Letters: Dodgers take a little off the top

Let’s hope the Dodgers’ front office relief fares better than their bullpen relief.

Alan Stern

Shadow Hills

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For the past two weeks, I have been watching a baseball team wearing white and blue uniforms with clutch hitting with runners in scoring position, timely home runs, good baserunning, strong defense and excellent relief pitching. Their manager even make good strategical moves. Then I realized ... oops, wrong team.

I hope Dodgers management took good notes.

Wayne Kamiya

El Segundo

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After Guggenheim bought the team and made a huge splash by initially spending freely, the Dodgers have acted like a mid-market team toying with the idea of trading precious prospects for established stars but eventually failing to pull the trigger. If they had spent and traded for relief help as the Angels did or signed David Price for one of their three top minor leaguers, they would probably still be playing today. Let’s hope that under Andrew Friedman they will operate with at least a balance between developing young players and spending for free agents.

The dream of the Dodgers becoming National League beasts, as the Yankees and Red Sox have been in the junior circuit, is now officially dead.

Allan Kandel

Los Angeles

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Since Bill Plaschke mentioned Friedman’s penchant for trading away stars (David Price) for draft picks or prospects, it got me thinking. If you’re even thinking about putting Clayton Kershaw on the trading block, tell us now, so we can have enough time before next season starts to dig out our Rally Monkeys.

I hope no one tells Friedman that Vin Scully works for the Dodgers.

Steven J. Dugan

Upland

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So we’re going to blame the Dodgers’ early collapse on the GM? This is the same guy everyone was heralding for not trading away the few top prospect the team has. The same guy everyone was cheering for getting what seemed to be back-end starting rotation help in Roberto Hernandez and Kevin Correia and gave up nothing (OK, so it ended up being not so good). Who found a good Brian Wilson in 2013 and figured he would be in 2014 (he wasn’t).

Look, they have the best pitcher in the game who happened to have two bad innings at exactly the wrong time. If anyone took Vegas odds that Clayton Kershaw would let a five-run lead evaporate in Game 1, they would be independently wealthy today.

If Kershaw pitches like Kershaw, the Dodgers would be in the NL Championship Series and possibly the World Series. But he didn’t and it happens like that sometimes.

So remember what Tom Hanks told us: “There’s no crying in baseball.”

Gary Zacuto

Los Angeles

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Whom are the Dodgers kidding? Now that they have put former general manager Ned Colletti out to pasture by reassigning him as special assistant to Stan Kasten, he will have as much to do with the operation of the ballclub as “owner” Magic Johnson.

Bud Chapman

Northridge

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The hiring of Andrew Friedman appears to be a deflection of blame for the failure of the upper levels of management to provide a World Series championship as promised by the new ownership, mask the failure of a TV contract and a poor managerial choice to lead the team.

We need to get rid of the abundance of overpaid and underperforming players, We need to get a manager that has some fire in his belly and can make the tough choices with his team. We need Stan Kasten to accept the responsibility that the failures start with him.

We need real baseball people in the organization, not more yes men and financial wizards.

Kerry Johnson

Seal Beach

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In the 1990s the Dodgers had five consecutive rookies of the year — Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo and Hollandsworth — yet failed to reach the World Series.

In the 2000s there were Kemp, Ethier, Loney, Martin, Broxton and Billingsley who were supposed to lead us to the promised land. Again, no World Series.

Now were are hearing about Pederson, Seager and Urias, who are “untouchable” as they are touted as the team’s future.

I understand all about building for the future, getting younger and cultivating a farm system. But eventually, don’t you also have to win?

Ross Goldberg

Westlake Village

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The Dodgers are losing one classy GM in Ned Colletti. In the summer of 2013 we traveled to Philadelphia with our 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter to see the Dodgers play at Citizens Field. On the crowded subway back to our hotel after a great Dodgers win, we noticed a man standing across from us who looked like Mr. Colletti. When he got off at our stop we approached him and he could not have been nicer: He signed a ball for our son (until today we have referred to him our son’s “future boss”) and posed for a picture as if he had all the time in the world.

Mr. Colletti, I am sorry we did not get to the World Series under your leadership but please know that in this era of bad-behaving sports leaders there are many Dodgers fans thankful for your classy leadership and we wish you all the best in your future.

