Last year, one East LA family went viral for turning their block into the ultimate Dodgers viewing party — projecting the World Series onto the side of a water tank across the street from their home.
This year, they’re at it again.
All season long, the Morales family hoped the Dodgers would make it past the playoffs so they could light up the tank and bring their neighbors together once more.
They did so on Monday night, during the Dodgers’ 18-inning Game 3 marathon. The game went on for nearly seven hours, but 39-year-old Misael Morales said that didn’t stop fans from showing up.
“People were still pulling up,” he said.
Projecting the World Series onto the tank across has become sort of a tradition for his family, Morales said.
After the Dodgers clinched a win in Game 2 on Saturday, people didn’t go home after the last pitch. Neighbors hung around to celebrate, cheering and dancing to old-school Spanish music videos played on the water tank after the game. One neighbor even brought a fresh case of beer.
Last year, Morales and his brother precariously balanced a projector from his driveway to display the game across the street. This time, they’ve upgraded to a three-tiered Dodger Blue utility shelf to securely position the family’s projector.
On Monday, neighbor Jacqueline Light stopped to watch a part of Game 3.
“You can’t even stream it. I was trying to look somewhere to watch it just for a few plays and you just can’t…” Light said. “This is phenomenal. If you can’t see it, just bring a chair. And when they hit a home run, you’re going to hear it.”
Like Light, other neighbors, droves of minibike riders and even the famed, whistling churro vendor of the Eastside have gathered in front of Morales’ home to catch the game on the tank.
For Morales, it all goes back to his childhood. Growing up, his parents didn’t always have the means to take him and his siblings to Dodger Stadium or to restaurants to watch the game, he said.
“There’s a lot of kids out here that want to watch the game or be happy and enjoy it. But there’s also kids out there who don’t have something like this. When I was a kid, I didn’t have that,” Morales said.
And at a time when many Dodgers fans have felt disillusioned by the team for not taking a stronger stance against immigration raids, Morales says his family’s tradition is about more than baseball, but about community resilience.
“Everything that’s going on is messed up,” Morales said, adding that he attended a few pro-immigration protests during the summer. “But we can’t show them our weakness… We have to be strong and united and prove them wrong.”
