World Series Game 7 set us up for a moment of redemption. It just never came.

I didn’t plan on watching the World Series.

The Astros and the Dodgers, those have never been my teams. I grew up an Orioles fan in the DMV at a time when every kid wanted the Billy Ripken “fuck face” card. Before I could get my hands on the card, we moved to Florida and I played for the Marlins in little league. I was short and chubby, but I could hit. When the coach wasn’t playing his son at first, I got to dig balls out at first but mainly DH’d or picked grass in left field.

It was usually my mom’s responsibility to bring me to practice and drive around in circles until I was finished, but there was one day my dad campaigned for the duty. It was my birthday, March 1, 1993. He was over an hour late picking me up so I waited on a bench watching the older kids play when five white kids started throwing sunflower seeds at me and ran around in a circle singing, “Ching chong, Eddie Wong, sitting on a jumbo gong.”

Nowadays that’s a better hook than most Soundcloud rappers are writing, but back then it was a defining moment for me. I didn’t understand why I had to be Chinese, and if we were Chinese why couldn’t we be Chinese in China?!? Why did we have to be Chinese in Orlando? I didn’t understand how the Cultural Revolution forced our migration; all I knew was that white people hated me.

The funny thing is I never turned on sports. They were undeniable. Some of the worst moments in my life happened between the lines, but I never blamed the game. Despite all the efforts of immoral men like Bill Belichick, Rick Pitino, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Shoeless Joe Jackson, or Robert Horry (just kidding, Big Shot), the games usually provided just results. Even in 2017 — a year that makes the most convincing argument on record for the absence of any sort of omnipotent god — I still find joy in the New York Knicks.

Think about that for a second and pray for me.

Besides being a Knick and Washington football fan, I clap for Asians. I watched figure skating because of Michelle Kwan. I hit a two-handed backhand because of Michael Chang. I wore Hideo Nomo jerseys growing up and I followed the Chargers this year to see if Younghoe Koo was going to hit a field goal! I will watch any athletic event if there is the slightest possibility of Asian achievement, because all anyone wanted to tell me growing up was that we sucked. And sadly, we usually did. But I believed and I watched. “Next time,” I said.

The three greatest sports moments I ever witnessed were, in order: Yao’s first game against Shaquille O’Neal after Charles Barkley ridiculed him, Jeremy Lin’s 38-point game against Kobe, and Allen Iverson’s Georgetown debut (complete with footage from the bowling alley fight that landed him in jail and delayed his delivery to John Thompson). They have one theme in common: redemption.

I watch sports because nothing else in the world ever seemed fair, and so I tuned into the World Series because I wanted redemption. I was heated about Houston’s Yuli Gurriel, who pulled his eyes back and mouthed the word “chinito” during Yu Darvish’s Game 3 start. But more than that, I wanted redemption for commissioner Rob Manfred’s failure to uphold baseball’s values. But I wasn’t just looking for justice for that. When Manfred handed Gurriel a deferred 5-game regular season suspension, I knew that redemption would not be coming from the people upstairs. It would have to come on the field.

I wanted redemption for what we grew up getting told are the values of the game. From the time we first step onto any field, every single coach tells his players: “We win as a team.” By delaying his punishment, Manfred put Gurriel’s value to the Astros over the values that give life to the game — that if one player puts his own abhorrent action above his team’s need, that team might have to lose together because of it.

But with Yu Darvish starting Game 7, it felt like we were all about to witness divine intervention and of course ... redemption. If there was a god, she would ensure that the Dodgers would ride Darvish to a spectacular Game 7 victory … but she didn’t. Just like in Game 3, the slider didn’t break, the fastball sat in the zone, and Darvish didn’t even make it through the second inning.

I felt like a fool. Why did I believe? Nothing should have given me hope, but I couldn’t let it go. I went back to Game 6 and watched as Rich Hill stepped off the mound so that fans could give Gurriel his just desserts. When Darvish got yanked, I replayed the first two innings. I listened to the crowd as Darvish took the mound; I watched them as Gurriel tipped his hat to Darvish in his first AB, a sign of respect, but too little too late.

A player, the commissioner, and perhaps even the baseball gods failed us. But there were the fans. The fans that make the World Series possible. The fans that define a game even after its been decided. The fans that refused to forget Gurriel, Darvish, or the word “chinito” and boo-ed Gurriel into the 8th inning when the Dodgers were already down 5-1. If you believe in baseball, it was almost enough to make you a Dodger fan.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.