Catherine Sarkisian

Los Angeles

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Maybe next season Time Warner Cable can arrange to televise all the Dodgers’ regular-season games and then black out the playoffs.

Walter Engdahl

Laguna Niguel

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So the Dodgers got rid of Colletti — and the Angels sit pat with a manager who doesn’t seem to notice when his lineup doesn’t produce? How in the world does Scioscia get away with that? Or perhaps Arte Moreno isn’t paying any attention, as he is busy dealing with . . . what?

Carol Marshall

Placentia

Ruins?

In the aftermath of a second consecutive disappointing home loss by UCLA, Bill Plaschke recounts yet another football season undermined by empty hype and failed expectations; a self-unfulfilling prophecy over the years: Toledo. Dorrell. Neuheisel. And now it appears, Mora the same.

Steve Ross

Beverly Hills

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A recent commenter in The Times was talking about a “Sark Tank” program. I think a more productive program to watch would be “Morabund,” starring, of course, the current head football coach at UCLA. “Morabund” is even more relevant now and perfectly describes the team’s last two games.

Dick Terrill

Torrance

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“I believe in what this program has become.” Well, Jim Mora, what this UCLA program has become is one that believed it deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as Auburn, Alabama and Florida State, but can’t even beat Utah at home.

What this program has become is a doormat for the real class of the conference, Stanford and Oregon.

What this program has become is an undisciplined, highly penalized, self-aggrandizing, entitled bunch of all-talk, no-action players who can’t stop arguably the best player who ever suited up in a Bruins uniform from being sacked 10 times in one game!

John Wooden said, “Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” It is time for this program to become one that keeps its mouth shut until it actually achieves something.

William David Stone

Beverly Hills

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At least UCLA is consistent — consistently overrated.

Mark C. Mead

San Diego

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Oregon over UCLA: Best 60-minute Aflac commercial ever.

Jerry Selby

Pasadena

Purple and bruised

Steve Nash asks out of a game. Was it time for his nap?

Sterling Buckingham

Canyon Country

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The Lakers have not learned a thing. Who is ready for the season to end? We are just waiting to see when Kobe or Nash have a season-ending injury.

Maybe Jim, Mitch, and Kobe, can walk off into the sunset together.

George Lopez

Monterey Park

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Yo, Steve Nash, this is Hollywood. We’ve got all the entertainment we need. We don’t need to pay $9.7 million to watch a broken down, money-sucking, has-been doing off-the-court pratfalls.

But, it was awfully nice of you to cling onto the Lakers for one more year so you could, by your own admission, collect another paycheck you didn’t earn and mess up our salary cap in the process. The least you could’ve done was use some of that money to hire someone to carry your bags for you.

Can’t wait for the season to start so we can see you in your usual place laying down on the sidelines nursing the latest body part to give out. That’ll be your statue at Staples Center.

Brad Askew

Trinidad, Colo.

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The Anointed One, Kobe Bryant, brags that the Lakers, unlike other owners, don’t discard their players or get rid of them, but take care of them with huge contracts at the end of their careers. Really Kobe? What about Derek Fisher, who got booted off the team? Or Robert Horry, who was shown the door so quickly after three championships that it made his head spin? Or even the great Shaq, who, after bringing so much to the team for so long, got jettisoned without so much as a Hallmark thank-you card?

Kobe, you should really stop talking, or more to the point, stop trying to justify taking all the Lakers payroll for yourself. It’s sad that the Buss children, being in Hollywood, spend all their money on the star and everyone else gets scale (except Nash, who should be shown some mercy and be let out to pasture.)

The Lakers are clearly thinking more about dealing with Kobe’s famously fragile ego than actually winning championships.

Shane Brolly

Sherman Oaks

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Yes, Kobe, you are the luckiest player in the NBA. Why take a cut in pay to help the Lakers with their salary cap issues when you can make $24 million a year and have a net worth over $100 million and $10 million in cars? You are a real team player who will be remembered for milking his career for everything that you squeeze out of the franchise.

Mike Swindell

Torrance

Ah, nostalgia

What do Jameis Winston and Johnny Manziel have in common with Tom Harmon, Glenn Davis, Pete Dawkins and Roger Staubach? That’s right, nothing.

Kevin H. Park

Encino

TWC? OMG!

Why can’t Time Warner Cable buy the TV rights to the Raiders so we don’t have to be subjected to watching them every weekend?

Dave Eng

Thousand Oaks

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