As you all perhaps know, I’m a Top Deck girl, through and through. I like the view, it’s cooler up there on hot August nights, and that’s where my season tickets have been for the past … actually I’m not sure how many years. Top row of the Top Deck, where the real fans sit.

Unfortunately, due to the Dodgers’ recent purchases of insanely expensive talent, the price of those season tickets will be rising nearly 25% next year. I am not willing to allow Dodgers management, who don’t really care about the Top Deck all that much, to gouge me for their bad decisions.

It all started with the TV fiasco a few years ago. Before that, Dodger Stadium was packed a lot more of the time. But “out of sight, out of mind,” and 70% of fans who for years could not watch the games on DirecTV because of Guggenheim Partners’ greed lost interest. Since that débâcle, even bobblehead nights are often sparsely attended. Plus, shorter games (as mandated by MLB’s ridiculous new rules) mean less time to buy beer and hot dogs, so concessions are also less lucrative.

The Dodgers have been winning in the regular season more than ever before, and some nights, the empty seats outnumber the ones with butts in them. (I admit, the pandemic didn’t help, and that wasn’t $tan Ka$ten‘s fault.)

Now, in a Hail Mary to start filling up those seats, they’ve spent bajillions of dollars on Shohei Ohtani and his countrymate, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but still the nights that should be crazy crowded have plenty of vacancies in the stands. (Unless they’re giving away Ohtani swag or Hello Kitty! is in the house.)

Dodgers management have already sold their souls to some cosmetic company to advertise on the scoreboard instead of giving player information. So making Season Ticket Holders pay 25% more for their seats next year is the least of their karmic worries.

Look, if Dodgers management had been even a little willing to bend on the paper ticket problem for my Luddite husband, or if they had installed hot water in the Top Deck bathrooms, or if once in a while they invited a nosebleed-seat Season Ticket Holder to be “Member of the Game,” I wouldn’t feel so disrespected and resentful.

This is all to say, I’m not going to renew my season tickets for next year. I will just watch on TV, or buy discount seats on StubHub if I want to go to a game. I’ll miss it, but I’m sure Dodgers management won’t miss me in the least.

GAME 128 (Aug. 21): Dodgers 8-Mariners 4
MY SCORECARDS