Jeter: David J. Phillip/AP; Victorino: Elise Amendola/AP
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The McCourt Divorce Saga: A Musical Interlude Recap
Why read the myriad articles on TMZ when you can get your updates in another medium?
This week, Jamie McCourt responded to Frank McCourt's opening salvos with a voluminous legal document to respond to her initial firing as Dodgers CEO outlining a chronology of how she was apparently bamboozled by Frankie, as well as a list of outrageously expensive demands to make her whole. In summary:
Frank then responded in kind with a 664-page legal filing of his own, contending that Jamie McCourt was in fact fired for having an affair with her driver, former Dodgers Director of Protocol Jeff Fuller, a direct subordinate of Jamie McCourt's. Jamie's lawyer Bert Fields acknowledged the romantic involvement, saying that it happened after the McCourts had separated (which doesn't explain away the fact that it was with a subordinate). As for the two-and-a-half-week trip that Jamie and Jeff took to France over this summer, which Frank claimed was billed to the Dodgers--Fields only said that the Dodgers were not billed (again, not explaining away the romantic liaison itself).
As such, Frank has positioned himself as the victim here. And if you switch the genders, it's almost as if he's singing this tune:
So where does this leave us, besides under the weight of massive legal documents? With the ball in Jamie's court, and details of extensive security detail used by both sides, let's just hope this sordid tale doesn't take this twist (yes, I know it isn't exactly the same name, but it's close enough to get the idea):
Friday, October 30, 2009
While Dodgers Owners Bicker, Giants Sign Players
Sure, oft-injured Freddy Sanchez, who played only 25 games with San Francisco after coming over from Pittsburgh midseason. Sanchez, who had shoulder and knee problems this year, batted only .284/.295/.324, the last of which (slugging average) is almost 100 points lower than his career average:
“One of our goals and priorities this season is to get a more consistent lineup out there on a daily basis, and Freddy does that,” manager Bruce Bochy said during a conference call. “His history is that he plays every day. To have him at the top of your order pretty much every day is going to do a lot for this lineup.”
Sanchez is expected to bat second for the Giants, though Bochy said he will occasionally use Sanchez in the third slot.The Giants, who were in contention for the NL wild-card spot until the last week of the regular season, are convinced Sanchez’s health issues are over.
So it's only Sanchez, true. But it does address that hole that the Giants had at second base, a hole the Dodgers also have if we don't sign Orlando Hudson or Ronnie Belliard nor figure out if Blake DeWitt or Chin-Lung Hu are worthy of a full-time slot. It does, however, serve as a nice reminder how other teams in the NL West are looking to get stronger, while we are looking to trade press salvos and incur legal fees.
The Ethier Difference Is Clutchability
Congratulations to Andre Ethier, who won the Pepsi 2009 Major League Baseball's Clutch Performer of the Year presented by Pepsi, which SoSG reader Josh S pointed out happens to be sponsored by Pepsi. The award, won by fan vote, reflects Ethier's six walk-off hits this year, four of them dramatic home runs.
The other finalists for Clutch Performer of the Year were Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum, Twins catcher Joe Mauer, Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols and Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.
Ethier's six walk-off hits were the most in one season for a Major Leaguer since at least 1974, one more than David Ortiz's five for Boston in 2006, Ken Hrbek's five for Minnesota in 1987 and Cory Snyder's five for Cleveland in 1987. The four walk-off homers were the most for any player in a season since at least 1974.
Ethier had three walk-off hits in June alone: June 5, a two-run double that beat Philadelphia, 4-3; June 6, his second home run of the game coming in the 12th inning of a 3-2 win over Philadelphia; and June 29, a two-run homer in the 13th inning to beat Colorado, 4-2.
But he also hit two homers against San Diego in a 6-4 win June 9; he had a two-run triple in a 6-4 win over Anaheim June 20; and his first three-homer game with six RBIs in an 8-2 win over Seattle June 26. On the month, he slugged nine of his team-high 31 homers.
