Sunday, June 28, 2009

Field of Dreams

Joe Pierre on the mound at Dodger Stadium.

Joe Pierre: Brooklyn resident. Joe Pierre: Dodger fan since before the team left Brooklyn. Joe Pierre: Not related to Juan.

71-year-old Joe Pierre, known as "oldbrooklynfan" at Josh Rawitch's Inside the Dodgers blog, is also afraid of flying. But he overcame that fear — taking his first flight in 46 years — when Rawitch arranged for him to take a Dodger Stadium tour with fellow ItD commenters. The Dodgers paid for Pierre's flight and accommodations.

"Sometimes I just wondered what I was doing rooting for a team 3,000 miles away, but this made it worth it," an emotional Pierre said during the tour. Kudos to Frank McCourt and Rawitch for making it possible.

Brooklyn Dodgers fan's dream comes true (Dodgers.com) (Watch the video. Try not to tear up!)

UPDATE:

McCourt meets Pierre.

top photo by Juan Ocampo/Dodgers; bottom photo by Jill Weisleder/Dodgers

5 comments:

Todd said...

That's an amazing story. Our seats would have been right next to him had he gone to Saturday night's game.

Then again, conquering a lifelong fear and traveling 3,000 miles to see the Dodgers get manhandled would have been a bit of a drag.

Mr. LA Sports Czar said...

It wouldn't have killed the Dodgers to get him some decent seats.

Erin said...

This is a great story. The only problem with it is that the guy who wrote the article for MLB.com clearly does not know his Internet terminology. He called Pierre a "commentator" instead of a "commenter," and he (and the Dodgers scoreboard at the game) referred to the people who took the "Inside the Dodgers" tour as "bloggers." Some of them may be, I guess, but they're mostly just commenters on someone else's blog. I don't work ten minutes a week on my blog just so I can see some other schmoe misidentied as a "blogger," damn it.

Orel said...

Very nice, Erin.

Erin said...

Ha, just reread my comment. Would have been nicer if I could have actually spelled the word "misidentified." But thanks anyway.