The Dodgers’ spending on Carl Crawford hasn’t been wasted, and here’s why
Between now and the end of next season, the Dodgers will pay close to $35 million to Carl Crawford, whom they designated for assignment Sunday.
Money wasted? Absolutely not.
Crawford’s contract was part of the price for acquiring Adrian Gonzalez from the Boston Red Sox in 2012, a deal that made the Dodgers relevant again.
It’s important to remember where the Dodgers were as a franchise at the time. They were purchased earlier in the year by Guggenheim Baseball, which was looking to rebuild a roster and image that were destroyed under tFrank McCourt’s ownership.
The team’s primary target was Gonzalez, a middle-of-the-order presence who had a Mexican American background shared by a significant percentage of Dodgers fans.
The Dodgers didn’t give up much in personnel: James Loney, plus four prospects who failed to become impact players. The cost was largely financial.
The club took on more than $260 million in salary obligations, including what remained of Crawford’s and Josh Beckett’s contracts. And the Dodgers more than made up for that by signing their unpopular $8-billion broadcasting deal with Time Warner Cable.
Little was expected of Crawford and Beckett. Considered a flop with the Red Sox, Crawford had undergone reconstructive elbow surgery only days before the trade. Beckett was on the downside of his career.
Considering Crawford and Beckett were basically high-priced throw-ins, the Dodgers were fortunate to get as much out of them as they did.
When Crawford was healthy, he played well in his first two seasons with the Dodgers, batting a combined .290. When the Dodgers defeated the Atlanta Braves in a National League division series in 2013, Crawford was their single most important offensive player, belting three home runs in four games.
Beckett was sidelined for most of 2013, but he made 20 starts the next season, pitching a no-hitter and finishing the season with a 6-6 record and 2.88 earned-run average.
Gonzalez remains one of the team’s most popular and important players.
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As one of the funniest and most likable athletes to pass through Southern California in recent years, Crawford might have a future as a reality television star. He has already made guest appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Network’s “Livin’ Lozada,” which stars his fiancee, Evelyn Lozada.
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Muhammad Ali’s influence extended so far beyond the boxing ring, tributes to the late heavyweight champion may have overlooked his virtues as a fighter.
Before his exile, Ali was the fastest, and certainly the best, heavyweight in history.
Though Ali certainly inherited some of his style from welterweight great Ray Robinson, he was a revolutionary in the ring. His speed advantage allowed him to break some of the sport’s cardinal rules. He often fought with his hands by his side, which allowed him to punch with more leverage. He avoided punches by leaning straight back, which opened up more opportunities to counter.
The blueprint would be replicated in subsequent years by other quick-fisted and fleet-footed fighters, including Ray Leonard and Roy Jones Jr., who became the best fighters of their respective generations.
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The most unfortunate aspect of Ali’s legacy is that he never made lasting peace with Joe Frazier, the proud and courageous rival whom he often mocked as slow-witted and subservient to whites.
When Ali and Frazier were on the Dick Cavett Show in 1974 to promote the second of their three fights, Ali made clear that his trash talk was more gamesmanship than personal.
Asked about Frazier’s continuing to refer to him by his birth name, Cassius Clay, Ali smiled and said, “He really ain’t no Uncle Tom. He’s just doing that to make me mad. And I don’t pay no attention to it no more. Like things that I used to do to make him mad, he’s admitting it doesn’t get to him no more. He’s catching on to a few things, so I got to come from another angle.”
Frazier cracked a smile and nodded. Yet, before the end of the program, they nearly came to blows on the set.
After their third fight, Ali called Frazier’s son into his locker room to apologize for what he said about Frazier. The apology wasn’t accepted; Frazier wondered why Ali wouldn’t speak to him directly.
Frazier appeared to begrudge Ali until the end. An HBO documentary that aired two years before Frazier’s death in 2011 included the greeting on Frazier’s voice mail. Frazier sounded proud to have contributed to Ali’s diminished health, saying in the recording, “Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee/ I’m the man who done the job, he knows, look and see.”
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In the latest example of the pot calling the kettle black, soccer executive Charlie Stillitano said in an interview with SiriusXM that Copa America Centenario organizers were “gouging” fans.
This is the same Stillitano who started the practice of overcharging fans to watch major European clubs play exhibition matches on American soil.
But this doesn’t make what Stillitano said any less true. Single-game tickets are starting at $50. For the match between Brazil and Ecuador on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, parking was $40 and up.
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Boxing world, and the world at large, react to Muhammad Ali’s passing
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