My heart belongs to the Detroit Tigers.

I have too many memories inside old Tiger Stadium to pretend otherwise. Jason Thompson’s smooth swing. Rusty Staub’s weird choke-up on the bat.

Those ghosts stay with you. If the Tigers ever met the Dodgers in the World Series, there’d be no doubt where I’d stand.

But the Dodgers don’t make a bad bridesmaid.

They won a thrilling seven-game World Series over the Toronto Blue Jays that is already considered classic. It had everything: back-and-forth leads, heroic pitching, and a finale that felt scripted by baseball gods.

Game 7 in Los Angeles will live in Dodger lore. The Dodgers took it 5–4, becoming the first team in 25 years to repeat as champions. They broke innumerable records in the march.

And that’s the beauty of being a fair-weather fan. It’s a vastly underrated quality in a sports fanThink about it: You can enjoy the hair-raising tension without having it fall out with disappointment. And if your fair weather team sucks, you can just swap them for a team you like for its grit, or its unlikely heroes.

Despite their colossus budget, This Dodgers managed both.

Shohei Ohtani reached base nine times in a single game earlier in the playoffs, a record-tying performance that felt mythic. He put the Babe in Ruthian.

Then came Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who arrived in Los Angeles already a legend in Japan. He won three games in a seven-game World Series, including games 6 and 7. By the end, he had written himself into Dodger history before his second season even began.

The Dodgers finished with 104 wins, another ring, and another parade that will stretch from downtown to Chavez Ravine. And it will include translators. I wonder if FOX will mute them.

Sure, I would have rather seen a parade on Michigan and Trumbull. The Tigers will always own my heart.

But this fall, the Dodgers earned my applause. They were the bridesmaid who stole the spotlight.

And for once, it was a helluva wedding.