Are the Bums back in L.A.?
Nmight celebrate the 30th anniversary of their last World Series appearance. It’s a party that only baseball fans in the northern half of the state hope to throw.
For much of the 2017 season, as the team put together one of the best mid-summer performances in baseball history, it looked as if Dodger fans would end up hanging at least a fresh league pennant at Chavez Ravine. But with the team now playing the worst baseball in the league, causing the anguish and disappointment that have defined Dodger fandom for nearly three decades to return to Los Angeles, Times letter writers are once again fuming about their team. Here are some of their letters.
— Paul Thornton, letters editor
Jim Gregory of Arroyo Grande calls for the next best thing to divine intervention:
In a slump that defies all rational explanation, could Vin Scully consider calling a few games, until at least several of them are won? This is not a knock on the current broadcast crew, which is excellent.
But if anybody can break a curse, it has to be Scully.
My dad and I had a difficult relationship. Scully’s call of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, with us listening in our kitchen without breathing much, was a healing moment for us. Maybe the unmistakable sound of Vin’s voice can heal the Dodgers as well.
Roger Schwarz of Los Angeles faults the Dodger management:
As so often happens in situations where people cannot figure out why something’s wrong or what the solution might be, the answer is in fact staring us in the face: cosmic justice.
Team owner Guggenheim Baseball Management shares responsibility for millions of Angelenos being shut out from watching the Dodgers on TV. The company is now paying for milking the last dollar of profit from the purchase and broadcasting deals without regard for the effect they might have on the very fans on whom Guggenheim relies for its return on investment.
How can the team use Los Angeles, the name of our fair city, in its name? Maybe the “Guggenheim Dodgers” fits this team better.
Canoga Park resident Michael Solomon urges the Dodgers to ease up:
With apologies to Charles Dickens, they were the best of teams, they are the worst of teams.
Were the Dodgers really that good? Yes, they beat all those teams, they won all those games. Are they really that bad? Yes, they’re losing a lot.
When teams go through this sort of thing, they press and forget what got them here. A team that manages all those late-inning rallies not only has good clutch hitting, but also hitters who wear pitchers down. Because the Dodgers as a team are pressing, they’ve stopped making pitchers pitch; they’ve stopped driving up the pitch count.
Also, Dodger pitchers are allowing teams to up their pitch count. They aren’t getting ahead of enough batters, which places more pressure on the hitter.
It’s Baseball 101.