Destiny was delivered at the appointed hour Wednesday evening, arriving on the wings of baseball`s guardian angels doing the bidding of the Big Dodger in the Sky.
The holy and heartfelt invocation ''Beat New York'' was sent up from Dodger Stadium by a chorus of 55,693 faithful Los Angelenos, and the prayers on behalf of the team that has been christened ''Destiny`s Darlings'' were swiftly answered.
Of course, it was not supposed to happen. The Mets were installed as 17 to 10 favorites coming into the playoffs after beating the Dodgers in 10 of 11 games during the season. But at the end of Game 7 of the National League Championship Series, the verdict was clear: The unheralded Dodgers did it and the Mets were sent home for a winter of bitter dormancy and repose.
The Dodgers` pennant-clinching 6-0 thrashing of the Mets set the stage for an all-California World Series and a rematch of the 1974 Fall Classic between Los Angeles and the Oakland Athletics. The series will open here Saturday evening.
''Nobody thought they could win,'' exultant Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda said. ''At spring training, they said the Dodgers are through. To restore the tradition of this organization is the greatest feeling in the world for me.'' The underdog Dodgers hit .214 in the seven-game series, but they excelled at stringing their hits together at crucial times.
The Dodgers won their 18th pennant, the ninth since the franchise moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958.
For Lasorda, who will take his team for the fourth time into a World Series, it was an especially satisfying achievement.
''It`s not always the strongest man who wins the fight or the fastest man who wins the race,'' he said. ''But it`s usually the one who wants it just a little bit more than the other one. Everyone thought we had no chance. But many, many years ago, David slew Goliath and everyone was betting all their rocks on Goliath.''
In the decisive game, the Dodgers bet all their rocks on Orel Hershiser, who pitched a courageous complete game and was named most valuable player for the series.
Hershiser also established a championship series record of 24 2/3 innings of pitching. He allowed only three earned runs.
It was his third starting assignment along with a relief appearance, but he scarcely appeared worn for all the work.
''The first inning, I was terrible mechanically,'' he said, ''but then I got in a groove until the seventh, when the adrenalin starting kicking in.''
Hershiser, a slender right-hander nicknamed ''Bulldog'' for his tenacity on the pitcher`s mound, scattered five hits and walked two.
His job was made less difficult by an early and effective Dodger attack against Mets starter Ron Darling, who won two earlier decisions against Los Angeles this year.
On this night Darling was something short of dear. The right-hander was in deep difficulty from the start.
The Dodgers scored once in the first and five more in the second, driving Darling from the mound after only 10 batters. He retired three.
The Dodgers jumped in front on a sacrifice fly from Kirk Gibson in the first and blew the game open in the second, when they sent 11 men to the plate against Darling and Dwight Gooden, making his first relief appearance in the major leagues.
Although the Mets` three relievers shut down the Dodgers the rest of the way, Hershiser remained in command, only once allowing a runner as far as third base.
The victory provided a scripted Hollywood ending to a story many thought would be plotted on Madison Avenue on behalf of the swaggering beasts of the East.
But with Hershiser`s final strikeout of Howard Johnson that sent the jubilant Dodgers and hundreds of their fans scampering to the mound in triumph, the story line took an improbable twist.
Throughout the boroughs of New York, all the leaves were brown and the midnight sky was surely gray.
For the next fortnight, baseball will be California dreamin`.
And the insistent chants of ''Beat New York,'' at first cascading down from the stands as gently as the oncoming dusk that turned the West Coast smog to a deep purple haze, grew into a roar in the brilliant green expanse of Dodger Stadium.
And it was left to the prophet Lasorda to pronounce a quirky benediction on the dazzling scene: ''We`re going to save people a lot of money because instead of having to go to France to visit Lourdes for a miracle, they can come right here.''