"It's just about having fun and enjoying the moment," Ethier said after the June 29 walk-off. "In a situation like that, it's just about emotion and excitement. You can see the energy going into the situation and one swing can end the game. I've just been trying to learn to balance that energy." [...]
"I still think he's got some more [untapped ability] once he gets the hitting zone figured out," said Dodgers manager Joe Torre.
Since the start of 2008, Ethier's nine walk-off hits lead the Majors. His 21 homers at Dodger Stadium this year were the most for a left-handed hitter in stadium history. Ethier led the Major Leagues with six walk-off hits, including a big league-best four walk-off home runs. That tied the MLB record for walk-off homers in one year previously set by Jimmy Foxx of the Red Sox in 1940 and Roy Sievers of the Washington Senators in 1957.
It's also noted that Ethier was one of the few Dodger players to attend the Dodgers' last press conference of the season, along with Ned Colletti and Joe Torre (and Jon Garland). Thanks for being a classy and clutch Dodger this season, Andre, and congratulations on your award!
Can I get a picture with you, to celebrate?
PCS Off-Season Training: P&A Issue #22
Okay, enough of you are interested, so let's try this. And though ubragg has graciously offered to bring this blog into the late 2000s by setting up a googledocs site on which we could collaborate, I want to use this issue as a test run to see if there are enough of us who are interested (as well as judge how potent or impotent we might be as a collective group).
I will put up a thread tomorrow morning when the issue releases, and keep updating the key breakthroughs in the main post as they come. My morning on Saturday is a little frantic until 11:30a or so, but I will try and update frequently throughout the rest of the day.
Look for more instructions posting tomorrow morning at 7a PT! Let's go, SoSG readers!
Those Philly Fans Are Such Nice People, Part 2
From "Phillies Fan Finkelstein Gets Tickets To Game" at MyFoxPhilly.com:
Susan Finkelstein gets free World Series tickets from a radio station, just days after the Philadelphia woman is charged with offering sex for tickets.Radio DJ Chio from Wired 96.5 confirmed to MyFoxPhilly that his station gave two tickets to Finkelstein and her husband for Game 3 in Philadelphia.
Chio also said that Finkelstein’s lawyer asserted that she is not guilty of prostitution and her arrest is the result of a misunderstanding with Bensalem, Pa., police.
Awww. I guess this passes as heartwarming in Philadelphia.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
World Serious Game 2 Thread: Utleys @ Jeters, 5p
A.J. Burnett (0-0, -.--) vs. Pedro Martinez (0-0, -.--).
Watching the World Series without the Dodgers is like watching your ex-girlfriend marrying George Clooney: You should feel joy, but you really feel mostly impotent bilious rage. So we'll understand if you want to pop in a copy of Bluetopia instead of watching tonight.
For the rest of you masochists, this Game Thread's for you. Have at it!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Those Philly Fans Are Such Nice People
And so discreet, too! Especially the ones who use Craigslist ads to offer sex for World Series tickets:
Lawyer William J. Brennan says Susan Finkelstein might have dropped double entendres in her Craigslist ad but never explicitly offered sex.
Brennan says the 43-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate student wanted to take her husband to a game between her beloved Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.PHILADELPHIA -- A lawyer for a Philadelphia woman charged with offering sex for World Series tickets says she is "a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever."
Wow, and she goes to UPenn? That gives a whole new meaning to the word "Quaker."
World Serious Game 1 Thread: Phils @ Yanks, 5p
CC Sabathia (0-0, 0.00) vs. Cliff Lee (0-0, 0.00).
Well, here we are: another World Series featuring neither the Dodgers nor the Angels. Still, we're baseball fans, and this is the last call for baseball before we descend into an off-season filled with accusations, allegations and arbitration. Enjoy!
