Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Crasnick Laughs At Dodgers' Expense

Guffaws from Jerry Crasnick, who included the Dodgers' debacle in one of his top nine stories for the second half of the 2011 MLB season:

The Dodgers aren't winning many games this season, but they're churning out embarrassing headlines with proficiency. The daily updates from Chavez Ravine alternate between sad and surreal, black comedy and outright lunacy.

On Friday, Steve Garvey confirmed that he's been fired from his job in the team's marketing and community relations department. Garvey has made no secret of his desire to assemble a group to buy the beleaguered franchise.

On Saturday, the Dodgers came within an out of getting no-hit before pulling out a 1-0 win over San Diego. A group of fans congregated outside the park to protest Frank McCourt's ownership, but apathy is so rampant in L.A. that fewer than 100 people mustered the outrage to attend.

Feel free to pick a side. McCourt is the obvious villain with his flair for finding new and innovative ways to debase the franchise. But commissioner Bud Selig and MLB owners also deserve their share of criticism for welcoming McCourt into the club despite an abundance of caution flags.

As the McCourt saga plays out in bankruptcy and divorce courts, the negative impact on one of baseball's marquee franchises is undeniable. The Dodgers are on pace to draw fewer than 3 million fans for only the second time since the strike in the mid-1990s. And the longer the ownership picture remains in chaos, the more difficult it will be for the franchise to sign All-Star outfielders Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier to long-term deals.

Two good things to emerge from the McCourt fiasco: (1) Compared to the Dodgers, the Mets look like a pillar of stability; and (2) those "Frankrupt" T-shirts make for a witty fashion statement.

Are any of those two things even close to good? Or how about Crasnick's other comment (earlier in the piece) about how we should expect to see Hiroki Kuroda, Ted Lilly, and Jamey Carroll traded by the deadline? (Okay, maybe one of those things is good.)

6 comments:

Mr. LA Sports Czar said...

Everyone seems to conviently forget that the game was fucking tied.

Josh S. said...

More good things:
-The team won four straight going into the break
-Three of those were shutouts
-Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw are shiny golden gods
-Tony Gwynn Jr. is finding a groove at leadoff
-There are multiple games in July where you can get Dodger Dogs for a buck.
-Vin Fucking Scully continues to make games watchable
-Javy Guerra, while shaky, is developing into a decent closer
-All three Dodger All-Stars contributed to the NL win (Two of which, are, as mentioned, shiny golden gods.)
-Andre Ethier may just be breaking out of his power outage

What am I missing?

Steve Sax said...

Laure Boulleau

spank said...

I concur with Saxy.

Josh S. said...

I didn't want to remind people that we're 10 games Boulleau .500.

karina said...

that's right Josh BUT they still have mathematical chance