Dodgers Throw Celebrities, Not Beer, at the Astros: Jerry Seinfeld Even Abandons the Mets to Cheer Against Hard-Luck Houston

LOS ANGELES — Dodgers fans didn’t douse the Houston Astros with beer — or worse — like those rabid, rude New York Yankees louts. Los Angeles just blinded the Astros with celebrities.

Jerry Seinfeld, Lady Gaga, Magic Johnson, Rob Lowe, George Lopez, Mario Lopez… they just keep coming and coming. This is a World Series game turned Hollywood party. And by the time, the Astros stop looking around at all the L.A. theatrics and stagecraft, they’re drifting into the visitors clubhouse in the labyrinth underneath Dodgers Stadium as 3-1 losers.

These Astros waited so long — and worked so hard — to get here. And then, Game 1 is over in a flash. It takes only two hours and 28 minutes — less than the running time of Blade Runner 2049 for goodness sake — for this World Series opener to finish. When it’s over, the Astros heads might as well still be swimming.

“It was great experience (to play in the World Series),” Astros shortstop Carlos Correa says. “But it went by so fast. I didn’t even break a sweat.”

Unfortunately for Houston, it sometimes barely seems like Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is perspiring either. Kershaw overpowers the Astros with his darting, diving arsenal of pitches and the Astros are often left swinging at air. The Highland Park product (yes, aces are made better in Texas too) only needs 83 pitches to go seven innings. Houston leadoff force George Springer strikes out four times alone for the game.

Just like that, the Dodgers have a 1-0 lead in the series in a flash. For the first time all postseason, this 101-win Astros team drops Game 1.

“I don’t think it’s anything,” Houston’s veteran catcher Brian McCann says. “Except Kershaw being on his game.”

If the Astros lose Game 2 Wednesday night with Justin Verlander on the mound, it will be more than everything.

The Astros have played five World Series games in franchise history — and lost all five of them. This streak needs to end tonight for everyone’s sanity. Not that anyone in Houston is counting down — or breathlessly awaiting — that breakthrough W, or anything.

A.J. Hinch’s Astros find themselves in another cauldron. Only, this time it’s not the intense, jeering, booing, expletive-laden Bronx Zoo. It’s the celebrity-obsessed, trendy hotspot of the moment — that just happens to be a baseball stadium.

“The adrenalin… I feel like every game is much more magnified,” Kershaw says afterwards, with some of the celebrities still out on the field, taking souvenir photos. “You can’t really tell the difference between another postseason or a World Series start. But it definitely feels good to say it was the World Series, and it feels good to say we’re 1-0.”

How big is a World Series in L.A.?

Seinfeld, a noted devoted New York Mets fan, completely abandons Mr. Met to get caught in the Dodgers excitement and cheer against Houston. That’s not mastering your domain, Jerry.

Jerry Seinfeld is up when Chris Taylor hits Astros starter Dallas Keuchel’s first pitch of the game into the left field stands — and he’s up again in the bottom of the sixth when Justin Turner, the Dodgers’ distinctive red-bearded hero, blasts another one there for the decisive blow of the game. Houston fans will only have one chance to rise themselves when plucky third baseman Alex Bregman slams a home run off the otherwise-untouchable Kershaw.

Only three hits from the Astros isn’t even going to quiet a C-Lister. (Speaking of that, Arsenio Hall is in the Dodger Stadium crowd too.)

“We’ve got to get hits,” Springer says, taking on all the questions a four strikeout night brings at his locker. “This is a hard game. It’s not easy.”

Lose Game 2 and this World Series will get downright Double Jeopardy hard for the Astros.

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The Dodgers flex their Hollywood star power with unabashed glee. There are Real Housewives who are more subtle. Mario Lopez is on the field before the game. Rob Lowe and George Lopez stand on top of the dugouts, waving giant Dodgers flags. Magic Johnson and a heat-pained Tommy Lasorda sit next to each other. Gaga finds her seat fashionably late — and gets the crowd up cheering.

The introductions are more dramatic than a nightclub — with fireworks going off constantly in the outfield, a giant flag all the way across the field and those picturesque mountains in the background. When four fighter jets zoom by in a perfectly-timed flyby, the stage is set for one of the glitziest World Series ever.

“Video doesn’t do them justice,” Springer says. The Astros centerfielder is talking about Kershaw’s mad diving slider and a curveball that swerves with more verve than that Baby Driver. But he just as easily could be talking about the Dodgers’ Celeb Town.

Only sometimes, the video does do them justice — and then some. I run into Rob Lowe in the bathroom and he’s shorter than expected, though every bit as super enthusiastic as you’d hope.

Of course, everyone — celebs and mortals alike — are talking about how hot it is.

This is the hottest World Series game ever — it took 113 of these things to reach a 103-degree first pitch temperature. And it happens in usually-cool SoCal of all places. It’s rare that the Astros ever leave Houston — and go somewhere that is 30 degrees warmer. It’s a weird weather year, and it may be setting up a strange World Series. Turner will credit the freakishly warm temps for giving his home run ball the extra boost it needs to clear the wall.

“If it’s 10 degrees cooler that’s probably a routine fly ball in left field,” Turner says.

Keuchel deserves much better on this night, an evening in which he almost pitches just as well as the best pitcher of this era. But these are breaks in Hollywood. Nothing’s guaranteed, kid. Not even a Game 5. You have to earn it.

“They had two big swings, we had one,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch says. “… These are two pretty damn good teams. Both hundred-win teams. And I think playoff baseball, World Series baseball, you wouldn’t expect anything less than a margin about the size of one swing.”

No one feels sorry for you in Los Angeles. They only cheer for the more popular winner. This is the original bandwagon town — and all the stars are sporting Dodgers blue these days.

Right Jerry?