For Dodgers’ Bellinger, championships in his blood

LOS ANGELES — Although Cody Bellinger is making his playoff debut this week for the Dodgers, the 22-year-old rookie is already a veteran of ticker-tape parades.

Bellinger’s father, Clay, played only four major league seasons, but three ended in the postseason with the Yankees — and two concluded with championships. In some of Cody’s earliest memories, he is a wide-eyed kid sitting in a car alongside his parents while cascades of paper and cheers pour down into Manhattan’s metal canyons.

“I definitely remember the World Series parades,” Bellinger said Wednesday in the Dodgers’ clubhouse. “I remember being there. I remember [the games] more because of the videos.”

Bellinger’s rookie season in Los Angeles has already been indelible, and he heads into the NL Division Series against Arizona on Friday night shouldering none of his teammates’ baggage from these 104-win Dodgers’ recent playoff failures. With Bellinger’s 39 homers and left-handed bat in the heart of their order, the Dodgers have a different, more dangerous look than the previous incarnations of the team that has fallen short of the World Series in four straight postseasons.

To earn his own parade memories down Sunset Boulevard or Figueroa Street, Bellinger must extend the extraordinary season that has left him all but certain to be the Dodgers’ second straight NL Rookie of the Year.

“I’ve dreamed about it for a long time,” Bellinger said. “It’s weird. I’ve always seen commercials for the postseason, but now I’m actually in it.”