Manny's Back
Manny Ramirez will be back with the Dodgers in 2009, having exercised his option to return in 2010 for the fee of $20M, according to True Blue LA / Jon Heyman's twitter feed. Man, I feel uncomfortable citing twitter feeds; however TBLA is pretty sound and I trust Eric Stephen. Let's hope it's the late-2008 era Manny, and not the late-2009 era Manny; however, given it's a contract year, he's a proud guy and he's coming off an interrupted season, I think he'll be hungry to contribute.
So long as there aren't any major distractions around for the team, that is. Nah, we don't have any of those.
photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images North America, March 5 2009
Caption Contest
photo in case you can't read the bottom right corner: Big League Stew
Remember All Those Kids Dodger Fans Ruined By Signing Manny Ramirez?
Jamie McCourt, quoted in the LA Times on November 26, 2008:
That was the question posed by Dodgers President Jamie McCourt as she made an appearance with her husband, team owner Frank McCourt, Tuesday at an event where it was announced the club's charitable foundation would help build 42 youth fields around Southern California.
"If you bring somebody in to play and pay them, pick a number, $30 million, does that seem a little weird to you?" Jamie McCourt asked in an interview at the Evergreen Recreation Center in East Los Angeles. "That's what we're trying to figure out. We're really trying to see it through the eyes of our fans. We're really trying to understand, would they rather have the 50 fields?"Would Dodgers fans react negatively if the team were to pay big money to free agents when the nation's economy is in sharp decline and many Americans are losing their jobs?
As you might recall, these words tried to put the responsibility solely upon the shoulders of Dodger fans, who would have to stomach the consequences of signing Ramirez; in Jamie McCourt's mind, it meant that we would be jeopardizing the lives of young underprivileged children. It was positioned as a tradeoff of the Dodgers' limited resources: either we can spend the money to get a big-time slugger, or we could help the needy.
We ended up signing Manny. And who knows what happened to the fields, or the kids that hoped to play baseball after school. The blood of poor children everywhere was on our dreadlock-wig-wearing hands (not that the hands were wearing the wigs, but you get the idea).
Except, maybe those resources aren't exactly as limited as they were made out to be. After all, the McCourts aren't exactly suffering.
Jamie McCourt, in the court documents filed yesterday (from TMZ):
Petitioner, on the other hand, is unemployed, after being discharged without notice from her position as C.E.O. of the Dodgers. She will require both very substantial pendente lite support and fee awards to maintain her former lifestyle.Respondent is employed and actively working, with what is estimated as a multi-million dollar cash flow. He will continue to enjoy the marital life of luxury, reside in the fabulous homes, enjoy the lush gardens, the pools, the spas, and all the other amenities of the family properties. He will continue to travel in luxury on private jets and stay in the grandest hotels. His life will be virtually unaffected by this divorce action.
Remember, that lifestyle includes a $2M salary as Dodger CEO, which Jamie has requested as a spousal support payment of $487K/month (only $321K if she is reinstated with her CEO salary). This spousal payment amount is net of taxes, mind you. And of course, she needs access to all the lifestyle benefits that she listed in great detail in the filings, apparently to match the "life of luxury" that Frankie will enjoy.
I guess my question is, if Frank McCourt has to make these monthly spousal support payments, and continues to use his private jets and first-class travel to enjoy the lush gardens and high-powered security detail in any one of his eight multi-million dollar properties; and Jamie McCourt continues to fly all around the world to visit her children and stay in Ritz-Carlton suites and entertain at five business dinners per week and have monthly hair coloring treatments and wear designer clothing picked out by her stylist and relax at all seven of their exclusive country clubs; then HOW MANY KIDS WILL STARVE?
How many inner-city baseball fields will have potholes due to Jamie McCourt's purchases of Prada shoes? How many cleft palates will not be surgically corrected because the McCourts maintain two boats (you can't sail just one!)? How many homeless children will have to suffer in the cold because the McCourts still fund rents, housekeepers, and living expenses for each of their four children, all of whom are in adulthood, with one of them employed at Goldman Sachs in New York (which is basically the same thing as Teach for America)?
