Think of where we were, just days ago, a huge metropolitan area of baseball fans on edge, uncertain. We were waiting to exhale.

It was postseason time in a city that loves its baseball. But the Dodgers were playing like cadavers and the Angels were playing ghosts.

Fans with some level of longevity here remembered the good times and didn't take them for granted:

* In 1988, Kirk Gibson pumping his fist as he rounded the Dodger Stadium bases.

* In 2002, wingless Angels flying toward relief pitcher Troy Percival to celebrate near the mound, moments after Darin Erstad squeezed the last fly ball.

But along the way, there were so many years with so many heartbreaks that being smug was not an option.

Suddenly, in the last week of a regular season that...