A moderately chilly January turned into one of the rainiest February’s in Los Angeles history and the process for Rolando’s recovery became the focus of our lives. It was slow and tedious and wasn’t progressing great. He wasn’t regressing, we just didn’t see any real improvement. His mind wandered, his strength ebbed and flowed, his diet diminished in spurts and his sleep was all over the place, which meant my sleep was all over the place. One doctor told me he had hit a ‘plateau’. Another doctor told me there was no such thing as a ‘plateau’ at the age of 91 and that made sense to me. He was frail and would never not be frail again. His heart was insanely strong but the ravages of living nine decades took its toll on his muscles and bones. I needed to adjust and that was difficult.

Changes happen and happen in increments. For Rolando and me, him home from the latest hospital stretch included some new normals. A mechanical hospital bed in his bedroom (which he absolutely hated), a shower chair in the shower (which he loved), rails around the house for him to hold onto and notes around the house to remind him to brush his teeth and eat something other than bananas (he’d eat 3-4 bananas a day).

For years, we had a structure. When I was working, I made sure he was fed or someone ate with him. But I did the cooking (gladly) or we would go exploring in a task we eventually titled, Rolando Eats. Now that he was feebler, I refused to let up on the Rolando Eats concept. Even though he ate less and less, I made sure he ate meals he enjoyed, and we’d go to restaurants with people he loved and enjoyed. One year we did a Pozole Tour to find the best Pozole in LA County. We went through the Los Angeles Times Top 100 restaurants and picking out the best Mexican restaurants, ate at those places, spanning from Bell Garden to Lomita to the Valley. There will be more to come about Rolando Eats.

Rolando still was able to look forward to big events. The next big event was Opening Day.

*****

Opening Day is a concept until it isn’t, just like if you have no understanding of something, it isn’t real until it is. It was Spring when I was in first grade when my dad told me it was Opening Day. For baseball, back in those days (CRAP, I’m saying that) the Cincinnati Reds played the first game of the season, every year. Tradition. For my dad and I, Opening Day was the Dodgers first game. Sadly, neither cable nor streaming was available, so we’d watch whatever we could and wait for the newspaper for the box score. Eventually, I’d be able to show dad a better way.

There really is nothing quite like Opening Day in baseball. It coincides so perfectly with the dawning of Spring. The beginning of a new season, the greenness and sunlight of the growth of the season mixed with the optimism that each team, initially, holds. I’ve been to Opening Days in Fenway Park, Shea and Yankee Stadium’s; the old Tiger Stadium the last year it was open and Petco Park in San Diego. And, of course, Dodger Stadium. I’ve attended four Opening Days at Dodger Stadium. The first, 2005, the Dodgers were down 5-Goose Egg to Atlanta before I got to my seat. Damn you, Derek Lowe.

I was able to get Rolando to two Opening Days and they were both tremendous and unforgettable. In 2008, my buddies, Rich and Sammy, Rolando and I got to see Orlando Hudson hit for the then, second Cycle in Los Angeles Dodger history (Wes Parker recorded the first one and Cody Bellinger did it again in 2017). Well, I was there, but by streak of misfortune, missed every hit Orlando got that day, be it in traffic, the bathroom or in line for beer. Much to my chagrin. But the Dodgers won and everyone went home happy.

In 2013, the same group went and saw perhaps the greatest individual performance by a Dodger on Opening Day. The Great Clayton Kershaw was the starting pitcher, and he fired shut out baseball all day. However, the Dodgers couldn’t do anything with the San Francisco Giants pitchers either. So, Clayton Kershaw, in the 8th inning of a scoreless battle, stepped to the plate and in a dramatic Roy Hobbs moment, crushed a home run over the center field wall. It was then, the loudest I’ve ever heard Dodger Stadium get (that has been surpassed by a feat I will speak of in a later essay). The Dodgers went on to win, Kershaw pitched a shutout and was hero on the mound and at the plate.

Rolando got to see Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale pitch live and he said that Kershaw’s performance was the greatest he ever saw live. It was quite a day. To be at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day and to be there with my dad, is a memory I will always cherish.

****

Opening 2024 for the Dodgers was a little different. It was in Seoul, Korea. A ton of storylines fed the frenzy leading up to the two games the Dodgers would play against their bitter rivals, the San Diego Padres. First and foremost, the Dodgers had been eliminated prematurely back-to-back years in the first round of the playoffs. Once, by the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks and the other, the hated Padres.

The Dodgers have spent decades torturing their younger San Diego brother. As the Dodgers reeled off division titles, pennants and World Series wins, the Padres languished. Occasionally, the Padres would rear up and have a great team (they attended the 1984 and 1998 World Series’) but it was fleeting. However, the newest incarnation of the Padres went to-to-toe with the Dodgers. The great talent of Fernando Tatis, the plucky courage of Jurickson Profar, the rookie phenom in Jackson Merrill and of course, THE HATED ONE, Manny Machado. To Dodger fans, Manny Machado represents all that is evil in the world. He played half a season for the Dodgers and, even though they went to the World Series, Manny did NOT endear himself to the fans.

The second big story was Shohei Ohtani. His first game as a Dodger would take place in Korea and if that wasn’t big enough, the breaking news of Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, stealing from Ohtani and gambling an obscenely absurd amount of money, was. The amount of pressure Ohtani must have felt that week boggles my mind. But he seemed to compartmentalize nicely, and he played well.

I debated taping the game (yes, I know, no one tapes anymore) and watching it with Rolando later but luckily, or unluckily, his new sleep habits meant he’d be awake at 3 AM. Therefore, dad and I got to watch the beginning of the 2024 Dodger season in the wee hours of the morning.

It wasn’t the prettiest game, but I got to watch Opening Day with my dad. The Dodgers newest pitcher, Tyler Glasnow, started and threw fairly well. The Dodgers score 4-runs in the 8th inning to come back from a 2-1 deficit. Ohtani even had an RBI single in that 8th. The Dodgers became the first team since the 1983 Phillies to start former MVPs at the 1-2-3 hitting slots (Mookie Betts, Ohtani and Freddie Freeman). The Dodgers won 5-2 and for a few hours, all was right with the world.

The Dodgers would lose the second game, and it was time for them to head home to start the season on the mainland. Rolando and I were ready for it. Little did we know that April would be the beginning of the hardest stretch.