After 32 years, next year finally came.
I still don’t believe it.
As longtime readers of my Best of Bill columns know, I had one foot out the door with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have had an exasperating recent history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Two-thirds of my adult children weren’t even born the last time they won the World Series, and I’m not getting any younger.
There were signs this year would be different. The core of the team had been carefully cultivated and had coalesced into a remarkably cohesive and interchangeable unit as youngsters came up through the best minor league system in baseball, with just the right blend of veteran leadership.
The decision to trade for Mookie Betts, and then the quick deal to lock him in as a Dodger for life, was an even more encouraging development for long-suffering fans growing as skeptical of the current ownership as they were scornful of predecessor Frankrupt McCourt.
Betts is a generational superstar and legitimate five-tool player with the highest baseball IQ I’ve ever seen, and he inspires everyone around him to be better. As lofty as expectations were for him, he would vastly exceed them.
And then came the coronavirus. Since it arrived in the United States from Wuhan, China, early this year, the contagion has taken a devastating toll on the health and economic well-being of Americans. So of course America’s pastime would be a casualty, too.
Very surprisingly, Major League Baseball actually came up with a creative and entertaining workaround involving a truncated schedule, division and league realignment, and cleverly improved rules — all wrapped up in a bubble. Cardboard cutouts that included my Alaskan malamute, Sadie, were a popular afterthought.
Led by Betts, redbearded graybeard Justin Turner and National League Championship Series and World Series MVP Corey Seager, the Dodgers cruised through the 60-game season with a record that projected to 116 victories over a normal 162-game campaign, a winning percentage of a ridiculous 72 percent.
The postseason sprint was the most exciting, grueling and tension-filled series of series I ever experienced, and the Dodgers had to beat three of their true equals to earn the coveted “piece of metal,” all at their new home away from home, Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
The San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves and Tampa Bay Rays gave them everything they had, but the best team in baseball won in the end. And deservedly so.
I think I speak for all Dodger fans when I say that that 32-year debt has been paid in full. Thank you for that, but now it’s time to go back to back.
Back in the Santa Barbara bubble, meanwhile, Noozhawk had an audience of 98,117 readers this past week, according to our Google Analytics.
What follows is my take on the Top 5 stories you were reading. Just so you know, this is my opinion column and not a news story.
1. Minuteman Missile Blasts Off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Test of Defense System
(Jan Jones / U.S. Air Force video)
An unarmed Minuteman III missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base early on Oct. 29, then raced 4,200 miles before landing at a test range in the Pacific Ocean.
The 12:27 a.m. launch from an underground silo on the base was a readiness and effectiveness test of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile system. Air Force officials said the missile was randomly selected from the Air Force Global Strike Command fleet at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.
The missile was fired toward a test range near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where unsettled weather conditions the day before had forced a 24-hour delay.
“The ICBM test launch program demonstrates our nation’s nuclear deterrence forces are safe, secure, effective and ready to defend the United States,” said Ron Cortopassi, executive director of the 30th Space Wing, the launch decision authority at VAFB.
“Vandenberg plays an integral part in providing the capabilities necessary to meet those test objectives.”
Two more space launches are scheduled in the next two weeks, including a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that is set to liftoff Nov. 10. While the rocket carries a NASA ocean-observing Sentinel-6 satellite into orbit, its first-stage booster is to quickly return to a landing pad at the base.
2. BizHawk: New Chomp on the Rocks Restaurant Looks to Make a Splash at Santa Barbara Harbor
After a successful run in Solvang, Aaron Petersen has brought his diner-style burgers, fries and shakes to the Santa Barbara Harbor.
Chomp on the Rocks, a sister restaurant to Chomp in Solvang, has opened at 113 Harbor Way in the former home of the Waterfront Grill.
“I am hoping that a Chomp experience works down here,” Petersen told our Josh Molina. “Families, kids, friends. This is designed for families with kids.”
The menu features burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, fish tacos, salads, bratwurst and vegan burgers. The three-cheese Mac n’ Cheese sure looks good to me.
“Ice creamery” sweets are a specialty, and include handmade shakes, malts, floats, sundaes and an old-fashioned banana split.
If wine is more to your taste, there’s a decent selection from around the Central Coast, which also is the source of most of the restaurant’s food.
