her waist Friday.
The sweater belonged to her husband Albert, a lifelong fan who passed away in March.
“I’ve worn his sweater for the entire playoff run,” Villescas said while gripping the article of clothing. “He would have wanted to be here, and I feel like he is.”
San Diego resident Debbie Black, 68, also called to a higher power for strength throughout the postseason.
“I turned to ‘Mamba Mentality’ because that’s the type of toughness the Dodgers needed,” said Black, in an interview at Union Station on her way to the Dodger Stadium party.
She was referring to the catchphrase of Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant that was emblazoned on a T-shirt that Black wore during every Dodgers postseason game.
Black said she paced throughout her house tapping on her shirt whenever the Dodgers were in “sticky” situations, as they were in the fifth inning of Game 5, apparently unable to muster a single hit off of Yankees’ ace Gerrit Cole. By the end of the inning, they had scored five runs to tie the game and puncture Cole’s veneer of invulnerability.
“Oh, I didn’t take it off,” she said before heading to the celebration inside Dodger Stadium with a pair of friends. “I rubbed and tugged on the shirt because I needed the ‘Mamba Mentality’ to get through the game.”
Downey resident Carlos Interiano strolled proudly through Union Station en route to the Dodger Stadium celebration wearing a black cap with the L.A. insignia, a white jersey and the Dodgers’ logo emblazoned in gold across his chest.
If that wasn’t noticeable enough, Interiano carried a flag with one side displaying the stars and stripes, the other a big blue “Dodgers” logo on a white background.
“Finally, we can shake off the talk about a fake championship in 2020,” Interiano, 34, said, referring to the Dodgers COVID-19-shortened championship season. “That was real then and this is now, so I’m going to make noise and celebrate.”
While Interiano appeared confident Friday afternoon, he acknowledged that he was “very nervous” throughout the postseason.
“I watch games at the house and we prayed; we pray every day and every game,” he said. “We light candles, we break out the rosary and we watch.”
He said during Wednesday’s final game, he continually fidgeted with, squeezed and kissed the dark brown rosary he purchased in Mexico a decade ago that sits around his neck.
“We needed all the help we could get, so why not pray,” Interiano said. “There’s no shame.”