My god, I'm going to throw up.
Look, I don't hate the rich. With all the SoSG income we've made, that would be wholly hypocritical of me. But the McCourts were hard to stomach when they tried to play the guilt card, and now that the sordid details of their lifestyle have been made public, it's absolutely nauseating.
And I'm not alone here. Jon Weisman takes note of the McCourts' rampant greed. MSTI has moved on from marveling at the avarice to harboring unbridled hatred. Rob McMillin predicts catastrophe.
I'm somewhere between depressed and angry. There has been so much for Dodger fans to love and appreciate in the past couple of years, and now we're just pissing away stability and financial solvency and likely fielding a competitive team. It's only late October--not even a week since the team's season ended--and we're already in a kamikaze-like nosedive.
The McCourts and their silver-spoon behavior will be absolutely vilified by the press, who hate the vanity and luxury of the wealthy, who will go to great lenghts to draw weak analogies between the McCourt's lifestyle and the glamour and glitz of Los Angeles. The press will conveniently forget that we Angelenos never liked the McCourts, that we never entirely trusted them, that we had smelled a rat even before the light illuminated all the chinks in the armor. I mean, I had liked the fact that the national press started covering the Dodgers again when we signed Manny late in 2008. But this press coverage is going to suck.
And let the wild rumpus start!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Jamie Fires Back: Perusing Today's Court Filings
A cavalcade of McCourtian posts hit TMZ in the last couple of hours.
First, Jamie wants her job back, or at least all the perks that come with it:
Here are the benefits Jamie is requesting:
- travel by private jet
- 5 star hotel accommodations
- travel expenses - Unlimited
- business dinners 5 nights per week
- business lunches 5 days per week
- parking spots at Dodger Stadium
- flowers in the office
- making Dodger Legends available for events without charge
- provision of Dodger autographed items as requested for use in business and charitable activities
- hair and makeup for Dodger events
- access to team doctors for McCourt family members
- access to the owner's suite for Dodger home games and non-baseball events at the stadium
- Tickets to All-Star games and playoff games -- even if the Dodgers aren't playing
- a pass to all National League games
Total living expenses for Jamie come out to about $6M / year, of which roughly $4M goes to the homes. And, elsewhere in the court filings, she wants access to the Charing Cross Road indoor pool (who doesn't?). And, she cites the sudden termination of her position as Dodgers CEO, and current unemployed state, as part of the rationale why she merits pendente lite (which I thought meant "pasta cooked firm but not hard," but apparently means "pending the litigation") support (an interesting twist on Frank's firing).
Reading through the rest of the court filings yields a number of juicy tidbits. In the document, the sections on Jamie's "integral role with the Dodgers" seems pretty compelling; it's clear that she wasn't just the owners wife, if she did all the things that she cites. I don't know how the Dodger Stadium 90090 zipcode hoo-hah made the list of "accomplishments," but even that notwithstanding, there are a lot of other tangible items on there besides a irrelevant marketing deal with the USPS.
On the scary side, the section "Frank Begins to Rewrite History..." has some scary allegations that admits the McCourts are "highly leveraged", and the move to transfer ownership to Frank reflected a move to California ("a community property state") and an attempt to shield assets from the McCourts' many creditors. Or, as Jamie contends, was this an attempt to transfer property ownership solely to Frank?
Jamie claims that she had been trying to keep plans to file for divorce secret until after the 2009 postseason, despite the fact that the last four months of her tenure as CEO "were very difficult." Looking back on how Frank asked Jamie to move her business office out of Dodger Stadium, that she had to get his approval for expense reimbursements of any sort, that she had to review all appointments including social engagements to Frank--it is hard to see how Jamie could have performed her job as CEO with all of this oversight.
In fact, one wonders how the team could have even kept focused with this circus going on behind the scenes (and in fact, the Dodgers did end up the season limping to the finish line; Peter Gammons in fact tipped this off in mid-October when he said Joe Torre's life was "a living hell").
