NEW YORK – Immaculate Heart High School graduates gather together and scream. Two guys who go to Palisades High are about to go crazy. There’s also Jade, who I met in high school in Los Angeles, and Jack, who I met recently in Los Angeles.

We’re all in St. Petersburg, Manhattan. We’re in a pub in Marks Place. Dodgers fans line the curb outside, infuriating passing Yankees fans who can’t really say anything because the Yankees are currently down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the World Series and are currently losing 4-0 in Game 3, which (spoiler) beware! ) they will continue to lose.

(The Yankees’ chances got even better Tuesday after they beat the Dodgers to help them survive at least one more game.)

Dodgers fans head to Taqueria St. to watch the team play against the New York Yankees. It filled Marks Place.

(Caroline Ourso / For the Times)

I practice the art of masochism. How, you wonder? Let me explain. I’m a huge Yankees fan, I was a yankees fan since I was a kid in New York before my family packed us up and moved to Los Angeles – I remained a Yankees fan there. Well, lo and behold, this wasn’t actually a problem until Friday, when things started to get less pleasant. It’s getting worse every day.

This is how my week went. I went to Game 1 of the World Series in Los Angeles. It is truly a great blessing. I keep reminding myself that it’s nice to watch an all-time classic baseball game, even if it ends with Freddie Freeman ruining my night and possibly the Yankees’ hopes for a 28th championship. I went to Game 2 of the World Series (really lucky, praying hands emoji) where I watched the Yankees absolutely suck – there’s no other way to put it.

For Game 3, my editor, a supposedly kind man, asked me to go to New York and write about the World Series from there. He wasn’t going to send me to the game, but he wanted me to explore the scene in the city. (It’s very gloomy. But the weather is nice; autumn is nice, the leaves are falling here, right on the trees. Google “Is it normal for leaves to fall from trees, or is it sick?”

Corey Kesluk, Taqueria St. He’s yelling for the Dodgers at Marks Place.

(Caroline Ourso / For the Times)

I would finally be in the city where there were fans like me. Yankees hats are everywhere. But no, my editor thought, and masochistically I agreed, I thought it would be interesting to find a Dodgers bar in this city of sin, where bars stay open until 4 a.m. and serve liquor instead of natural wine. So I walked past bars full of Yankees fans and into St. Louis in the East Village. Taqueria St. on the quaint, quiet, off-the-beaten-track street of Marks Place. I set off towards Marks Place. Note: sarcasm. St. Marx is a refuge of hedonism. I once got my ear pierced there when I was drunk. Different story. I continue.

So me, a Yankees fan, Taqueria St. I walk into a Dodgers bar on Marks Place and have to explain to everyone that he’s a Los Angeles Times reporter (applause) but also a Yankees fan (hiss).

The bar is overflowing like a well-poured glass of beer. It’s two stories and every inch is occupied, with maybe a hundred people decked out in Dodgers paraphernalia. They’re dressed like extras from a romantic comedy set in a typical Mexican Dodgers bar. California and Mexican Chihuahua license plates line the walls along with photos of championship-winning Los Angeles athletes. Pau Gasol is featured heavily. Customers wear more Dodgers gear than fans at Dodger Stadium. The wardrobe went overboard on this one.

Thank God, I am preparing for this task. This is a sociological phenomenon that I have been researching. I wrote about a topic two years ago. Knicks bar in Silver Lake, 33 TapsIt’s full of New York expats dressed in Zabar’s hats and Katz’s Straitjackets, desperately trying to jaywalk along Sunset Boulevard so they can say they don’t understand why Angelenos aren’t jaywalking.

“Something about sports fans congregating in the wrong city exaggerates the contours of the identity they share,” I wrote astutely.

Angelenos, on the other hand, deeply reminded me of Knicks fans. But unlike Knicks fans, these people have something to celebrate very soon.

