Dodger Superfan Bryan Cranston Named His Dog After Vin Scully

He wanted to be a Dodger and now he is a Dodger for the rest of his career, hopefully. The Dodgers are great at figuring out how to take advantage of the players they have and the communities they belong to. Whether it’s Hispanic, Japanese, Korean, wherever the player happens to be from, they do a great job with that. Fernando Mania was a real thing. We were crazy about Fernando Valenzuela. It stimulated the culture. I think the same will be true for Shohei here. The Japanese contingent will be coming out, the Japanese residents of Los Angeles will be inspired by it, and that’ll expand. It makes the world a little bit smaller, which is terrific.

I’m excited about the prospect, but it does create a tremendous amount of expectation for how they perform. When you’re thinking of playoff sports, it basically comes down to two things. Who’s getting hot at the right time, and who’s the healthiest? That’s it! It doesn’t really matter that much what happened throughout the season.

When the Dodgers lose in the playoffs, are you able to chalk it up to that? The other team was hotter, or the other team was healthier. Or are you really wearing those losses no matter what?

I definitely wear it. If you’re a true fan, you do wear it. I will go as far as saying that even during the regular season, if the Dodgers won that day, I’m a little happier. There’s a little bounce. If the Dodgers lost that day, I’m a little down. It’s like, hmph. It’s like someone gave you a little smack. It won’t ruin everything. But it’s not as good of a day.

So, when it comes to playoffs, it’s tough when they lose. You should feel a little ping of pain! I’ve become the ping of pain! I think any true fan feels the pain of a loss—not as much as the players, because they’re in it—but we’re connected tangentially. Then you process, work through it. Sure, you can intellectualize it. We had a week off and Arizona was hot at the time, they were healthier than us. You can do all that talk. But you lost! That’s the bottom line. Nobody wants to be in that position.

That’s the sense of competition that I think we should always maintain. I think competition is very healthy. It gives us drive and motivation. As long as you keep that healthy and don’t let it get out of control. You know, I’ve played golf with people where they have a couple bad drives and break their club over their leg. No. I don’t want to be around that. That’s too far.

Well with baseball it’s like, We’ve got 160 more of these. We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.

And that’s the thing that helps you overcome it! We shoulda won that game…okay. Move on. It does take a little bit.

Bateman is also a native like me. It’s in our blood. We’ve been a part of Dodger baseball for decades. Koufax and Drysdale in the ‘60s, Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey in the ‘70s, Kurt Gibson in the ‘80s, then it was dry for a long time until 2020. Winning with that team, which was a great team, but then you gotta say goodbye to some players like [Corey] Seager, Justin Turner, that was tough. But that’s life, too. You have to live through it. You can’t hold on to it, and you don’t want to live in a memory.