How much did Jamie McCourt get paid to be the Dodgers CEO? The court filings indicate it was around $2M/year, though Frank would get $5-6M a year in salary or distributions. When you think about all the living expenses that both McCourts pushed through the business (potentially including all first-class airtravel, eight people to work on and in the McCourts' myriad homes, $5000/night hotel rooms around the world, a skin doctor and monthly hair colorer for Jamie, membership in no fewer than seven country clubs, and three 24-hour security officers (down from eight)), that's a pretty lavish lifestyle indeed.
Finally, Jamie McCourt claims "she's not giving up the Dodgers," and "the real Frank will be exposed" (sort of sounds like O.J. Simpson's chase for "the real killers").
Please, Jamie, don't expose the real Frank. I don't even know if I like the unexposed one we've got now.
How Do You Say "Black Sox" in Taiwanese?
Hey look, it's a former Los Angeles Dodger in the news, allegedly involved in a game-fixing scandal in Taiwan:
Prosecutor Cheng Hsin-hung refused to identify the players involved in the probe, but former Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Tsao Chin-hui has acknowledged that investigators searched his Taipei home on Monday.
"I regret [the investigators] failed to understand what happened with me and others who have played in good faith," said Tsao, who this year joined the Brother Elephants of the four-member Chinese Professional Baseball League -- Taiwan's top league.
The 28-year-old Tsao was the first Taiwanese pitcher to take the mound in the major leagues but struggled through a series of injuries which limited his appearances for both the Rockies and Dodgers. [...]
"We have ruled out the possibility that the players were intimidated and forced into throwing games, and are investigating whether they accepted improper benefits," he said.
Taiwanese media, citing unnamed investigators, said that starting pitchers could earn up to $90,000 per outing from high stakes gamblers for agreeing to throw games.TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Authorities are investigating whether Taiwanese baseball players accepted bribes to fix games, a prosecutor said Tuesday, the latest blow to the integrity of the sport on the baseball-loving island.
Well this leaves a tsao-ur taste in my mouth. I suppose any Taiwan Championship Series that involves the Uni-President Lions and Brother Elephants, and goes to seven games, is immediately suspect.
Off-Season PCS Training
Those of you who are jonesing for some PCS action this winter may have an outlet, so long as we get enough people to join the crusade.
There is an online puzzle magazine called P&A Magazine. In each issue, in addition to a smattering of regular warmup puzzles, there is a special "puzzle extravaganza" (a series of interconnected puzzles leading to a single solution). Puzzles usually require word, logic, or number play. Like the PCS puzzles, solving these individual puzzles usually results in a codeword or words; connecting all of the codewords in a "meta" puzzle gets you the extravaganza's final solution.
Looking at the list of top 10 solvers for prior issues, it doesn't appear that there are any rules against competing as a team. And I think this would actually be quite helpful; usually the 12 to 20 puzzles in the extravaganza all have "aha" moments, such that one can usually solve a subset of puzzles, but still end up staring blankly at the remainder needing a breakthrough. Working collaboratively, we might be able to crank through it and potentially even place.
My question is, are there enough of you SoSG readers who might want to collaboratively work toward the next issue, which releases Saturday October 31 at 10am ET (the clock would start then)?
Each issue costs $4.95 and requires registration on the website (payment can be remitted via paypal). I've already emailed PCS Season II champion ubragg, who is up for it; any of you guys want to join? If you're interested, "sign up" for the SoSG team in the comment thread.
(If you want to see what you're in for, I highly recommend traipsing through The Puzzle Boat, a go-at-your-own-pace puzzle hunt which is conducted online. "The Hustle", one of the puzzles on here, even has a baseball-related theme and is really well-designed.)
The Only Winner in Los Angeles...
... aside from the Kings.
THE DELINO. One inning of Wii Baseball. Five Walks. One Single. Two Doubles. Three Home Runs. One Mercy Rule Victory. Not unlike Game Five.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Phillies Phan Phail
Hat tip to failblog for showing us Phillies fans at their best.
