LOS ANGELES — Plenty of people think they are true fans. They’ll tell you they live and breathe each moment with their team.
Casey Johnstone, a10-year-old Bay Area native, has taken it a step further, doing the unthinkable in enemy territory. He’s a true blue Dodgers fan in San Francisco Giants country.
He's the star of a YouTube video that has more than 205,000 views. The video shows his fifth grade graduation speech from Lincoln Elementary School, just outside of San Francisco. While the video continues to make its rounds through social media, Johnstone was an invited guest of the Dodgers on Tuesday night for the second game of their three-game series with the Giants.
Johnstone took pictures and met some of the players, including Hanley Ramirez, Andre Ethier, and his favorite, Matt Kemp. Johnstone also received autographs, was interviewed by several local media affiliates as well as DodgerVision before the game. He threw out the game’s ceremonial first pitch — a fastball that skipped just pass Dodgers reliever Matt Guerrier, prompting Johnstone to grab the brim of his Dodger cap and succumb to laughter — and announced "It's time for Dodger baseball!" to the home crowd.
.@TheRealMattKemp with Dodger fan and expert 5th grade graduation speaker from San Francisco, Casey Johnstone: pic.twitter.com/tV7EZ0Gt7x
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 26, 2013
Each member of Johnstone’s graduating class at Lincoln had to write a speech about their best memory at the school. Well, Johnstone turned the tables and made his speech about his worst memory as a student at Lincoln — when the Giants won the World Series.
“I’ve always liked being unique and standing out and a lot of the speeches were the same memories so I just decided to make mines different,” he said.
Johnstone said the Giants' World Series victory parade was played in his class. He watched, but paid as little attention as possible.
“I just mostly worked on the worksheet we had," he said. "I think it was like a trivia page or something."
In his speech he talked about the rest of his classmates dressed in Giants gear that day while he went a different route.
“There I was watching the whole thing decked out in every piece of Dodger gear I had,” he said in his speech.
Johnstone’s father is a Dodgers fan, and, naturally, the blue runs in his veins, as well.
“I am a true fan,” he said.
Yes. Indeed.
