My cousin from the beautiful part of the San Fernando Valley. A screenwriter friend who lives near the Sony lot. Academics and mechanics, Filipinos and Armenians and Latinos and regular white people. Old and young, rich and working class.

On my social media feeds, all I see are my friends from LA proclaiming their loyalty to the Dodgers. A number of them uploaded videos of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, which the Blue Crew won against the New York Mets to secure a spot in the World Series.

Too many of them are asking if I can get them a ticket to Game 1 on Friday (ustedes should know better – and the answer is: even I can’t get one).

As a life-worker from Orange County with a somewhat objective viewpoint on LA, I’ve seen that nothing seems to unite the city more happily than a winning Dodgers team. I remember the excitement of the 1988 World Series run, the joy that turned to disappointment over the runner-up campaigns of 2017 and 2018, the muted celebrations for the pandemic-era 2020 championship.

This year there is a joy like I have never seen.

The Dodgers will play the World Series in front of a home crowd for the first time since 2018 (2020 took place in Texas due to COVID restrictions), with Game 1 taking place just days after the death of Fernando Valenzuela, perhaps the most magical Dodger of all time. them all. Their opponent will be even bigger: the New York Yankees, the old Big Apple rival they have faced 11 times in the Fall Classic, but not in the last 43 years.

I also notice something sad that girdles all this support. Los Angeles residents need something to believe in as their city fights for its life.

Political corruption, flash mob robberies, street takeovers, broken sidewalks – whatever is not Is there something wrong with LA these days? The civic nerd in me laments that the people who wear blue or hoist team flags on their cars don’t show the same passion as the people who run Los Angeles, that they don’t grab paint rollers to cover up graffiti or cans to sweep dirty streets clean like they would hold a home run ball from Kiké Hernández.

If those Dodgers fans would direct even a tenth of the passion they show for the team toward building a better LA, the city would be a bigger, cooler Irvine.

But I’m also a sports nerd, so I understand why passion for a team doesn’t translate into passion for local politics. Furthermore, fans will always root for teams that are winners. Right now, LA’s leaders are as inept as Orange County’s Angels.

So let me challenge all Dodgers fans to a happy medium: make Los Angeles more like your team. One of baseball’s premier franchises didn’t reach its lofty place overnight. This year’s success is the result of winning strategies that LA can implement – ​​and in which everyone can play a role.

Dodgers fans cheer as they watch Game 6 of the 2020 World Series in the Club Bahia parking lot near Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

The most important thing, of course, is embracing diversity. From Jackie Robinson to Sandy Koufax, Valenzuela to Chan Ho Park, the Dodgers have long been pioneers in nurturing talent that resembled the cities in which they played. This year’s team continues that tradition by featuring players from all over the world: from Japan to the Caribbean. South America to Orange County. Black, white, Latino, Asian, they are a reflection of the true multicultural society that Los Angeles claims to be.

To paraphrase an old baseball joke, the Dodgers are 25 guys trying to fit into one Uber, while LA remains a city of neighborhoods each driving their own car while not even knowing others exist. A metropolis where Little Bangladesh knows hardly anything about Tehrangeles and vice versa will never really work, no matter how much its boosters claim it to be the case.

To maintain this unity, one must subsume one’s own needs for the greater good. The Dodgers have one of the greatest talents the game has ever seen in Shohei Ohtani, one of the best players in the major leagues in Mookie Betts, a perennial All-Star in Freddie Freeman and an injured legend in Clayton Kershaw.

Yet this team plays with the unity of a rowing team and the dedication of Little Leaguers. Whatever egos there are in the clubhouse have no impact on the field; everyone knows their role and supports each other.

Unfortunately, that’s not how Los Angeles ever worked. It is a city of competing visions and political machines, where access comes to those who play the game rather than to those who actually want to do good. Everyone has a fief that must be preserved at all costs, even if it means ruining others.

The Dodgers’ thrilling playoff run comes as Los Angeles faces a fiscal cliff. In the first three months of this budget year alone, the city will have to pay a quarter of a billion dollars in liability costs, leaving leaders wondering where the money will come from. This follows a report that puts the price tag of solving homelessness in LA at nearly $22 billion, as the city prepares to help host the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

These terrible scenarios are your final reminder that if you want to spend money, you should at least try to make money. The Dodgers have known this forever. Forbes doesn’t consider them the second most valuable baseball franchise behind those damn Yankees just because their uniforms are so damn sharp.

No team has achieved a better winning percentage in the past decade, leading to league-leading attendance figures in most years. Fans are happy to pay $17 for a large can of beer or $35 to park at the gate at the stadium – because they know their money is going towards building better teams and creating a fan experience with few rivals in the professional sports.

LA City Hall, on the other hand, has not given residents any reason to hope. Instead, elected officials and bureaucrats come up with grandiose ideas, like making the Olympics car-free or closing Wilshire Boulevard where it runs through MacArthur Park. When public transportation makes more news about its attacks on passengers and drivers than its effectiveness, and MacArthur Park continues to be plagued by gangs and drug dealers, does anyone really believe L.A.’s politicians can accomplish anything?

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during a 2021 game.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

Of course, the Dodgers aren’t perfect. Their continued refusal to erect a memorial to the neighborhoods on which Dodger Stadium was built contradicts the spirit of a city that wants to grapple with all of history, comfortable or not. If the team doesn’t win the World Series this year, it will column as relevant as former LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

And yet, even if the Dodgers lose to the Yankees, they will continue to be a success. The fans will be back next year, the team will swing for the proverbial fences again, most likely with another shot at winning the World Series.

They are currently the most trusted brand in Los Angeles, while City Hall is little more than a joke with no punchline except for the taxpayer’s wallet.

Mayor Karen Bass cheered on the Dodgers during Game 6. She’s supposed to visit the team Friday before Game 1 — except manager Dave Roberts and his guys should give her a pep talk about how to win, not the other way around.