Five Ways To Keep Your Dodger Blue Mojo In The Offseason

So it’s the offseason and the Dodgers are off the radar for most of the general public. What’s a die-hard Dodger fan to do? How do you get your Dodgers on when there’s no big club baseball until Spring Training?

No worries, Dodgers fans. Here are my top five ways to keep your Dodger Blue Mojo running all winter long:

1. Get Twittered. This is absolutely the best, top, A-Number-One tip I can give you if you are serious about getting your Dodgers fix during the long, cold winter.

Before I wrote for Lasorda’s Lair, I had no idea how the twitterverse worked, nor did I care. Since joining the crack team of writers here at the Lair, I’ve been plugged into Twitter, and lemme tell you, there is no shortage of tweets with Dodgers breaking news, rumors, reports, opinions and links to even more Dodger stuff in any given hour on Twitter, let alone a full 24.

This is by no means a definitive list of Twitter sources, but my top three favorites to follow are:

Eric Stephen @truebluela (another Dodgers writer)

Lasorda’s Lair @LasordasLair (but of course)

Dylan Hernandez @dylanohernandez (big-time sports writer)

You can even follow the feeds of actual Dodgers themselves, but that’s not my bag – and it doesn’t have to be, because….

One thing you’ll discover in the twitterworld is less is more.

Breaking Dodgers news is often covered by many of the Dodger tweeters, so I lost interest real fast in my twitter becoming bloated with tweets and retweets about the same newsflash from everyone – within minutes of each other.

I suggest choosing just a few favorites, as they will follow others for you and in turn retweet items from those feeds for you to read.

2. Bust out your Dodger collectibles. You know you’ve been hoarding them for years.  If you’re anything like me, one-quarter of the closet is stacked high with them.

You’ve got plenty of bobbleheads, blankets, sportsbags and  old-time L.A.P.D. Dare teamsets of Dodger baseball cards.  Dust them off, admire them and sort them. Heck, you might even be motivated to make a quick buck and sell a few of your extras on Ebay.

3. Pull out that shoebox of Dodgers baseball cards. I’m a baseball card collector, so this is one of my go-to’s in the offseason. I love to flip through my binder of Dodger cards.

I can spend hours enjoying the great photography on the fronts and then reading the stories and stats on their backs. I enjoy them all, from my 60+ year-old vintage cards of the boys from Brooklyn, to the 70’s cards that feature the Dodgers of my youth, and the 90’s cards with the Dodgers of my sons’ youth, all the way to today’s limited edition cards with hunks of jersey or on-card autographs of today’s Dodger stars, like Clayton Kershaw and Adrian Gonzalez.

4. Take some you-time and read a Dodger book. Start with the old classic The Boys of Summer by Roger Khan.

If you don’t prefer third person narratives written by outsiders, consider some of the books written by the boys themselves. A couple of tomes in my collection are The Artful Dodger by Tommy Lasorda, and Bottom Of The Ninth by Kirk Gibson. I particularly like Gibby’s book, and I got it signed by the man himself at Dodger Stadium.

Speaking of Gibby…

5. Find a DVD with Kirk Gibson’s classic World Series home run – In  fact, find that video that somebody in your family made when the Dodgers won the whole enchilada back in 1988. If it’s like my video, it’s got coverage from local newscasts and scenes from the World Series Champion’s locker room celebration.

Check out what a real celebration looked like before MLB Incorporated sanitized and wrapped the locker rooms like New Jersey quarantine rooms for people returning from Ebola land.  I’m sure the players don’t want their suits getting champagne’d and all, but it seems a bit controlled and artificial in a cocoon-ish sort if way.

My video also includes the Dodgers’ parade through downtown L.A. and Tommy Lasorda dancing on the steps of  L.A.’s City Hall.

You might even remember what it was like when the Dodgers used to be on TV.

SPECIAL ADDED BONUS!

6. Simply keep on reading and following the dedicated writers here on Lasorda’s Lair as we bring you all the Dodger Blue news that’s fit to type.