Dodger Future Is Unlike the Past

September 1999: I’m waiting on the Stadium Way toll road on my way to Jack in the Box Park at Chavez Ravine to watch the athletes formerly known as the Dodgers. They are currently fighting for the league’s 12th playoff spot.

Newly hired manager Jose Canseco (their fifth manager of the year) is glad to be back with the club after having been fired in April. He says he still bleeds Dodger teal.

I get to the turnstile carrying my transistor radio. I have to convince the guards it’s not an explosive device. I get to my seat in time to hear the play-by-play team of Steve “Psycho” Lyons, Snoop Doggie Dogg and Cindy Crawford. Lyons screams, “The homeboys take the field under really freaking blue skies; grab a cold one and let’s do it!”

I’m sitting in the newly constructed sixth deck in center field at the Jack. The old guy next to me has had season tickets since 1958. He used to have field boxes behind home plate, but he couldn’t afford the $275-a-seat luxury boxes with the Wolfgang Puck gourmet hot dogs.

The old-timer starts to reminisce about the days when Reggie Smith was still managing and when he could actually see the field.

Quickly annoyed, I give him a news flash: “Hey, old dude, this is a business, not a family.”

JOHN THOMPSON

Chino

*

Many years back, my mother (an avid Dodger fan) was compelled to call the Dodger office to urge them to keep Steve Garvey. Much to her surprise, Peter O’Malley came on the line. With his typical warmth and gentleness, Peter counseled Mom on our impending loss. He did this, not as the owner of the greatest franchise in sports history, but rather as a Dodger fan and friend.

My only wish now is that there would be someone to call to persuade Peter and Terry to stay.

RONNIE WALD

Fontana

*

Peter O’Malley has too much class to openly criticize his peers. But as he looks around and sees the rampant avarice of baseball ownership trampling the traditions of the great American pastime, it’s not too difficult to imagine that the true reason he is leaving the game is that he refuses to be tarnished by those who have chosen to give free enterprise a bad name.

MARK S. HUMPHREYS

Sierra Madre

*

Why the lamentations and breast beating over the sale of the Dodgers? Los Angeles was also emotional when the Rams and Raiders left for greener pastures. All three of these industries are money-making machines. That’s their only reason for being. They have no loyalty to any city. They go where the money is.

If Bank of America announced it was changing its corporate structure, would we care? No, I think not. This is after all a money-making machine, we would say. How is this different from the Dodger situation?

Have we already forgotten the baseball strike, when we discovered that neither the teams nor the players considered the fans’ welfare?

HAROLD M. LANDY

Woodland Hills

*

For decades, the average Dodger fan hasn’t been able to buy a good seat because the best 25,000 seats go to the arrive-late, leave-early season-ticket holders. Now the Dodgers realize they’ve failed to cultivate the next generation of true Dodger fans.

In this new era of big-buck contracts, Peter O’Malley is too nice a guy to start charging gouge prices. Instead, O’Malley will walk away with fond memories of Cey-Russell-Lopes-Garvey, Fernandomania and Piazza-Mondesi-Karros.

Thanks, Peter. Your quality product overshadowed your poor marketing.

BOB MUNSON

Newbury Park

*

Isn’t it ironic that the city of Los Angeles has done as much to drive sports out of Los Angeles as the O’Malleys did to nourish it?

GARY PATTERSON

Whittier