One of these things, $tan Ka$ten and his cohorts in Dodger management care very much about.
The other can go to hell in a hand-basket for all they care. (Actually, the trip started last year when so few people showed up to the games that bobblehead nights were rarely more than ⅔ full and many concession stands were closed!)
But, hey! They got their $8.5 billion. Who gives a fig if the loyal fans who have loved their team through thick and thin for more than 50 years can’t enjoy the games at home on their TV sets, hear the melodious voice of Vin Scully and feel part of a community with a common and heartfelt passion.
It makes me physically ill to see this crippling greed and loathsome insensitivity take hold of my beloved Dodgers. And I’m not alone. I dread saying it, but one of my least favorite haters is on our side in this. Read Plaschke from yesterday’s L.A. Times.
“The most impactful collision of greed and arrogance in this town’s sports history,” Bill Plaschke writes, “has resulted in wreckage that is still smoking in the middle of the freeway, looking like another six-month SigAlert, twisted metal everywhere.”
And we are the hapless victims of this crash, bleeding on the side of Stadium Way, wishing an ambulance would come and whisk us off to salvation.
Who cares if half the National League West champion team from last year is gone? Andrew Friedman’s Moneyball tinkering won’t mean a thing if no one can watch the damn games.
Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in this case it’s out of sight, out of mind. You’ll see it when the camera pans the stands and nobody’s there. Oh, wait, no you won’t.