San Diego Padres vs LA Dodgers at Petco Park — May Series

Blue starts appearing in the concourse hours before first pitch, and by the anthem everyone in the building knows what kind of night this is. Dodgers fans travel in numbers no other visiting crowd matches, and Petco Park answers the only way it can, with a home crowd that has spent the entire year preparing to out-shout them. That is the real texture of this series. Not the standings, though both clubs are usually clawing at the top of the West when they meet. The noise. Sections that behave themselves in April turn into something else, and a routine ground ball draws a roar that would embarrass a playoff game somewhere else. Three decades of this have made it the rivalry that actually defines National League West baseball, and it is the one series where showing up matters more than the box score. If you have a friend who moved down from LA and never changed allegiance, this is the game you buy them a seat for. Sit next to them. Say nothing.