Screw the Dodgers: Why I'll Never Go Blue

It took several months, but Chase Utley found his way back to his old buddy Jimmy Rollins. With Thursday's trade to Los Angeles, the Dodgers have fortified themselves up the middle in an attempt to lock down the National League West and provide some help for the team in the postseason.

Utley and Rollins, two Phillies legends, together again. It's almost too perfect, isn't it?

No. It's terrible. Any Philadelphia fan who roots for the Dodgers should be given no quarter and kicked out of the club. While I will never, ever wish Jimmy and Chase ill, I will never root for the Dodgers under any circumstances*.

* Unless they play the Cardinals, and the "city-killing asteroid" option is off the table.

All you kids who dabble in hatred of the Mets and Giants and Nationals don't know what true hatred is. It's wanting to see Tommy Lasorda drown in a vat of scalding marinara. It's hoping Vin Scully's personal information is found in the Ashley Madison leak. It's wanting the freeways to become permanently clogged with Priuses. It's hoping the "Big One" strikes Chavez Ravine, swallowing (a hopefully empty, I don't want people to die) Dodger Stadium into the bowels of the Earth, and that the land is restored to its rightful owners.

The Dodgers are the Phillies' longest running historical rival, from the time of the "Original 16" era Brooklyn teams. The Dodgers and Phillies were both mostly terrible through the pre-Integration era, but after World War II, the Dodgers became one of the National League's powerhouses. The 1950 pennant race, ultimately won by the Phillies, was a neck-and-neck romp to the season's final days.

But the rivalry didn't start to get really ugly until the 1970s, when the Dodgers took the Phillies out in consecutive National League Championship Series in 1977 and 1978. I was born about a month after 1977's "Black Friday." The trauma was transmitted to me in utero.

For the last 30 or so years, though, it's been mostly Phillies in the meaningful matchups, starting with the 1983 National League pennant, followed by 2008 and 2009's thrilling Championship Series. I take nearly as much pleasure in those consecutive series victories as I do in the 2008 World Championship. Beating the Rays just lacked that bloodthirsty feeling of triumph that knocking off those blue-hatted tools had.

And none of this even touches on the antipathy between the Sixers and Lakers. "Beat L.A." rivals "Jesus wept" as the most perfect and profound sentence in the English language. It's your municipal duty to root against Los Angeles teams.

So, if you find yourself tempted to root for the Dodgers, please remember the above. It could save your life. Thank you for your time.