You can be an athlete, or you can be an athletic supporter.
So This Is What It's Become This Off-Season
In lieu of real sports coverage, the kind that you'd find covered on sites like ESPN.com, Dodger off-season news has sunk to lows like McCourt divorce coverage on sites like TMZ.com:
We're told Jamie and Fuller began seeing each other after she split with Frank. Fuller was fired from the Dodgers in mid-October.
BTW, Fuller's late mom was an heir to the Pillsbury fortune ... translation, he's loaded.We got these pictures of Jamie yesterday, lunching in Malibu with Jeff Fuller -- the new guy in her life. Now, in the awkward department, until recently Jeff was the Director of Protocol for the Dodgers.
Look, divorce is an ugly business. And it's uglier when it involves public figures and nosy paparazzi and rampant speculation. And that's where we are right now: speculation. I mean, we know Frank McCourt has fired Jamie McCourt from her position as CEO of the Dodgers; all traces of Jamie have been erased from the Dodgers' front office page.
And we know--and when I say "know", I mean read on TMZ.com,--that Frank mailed his termination notice to his wife, citing inappropriate behavior with a direct report as one of the reasons for the sudden dismissal:
However, your actions, including, but not limited to, your insubordination, non-responsiveness, failure to follow procedures, and inappropriate behavior with regard to a direct subordinate, have made this decision necessary.""Because your employment is held at-will, the Organization is not required to have cause to terminate your employment and may do so for any reason or no reason at all.
But really, what do we know? What's written in this note and leaked to the press is clearly Frank McCourt's attempt to manage the spin cycle and get out ahead of Jamie. Is it interesting that she appears to be lunching with Fuller, a former Dodger employee? Perhaps. Or, it could be just coincidental; after all, rumors are swirling that Jamie is lining up investors to buy out Frank's share of the Dodgers, which Jamie claims she co-owns. Commenters have already insinuated infidelities on Jamie's behalf, connecting the dots and drawing conclusions where facts are not clear. But to rush to judgment on Jamie based on one side's trumpeted press releases seems really premature.
Meanwhile, is there reciprocal impropriety on Frank's behalf? Who the heck knows? Firing your wife of thirty years and the mother of your four children, while the team you (either the singular "you" or collective "you") own doesn't seem to be the most sound and thoughtful business decision, to be sure. But it still remains to be seen whether Frank's problems are just poorly-timed, potentially rash operational decisions. There aren't any TMZ documents leaning in the direction of infidelity, to date. But still, all we know is that Frank seems to be ahead of the press so far, but if annual Smashbox Lipstick stadium giveaways are any indication, Jamie McCourt will drive and advance the things she wants to get done. We know that have retained expensive and prominent legal counsel for representation. So this will continue to get ugly, and it will continue to get confusing, and it will continue to be more and more difficult to separate truth from fiction.
And as an indication, witness Ned Colletti's comments Friday about how team operations will not suffer. Yeah, right. How do we know what monies will be available to spend on the glut of contracts on which we need resolution this off-season, when we can't tell who owns the pursestrings? Does Colletti have to drive back and forth to Frank and Jamie's estates to get financial approval? (And does that scenario sound almost as ridiculous as when you were six years old and tried to play your parents off of each other when trying to get approval to go over to your friend's house after school?)
I feel bad for the McCourts, ending thirty years of marriage by spending time fueling their individual campaigns for public approval and courtroom victory. But I feel orders of magnitude worse for the Dodger team, though, and Dodger fans in extension, both of whom are going to have to watch this slow-motion train wreck unfold all summer long as other teams spend their time and resources on more pressing business and operational matters, such as signing another starting pitcher or second baseman (Dodger fans of Chin-Lung Hu, on the other hand, are probably rejoicing).
We're going to be a mess this off-season.