In 2015, he and his wife Andrea Barraza opened Taqueria St. in Manhattan. “You’ve got something to prove at the Dodgers bar in New York,” said former North Hollywood resident Phil Barraza, who opened Marks Place. “It’s like going to a match in a different stadium. You adorn yourself because you want to show who you are and what you’re all about. In Los Angeles, you can go to a bar wearing normal clothes. “You have to represent here.”

Dodgers fans packed Taqueria St. Gathering in front of Marks Place.

(Caroline Ourso / For the Times)

The Barrazas opened the bar — which many customers say serves the only good Mexican food in New York — to fill a gap they saw in authentic, L.A.-style Mexican cuisine in New York.

Now, with the Dodgers on the verge of winning it all, Barraza plans to celebrate. When the Dodgers win, he puts up plastic sheeting outside the bar so they can pop champagne and spray it everywhere.

Writing about the Knicks bar also taught me that there must be some kind of ringleader beyond the owners of these places. In my sample of two, this person is a pretty quiet guy and seems inconspicuous, but other customers say he’s the glue.

TaqueriaSt. Sitting on the stool to the far left of the bar at Marks Place is Corey Kesluk, 36. If you didn’t know that Kesluk frequents the bar, the metal plaque with his name in front of his seat at the bar will let you know. This is his seat. Kesluk performs a stirring rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning of every game he’s at the bar.

LA Dodgers fans at Taqueria St. Resting at Marks Place.

(Caroline Ourso / For the Times)

Explaining that he has earned his plaque by coming to the bar two or three times a week since it opened in 2015, Kesluk says, “You can feel at home here.”

Once you get past the bravado of Los Angeles, you see that fans here aren’t as loyal to the city out west as they might seem. After all, they live in New York. Kesluk’s Taqueria St. One of his favorite things about Marks Place is that he can easily get there on foot. He said where he came from, in Sherman Oaks, he had to drive everywhere, which made going to bars a more difficult experience.

“There was a need for a change of scenery,” Kesluk says when asked why he moved to New York.

But not every fan is a Los Angeles transplant. Deep inside the bar, sitting in the terraced area overlooking the lower level and watching the game on a giant screen, is Andrew Kramer, 54, from Lynbrook, Long Island. With one of his children.

Kramer is the kind of person I was told didn’t exist. Growing up in Brooklyn, his father was a huge Dodgers fan. When the Dodgers left New York for sunnier pastures, his father remained loyal, unlike others who switched allegiances.

“Not everyone has changed,” Kramer says. “This was his team. He loved them more than anything. When they moved in, he said he had a fever for a week.”

Because Kramer’s father died last fall, he was unable to watch the series, which was once a hit in New York.

“We know you’re watching from above,” Kramer says. “Me and his three grandchildren support the Dodgers.”

When the Dodgers scored again and more people laughed at me, I decided to get some air and space from the screaming fans. Around the corner, a couple of young Yankees fans, Dan Brennan and Jim Lahey, eat slices of Stromboli Pizza and take a break at a nearby sports bar not packed with Dodgers fans. TaqueriaSt. They don’t feel so good about Marks Place.

Dodgers fans at Taqueria St. He supports his teams at Marks Place.

(Caroline Ourso / For the Times)

“I don’t think this should be allowed,” says Brennan. “They should close it down. This wouldn’t have been allowed when George Steinbrenner was alive.”

This comment confused me. How did I not know that late Yankees owner George “The Boss” Steinbrenner moonlighted for the New York State Liquor Authority?

Frank Curanaj sells barbecue chicken slices to a customer at the Stromboli Pizza counter and bemoans the rowdy, obnoxious Angelenos nearby (his feelings).

“This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. To be honest, I don’t like baseball, but I can say that I am a Yankees fan. “I really don’t like California in general,” he says. “These Dodgers fans are really annoying. After the game is over, they come to order pizza. They place their order and say, ‘I didn’t order that.’ One girl accused me of upselling her because she’s a Dodger fan.”

He shakes his head. No love lost here.

“They don’t know how to order pizza because they don’t know what good pizza is,” he says. He looks up. “That’s a good quote, isn’t it?”