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Letters: Let’s not dwell on the Dodgers’ problems

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Clayton Kershaw’s arm injury is potential Armageddon. God bless baseball. Where else can the subject of a biceps, elbow or tendinitis be so seriously considered an occurrence of major significance?

Konrad Moore

San Diego

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It is ironically appropriate that it took four Dodgers pitchers to no-hit the Padres, given that it took four entities (the Dodgers, Time Warner, Spectrum, and MLB) to shut out nearly 70% of their fan base from seeing the game.

Bill Waxman

Simi Valley

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I bet the Dodgers were the first team to get a combined-no hitter in alphabetical order:

Buehler, Cingrani, Garcia, Liberatore. 

Lolly Hellman

Palms

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In light of the Dodgers’ combined no-hitter, and all the surrounding excitement, I have to wonder why there is never any excitement after a combined cycle by batters.

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Andrew Weiss

Playa del Rey

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While largely a fan of the Dodgers’ front office and manager Dave Roberts, for the life of me I do not understand the absence of Andrew Toles who was the starting left fielder in 2017 before injury and outplayed all the competition in the Spring of 2018.  For a team desperately in need of a spark [and someone to fill Seager’s Two Hole, how does this sound?

Toles

Taylor

Turner

Bellinger

Kemp

(You fill in the rest)

Dick DeCoit

Burbank

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Perhaps the poor performance by the Dodgers this season is [because] the team still thinks they are at spring training. After all they haven’t left the West Coast since February. Teams from the East and Central have had to slug it out in icy weather, endured delays and rainouts while the L.A. boys of summer have stumbled their way to a sub-.500 record all in the Pacific time zone (not counting Mexico).

The good news is the way the Dodgers are playing they’ll avoid the cold weather in October as well.

William Borland

Torrance

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I went to the Dodgers game Tuesday night. Dodger Stadium has become absolute bush league. Never mind the fact that the food is terrible and grossly overpriced (as well as the parking). It is not a baseball experience at all. The main scoreboard, which used to display the batting lineups, statistics and other information had nothing but ads until there were two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning.

There were at least two pitching changes that were not announced, nor was the attendance announced. Dodger Stadium used to show some highlights of other games, but not anymore. No mention that a no-hitter was pitched in another game that night.

I went to an Angels game last week (to see Albert Pujols get hit No. 2,999) and it is a far, far better baseball experience.

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Mike Lorraine

Simi Valley

Down in Anaheim

Six weeks into the baseball season and Shohei Ohtani has more wins than Clayton Kershaw, more home runs than Cody Bellinger and a higher batting average than any Dodger. Amazing.

Ron Tom

Pasadena

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Is this fantasy baseball? We get to watch Babe Ruth (Ohtani), Mickey Mantle (Trout) and a 3,000-hit superstar (Pujols) all on the same team in the same season! This is Angelic! This cannot last. Soon the greed demons will arrive and the Angels will sign a Dodgers TV deal, and 70% of us will fall from heaven.

David Waldowski

Laguna Woods

Hooping it up

Maybe the Lakers should forget about signing two All-Stars. Oklahoma City had three All-Stars and Utah had none (although Donovan Mitchell played like one) and which team won that series?

Speaking of Mitchell, the Lakers could have drafted him but they passed. Big mistake.

Walter Harris

Santa Clarita

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Has Bill Plaschke not noticed in his long career the corrosive effect that nepotism can have on morale in any business, including professional sports?

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Does he believe you can have a “players only” team meeting to clear the air while the coach’s son is in attendance?

Can the Clippers possibly negotiate the best possible trade when Austin Rivers is non-negotiable?

Does he believe players are not concerned about losing playing time to the boss’ son?

Mr. Ballmer, building morale and team spirit is the road to a championship. Trade Austin Rivers (a very good player) before you re-sign Doc.

Harold Walter

Northridge

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Bill Plaschke praised the extension signing of Doc Rivers. This would end up as the second big mistake for Steve Ballmer (the first was the signing of Blake Griffin per Plaschke).

This is an overrated coach who failed to lead the team out of the second round, despite having Paul, Griffin, Jordan, Reddick and Crawford as the sixth man. I know there were some injuries during the playoffs, but the main problem with Rivers is that he promoted the “crybaby” mentality of the Clippers. Now he will get the new players to participate in his school of whining

Ron Wolotzky

Los Angeles

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So the Cavaliers and Celtics each lost Kyrie Irving and both advanced to the Eastern Conference finals. A curious key to success?

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Bennett Tramer

Santa Monica

(by way of Cleveland)

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Was it LaVar Ball’s fabled homemade pancakes, fresh strawberries, and sausage breakfast that conned Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka into whiffing on the incredibly talented Donovan Mitchell and Jayson Tatum, and wasting a No. 2 draft pick on the frequently injured and horrendous shooting Lonzo Ball last June?

Tom Lallas

Los Angeles

Good Knights

The reason for the success of the Vegas Golden Knights is not fate, an anomaly, or a miracle. It is a simple concept called the hard cap. No luxury tax, no penalties, you just have X amount of dollars to fill your team.

  If baseball, football and basketball wanted to make their product appeal to a larger fan base they would adopt this formula. Instead, in any given playoff in these sports, you know who are the top four contenders. This makes the rich get richer but it doesn’t serve the sport, leaves nothing to the imagination of the underdog and doesn’t allow small-market teams to stay competitive. 

George Sagadencky

Tarzana

Big screens rule

Sorry, Randy Harvey, but when I want to watch any sporting event (I can’t count the Dodgers because I am a DirecTV subscriber) I turn on my television. Yes us old-timers have computers and IPads but we use that for messages, information and solitaire. I do not want to watch a sporting event on a nine-inch iPad when I have a 60-inch television.

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Facebook is not my thing nor should it be baseball’s thing. If the internet is the sports media of the future I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.

Bob Sands

La Habra

Knockout

Things must be getting “Rocky” at the L.A. Times with boxing dominating the first two pages Thursday.

David Marshall

Santa Monica

We shall see

Prediction for our local quarterbacks:

Sam Darnold: Flashes of brilliance, too many turnovers, gone in five years.

Josh Rosen: Flashes of brilliance, too many injuries, gone in five years.

That being said, please note that I thought Ryan Leaf would be better than Peyton Manning.

Steve Finch

Redondo Beach

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Mail: Sports Viewpoint

Los Angeles Times

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Los Angeles, CA 90012

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