--------------
Late in the 2009 season, I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine in the backyard, mentioning how I hadn't quite warmed to McCourt ownership despite the fact that the Dodgers were having a banner season and looked like they were playoff-bound for the third time in the last four years.
"Why wouldn't you like McCourt," my friend replied. "He's done everything you've asked: you've signed Manny Ramirez, you've got Joe Torre, you're headed back to the playoffs, and you've got cushy new concessions down on the field level. What else do you want?"
Au contraire, I replied, since I (along with other ticket purchasers) had personally paid dearly for all of those achievements, suffering ransom-like season ticket price increases from $35/seat to $85/seat in two years, as well as parking fee increases from $8 to $15 over the same period. I funded all of those improvements; Frank McCourt, after all, was highly leveraged in acquiring the Dodgers, paying nothing to take the team off of Fox's hands (a point which aligned most fans against him back in 2004).
In my mind, if Frank McCourt was going to be the non-invested figurehead of this organization, the least he could do would be to quit hogging the spotlight whenever he could, figuratively and literally, particularly when he disappeared like Keyzer Soze when negative news arose. Stay in the background, invest in the team, and opinions would come around, I thought. But from my perspective, it appeared that Frank McCourt always thought he was the story, rather than the Dodgers.
Well, now Frank McCourt is out there again, hogging the spotlight once again, and once again at cost to the franchise, which is thrown back into financial purgatory akin to the time when we passed on Vladimir Guerrero. And it sucks.
Just like any divorce, it's the children who are going to suffer. And we Dodger fans are the children, make no mistake.
-------------
The Dodgers got further than 26 other MLB teams this 2009 season, and by almost all accounts it would be hard to think of this season as unsuccessful. Sure, the loss to the Phillies in the NLCS was difficult to stomach; and, it would have been nice to have won at least one more post-season game than the prior year. But that's baseball, and sometimes one Jimmy Rollins swing is the difference between success and failure. And I for one am not going to let that one swing dampen my appreciation for a pretty awesome season where the team continued to overcome adversity after adversity, often in the most dramatic of fashions, all the way until the final stretch.
2009 should be another block upon which to build a foundation of success for the future: a stabilized core of youth showing huge leaps in realized potential; a resilient and cohesive team which has had its mettle tested and emerged with a stronger backbone; and a more exciting, safe, and anjoyable home game experience for all who can stomach the otherworldly prices, sometimes insipid and unworthy first-pitch throwers, and (thankfully) relatively infrequent aural bombardments.
This should be a time when we look at the rest of the NL West and leave their fluky second-half surges and imbalanced rosters in the dust. It should be a time when the Rockies and Giants are receding in our rearview mirrors and are actually farther behind than they really appear (like the Diamondbacks and Padres). It should be an offseason where the Dodgers continue to chart our trajectory toward the ultimate success.
Except it won't be, not with the front office in shambles and the McCourt divorce circus sure to dominate the press and distract the team and shackle the finances and test even the most avid Dodger fans. No, this doesn't promise to resolve any time quickly, not with either party having the finances to buy the other out, and both parties hoarding up acorns for a long winter of discontent. Frankie's stuck with Jamie, Jamie's stuck with Frankie, and we're stuck with both of them. On the sidelines.
I know there's some funny takes on this story. After all, we know funny, and we know biting sarcasm, and we can be just as jester-like mocking others at a funeral as we can at a wedding. And as the press tornado picks up momentum, and we all become anesthetized to the reindeer games that will inevitably transpire, I know I'll be sniping sarcastic comments with the rest of the Sons.
But for now, I'm just sad for the Dodgers, and really sad for Dodger fans. The distaste in my mouth is like the hangover after a long night of scotch drinking and cigar smoking, when everything you eat or drink tastes like an ashtray at a bowling alley. And whatever momentum we had in getting back to the head of the class of the NL West, if not the NL in total, will likely be gone by Opening Day 2010. And this offseason, I'm not looking forward to reading more about us on TMZ than I should be on ESPN.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
