Archives for the month of: April, 2024

If I hadn’t already bought my season tickets, I might be rethinking it right about now.

After my last post, my old L.A. Times friend Hans Tesselaar sent me this article from the paper to which I no longer subscribe. It’s disgraceful that the Dodgers Gestapo would use such strongarm tactics on folks just happy to be part of history.

I’m getting pretty fed up with the Dodgers management. My husband, a lifelong near-Luddite (also lifelong Dodger fan), does not own a smartphone, does not want to own a smartphone, and wouldn’t know how to use a smartphone if he had one. So Dodgers management say he’s not welcome anymore at Dodger Stadium, where we have been Season Ticket Holders for over a decade.

For a few years now, the fascists in charge of Dodger ticketing have forced attendees to have a smartphone and the Ball Park app in order to enter the stadium. It’s fine for me. I have all those things anyway, but my husband is set in his ways and bridles even more when told he HAS to do something (which will not only prove frustrating but also costly) by people already raking in many thousands of dollars from us every year.

I know, he could come with me and enter at the same time with my smartphone, but therein lies the rub. I love to get to the Ravine 3 hours early, go to the Gold Glove Bar, say hi to all the people around Dodger Stadium that I’ve made friends with over the decades. Get something to eat before all the lines. I usually spend $50 or more on cocktails, chicken tenders, the 50/50 Raffle, etc. My husband on the other hand likes to get to the game just in time for the “Star-Spangled Banner.” We’re just different that way. (We live in the neighborhood, so arriving separately is no big deal for us.)

Since the institution of the Ball Park app ticketing system, we found a workaround, as I would print a screenshot of my husband’s ticket before I left for the game. The barcode’s the same, and the scanners scan the paper tickets just as efficiently as my they do my iPhone. What difference could it possibly make to the Dodgers if we do it that way? I can do my own Dodgers experience (spending lots of cash at the park) while my husband can do his, and we’re all perfectly happy.

This year, they’re cracking down, as you can see by this ticket from a recent Giants game. “A screenshot of your ticket will not be accepted,” it says. Why not? What possible difference could it make to the Dodgers if my husband brings his stupid little paper ticket to the game? Apparently, they are serious, judging by the personalized email I got after the first homestand of this season telling me, “No more paper tickets!”

I’ll tell you what kind of difference it will make to the Dodgers. It will alienate two truly dedicated Dodger fans who spend more money than they should going to as many of the 81 home games a year that they can. I will no longer be able to get to the park early, enjoy my Dodger game experience in the manner I have for the past dozen years. I vow this now: I will not spend one more dime inside Dodger Stadium, not for an $18 beer or an $8 Dodger dog. I will no longer support the LA Dodger Foundation by buying exorbitantly increased 50/50 Raffle tickets, as I have at every game I have been to since they started selling them. I’m done.

I will come to the game just before it starts so I can get my husband in with my phone, sit in my Top Deck seat taking score (they can’t take that pleasure away from me) and root for my team, whom I still love even though their money-grubbing, inconsiderate owners (remember when they robbed us of watching the Dodgers on TV for years and years?) have no respect for True Blue fans.

My view of Shohei completing his tour of the bases in the 7th inning last night. I love how it wasn’t so exciting that the guy in front of me forgot to grab his girl’s ass!

The Dodgers swept the Giants last night, but the big news was the dam has been burst, the ice has broken, Shohei Ohtani is a virgin no more! His homer not only earned him a sunflower seed shower, but also made the difference in a tight game as we edged San Francisco, 5-4.

Tyler Glasnow was great again through five innings. He hit a snag in the 6th, but managed to get out of it with the lead intact, thanks to heads-up defense by Mookie Betts, Max Muncy & Freddie Freeman.

Every guy in our lineup got on base, and Miguel Rojas hit his second homer of the year. (We need to rename the area at the end of the left-field line Miggywood!)

But the big news was, it finally happened. What the world has been waiting for. Shohei started earning some of that gazillion dollars they’re paying him with a beautiful bomb to center-right. (The goon squad immediately collected the girl who got the ball in the Right Field Pavilion and ushered her into the depths of Dodger Stadium, pay-day imminent!)

It wasn’t just the end of his dry spell, it was also what proved to be the game-winner, after Daniel Hudson dealt Jorge Soler a pitch he knocked into the Left Field stands in the 8th.

With another Evan Phillips save, we sewed up the sweep and finished the home stand 6-1 and in 1st place!

MY SCORECARDS
Game 9: LAD 5-SF 4