A Solvang native, Petersen has become quite the harbor denizen. He opened Salty at the Beach Bar | Grill upstairs from Chomp on the Rocks, in the old Endless Summer Café space. And he bought a boat, on which he lives part time.
Chomp on the Rocks is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
3. COVID-19 Outbreak Among UC Santa Barbara Students Expected to Keep County in Red Tier
According to Santa Barbara County officials, we were this close to advancing into a less restrictive tier under California’s convoluted coronavirus reopening blueprint — but for UC Santa Barbara’s Greek community.
At the county’s Oct. 23 news conference, Public Health Department officials said five UCSB fraternity and sorority houses — which they would not name — were responsible for a fresh COVID-19 outbreak in Isla Vista, including several dozen additional cases identified through testing and contact tracing.
“The residents have all been quarantined,” said Second District Supervisor Gregg Hart, chairman of the Board of Supervisors. “Unfortunately, additional testing now shows the outbreak was not contained within the residents in the affected sorority and fraternity.”
The discrepancy between singular and plural Greek speak was not addressed, but Hart said UCSB officials were cooperating in isolation and quarantine efforts.
“An innocently intended gathering can lead to an outbreak,” he said. “A small outbreak can quickly spread in a dense community to become widespread community transmission.”
While Isla Vista experienced a spike, our Brooke Holland reported that Lompoc and Santa Maria still had the highest numbers of daily cases during the week.
So the county must remain in the red tier of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s color-coded tracking system, the second most-restrictive category, rather than moving into the less-restrictive orange level.
“We were very, very close,” Public Health director Van Do-Reynoso said of the orange tier. “We were on the edge. Now, we are solidly in the red.”
The county must meet the criteria for the orange tier for two consecutive weeks before Newsom will allow a move from the red zone. In other words, more uncertainty for struggling businesses trying to plan for their future.
4. 2 Suspects Detained After Attempted Break-in at Montecito Business
Santa Barbara police are crediting an alert neighbor with foiling a middle-of-the-night attempted break-in on Montecito’s Coast Village Road.
The 9-1-1 call included a description of the getaway car, and two suspects were arrested not long afterward on Highway 101 in Ventura County.
SBPD spokesman Anthony Wagner told our Tom Bolton that officers were dispatched around 2:40 a.m. to Montecito Optometry, at 1147 Coast Village Road.
He said they found damaged doors and other evidence of an attempted break-in, but no apparent breach. The perpetrators had already hit the road, reportedly heading in the direction of the southbound freeway.
A Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputy spotted the car and pulled it over near Seacliff, a few miles east of Carpinteria.
Wagner said two people were taken into custody, and he added that burglary tools were found in the vehicle.
That, however, was the extent of Wagner’s information.
5. Animal Services Impounds More Than 100 Small Dogs from Lompoc Home
A tip from a good Samaritan led to the rescue of more than 100 dogs that apparently were being hoarded at a house in Lompoc.
Santa Barbara County Animal Services personnel staged the unusual Oct. 22 raid at an undisclosed location, where the owner had relinquished legal custody of the dogs, mostly Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes.
As our Janene Scully reported, Animal Services director Angela Yates said the tip indicated that there were “maybe 20 dogs.” Boy, was that an undercount.
By the time the team was finished, they had seized 104 dogs. Overnight, one of them had a litter of three puppies and staff determined that two others were pregnant.
“Given the circumstances of that many dogs …, they were in remarkably good shape,” Yates said. “That and the fact they were small and they were social were huge wins.”
A large network of other animal rescue organizations stepped up to house, treat and help place the rescued dogs.
Animal Services said the case is under investigation.
• • •
Last Year on Noozhawk
What was our most-read story this time last year? Solvang Woman Rebecca Bley Identified as Driver Killed in Fiery Highway 154 Crash.
• • •
Bill Macfadyen’s Story of the Week
However witch way you look at it, Salem, Massachusetts, was messed up: Meet the Survivor of the Salem Witch Hysteria.
• • •
Best of Bill’s Instagram
@sadiethealaskanmalamute crashed my World Series party in my Instagram feed this past week. Was she the good luck charm the Dodgers needed all along?
• • •
Watch It
Turns out lunar water isn’t limited to the dark side of the moon.
(NASA’s Ames Research Center video)
• • •
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— Bill Macfadyen is Noozhawk’s founder and publisher. Contact him at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com, follow him on Twitter: @noozhawk and Instagram: @bill.macfadyen, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
