I’ve been watching and cheering for the @Dodgers my entire life. 32 years ago they won the World Series, when I was three years old. I don’t remember that. I wish I did, because since then there’s been a lot of pain.

These last eight years, there’s been hope. There’s been a sense that winning a title was inevitable. Eight division titles in a row has to lead to a championship. It should be, as they say, inevitable.

The talent, the organization and the spirit of the team has lead me to believe that nothing could stop the @Dodgers from once again scaling that mountain to achieve the most difficult of sports championships.

But year after year these last several seasons, the @Dodgers have bowed out of the playoffs in very disappointing fashion. A couple of times, they’ve reached the precipice, only to fall short at the end. What seemed inevitable has seemed impossible.

Three years ago, I flew to LA from the East Coast, where I currently live, after seeing the @Dodgers win game six of the World Series against the Astros to knot things up, knowing that I had to be there when they finally overcame the past to emerge as champions.

I booked a plane ticket at two in the morning. I took a cab to the airport at an impossibly early hour. I boarded a transcontinental flight to sail toward glory in a middle seat.

I bought a ticket to game 7 at an outrageous price so that I could say that I was at Dodger Stadium when the inevitable happened, when this team acheived their deserved title.

I did all of this only to see my team fall flat and fall short, even if it was to an opponent that cheated their way to a championship.

Another World Series appearance led to an even more disappointing loss. And last year’s exit in the divisional round brought that old, familiar feeling of postseason failure. I know that many of players of the @Dodgers feel this even more sharply than I do.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this entire lifelong journey is that the @Dodgers have lost to the team that eventually won it all the last four seasons, with history perhaps inclined to repeat itself again for a fifth consecutive year.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for fan of the team that has had the most regular season success in recent memory. A tough pill to swallow for a team whose path to glory should have been inevitable. They’ve been so close to the inevitable title, yet it’s seemed so impossible.

I’ve seen all of these failures, year after year, and I have nothing to show for it. And frankly, neither to do the @Dodgers.

I’ve invested time and money in cheering my team on, just like all sports fans, and yet this year I find myself on the edge of that deep ravine of disappointment and loss once again. It’s the loss that feels inevitable, not the glory.

I’m sure the players and coaches of the @Dodgers feel it too, that sinking feeling. Those dark thoughts of failure. 2020 has been an awful year in so may ways, and losing in five games to the Braves would fit squarely in that narrative.

But maybe, just maybe, in the way that a championship that should have been inevitable has not yet materialized, that loss, that bowing out of the playoffs before they’re over is not inevitable.

Maybe there’s a way for the @Dodgers to turn things around. Maybe there’s something deep down in the hearts and minds of this team with so much talent that won’t let them give up. Maybe there’s a way back in this series and beyond.

I have to hope, because at this point that’s all I have left as a fan of the @Dodgers. Hope for one last ditch, against all odds triumph that can erase an era of disappointment. Hope for redemption. Hope that another playoff exit is not inevitable.

Hope that, for all of these last several years where the championship for the @Dodgers that has seemed so probable and yet has so far proven impossible, will in fact be inevitable.

It’s up to them, and all of us @Dodgers fans are still along for the ride, cheering for that change in fortune that will bring the improbable, and perhaps seemingly impossible, title back to Los Angeles.