In Only One Weekend, Dodger-Giant Rivalry Has Heated Up Again

Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting 42 years to do this:

THE GIANTS LOSE THE PENNANT!

THE GIANTS LOSE THE PENNANT!

THE GIANTS LOSE THE PENNANT!

THE GIANTS LOSE THE PENNANT!

ED ADDEO, Mill Valley, Calif. (born in Flatbush)

I have been a Dodger anti-Giant fan since the team moved to Los Angeles, but Sunday’s 12-1 victory was bittersweet. For the first time in my life, I wanted to lose.

MAVIS MEDLEY, Manhattan Beach

As a Dodger fan for over 35 years, I was thrilled at the chance to see the Friday and Saturday games in the season-ending series with the Giants.

How wonderful it would be to hear the roar of 50,000 fans cheering and jeering the demise of the hated Giants. Instead, I was shocked to watch thousands of people rooting for the Giants, and there’s no way all of them came from San Francisco. How disgusting to hear the derisive “Beat L.A.” chant echo through Dodger Stadium.

I have long suspected that L.A. sports fans lack the passion and loyalty in some cities, and this surely confirms it.

Has anyone studied the effects of smog on long-term memory?

MICHAEL SINNOTT, Albuquerque, N.M.

As the world’s greatest Dodger fan and Giant-hater, I must take this opportunity to re-recognize Tommy Lasorda as the genius that he is. Even with the Dodgers 20 games out, Lasorda and the boys in blue, with the help of the schedule-maker, became a big factor in the pennant race. He somehow managed to knock out a team that played .750 baseball over the weekend while forcing another to play 1.000 to win it all. All Lasorda had to do was play .250 baseball.

Even in losing, Lasorda treated Dodger fans to something not-quite-the-pennant but almost as good: the tightening of the noose and the destruction of the Giants.

EDWARD SAJOR, Oxnard

Matt Williams of the Giants showed no class with his comments about the Dodger fans. The way Orel hit this year, it is Mr. Williams who better be extra alert at third base for Orel’s line drives.

DAVID R. STERN, Marina del Rey

Eric Davis’ Numbers Were Far From Healthy

The 1993 season finally produced an answer to one of the game’s more intriguing questions: “Can you imagine what Eric Davis would do if he stayed healthy for a whole year?”

No need to imagine any longer. In a year of offensive statistics bloated by expansion, a healthy Eric produced these numbers: a .237 average, 20 homers and 68 runs batted in.

In other words, it ain’t the injuries that are keeping him out of Cooperstown.

RICHARD A. FOND, Los Angeles

Who Steals From Whom in College Football?

Bob Oates’ article, “The Big Steal,” (Oct. 3) was aptly titled. The big steal, however, is not what Oates described as the exploitation of student-athletes by denying them a share of the “enormous profits” being reaped by universities through college football. It is true that athletes are being exploited, but because they are being robbed of the opportunity to be students. It is also true, as Oates describes, that few who excel in football at the big-time universities “possess skills in other fields” as most non-football scholarship students do, but that is because football players are steered toward football-related priorities and guided away from meaningful curricular offerings. Therein lies the real exploitation.

CURTIS W. TONG, Athletic Director, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges

Bob Oates’ article is so full of inaccuracies and distortions that it is difficult to address it constructively in a few words.

Oates asserts that the nation’s major universities are keeping their football players “from getting a just share of the (football) revenue.” What “just share”? What “revenue”? Let’s start with a few of the facts that Mr. Oates ignores.

Over 72% of the more than 600 NCAA schools Oates mentions lose money on their football programs; that is, the cost of fielding a football team exceeds the revenues received as a result of the team’s performance.

At the remaining 28% of the schools, the football program does produce a “profit.” However, at all these schools such profit goes to defray the expense of maintaining the remaining intercollegiate sports programs (wrestling, lacrosse, soccer, field hockey, etc.) which are not revenue producers.

Our universities give scholarships for excellence in music, debate and public speaking, and many other activities that are not strictly “academic.” These are all part of a university’s life.

One thing that is abused is that all applicants for admission at a particular university should be subject to the same academic requirements.

H. MELVIN SWIFT, Tarzana

CIF Seeks to Protect Players, Not Punish

This is in reference to Eric Shepard’s article of Sept. 28:

As an administrator with the CIF Southern Section for the past 18 years, I have always felt it was our responsibility to protect our student-athletes, rather than punish them, and I am in total concurrence with State Commissioner Thomas E. Byrnes’ actions with reference to restoring eligibility to those basketball players who participated in the Nike competition in Oregon in September.

Is there never a positive approach to any issue?

DEAN CROWLEY, Associate Commissioner CIF, Southern Section

Here’s One USC Fan Turned Off by Trojans

Please God, give me the strength to stop watching USC play football.

I’m basically a good person. I have guilt, I love children, I love animals and I really can’t stand Rush Limbaugh. I don’t deserve having to watch my Trojans redefine mediocrity every time their efforts are televised.

I feel old beyond my years when I try explaining that USC at one time had quick defensive players and these players actually could be expected to compete with Notre Dame, UCLA and even mighty Fresno State.

Either make this all a very bad dream or please pay the school not to be on television. If this happens, I’ll never use another expletive playing tennis or watching TV again. I promise.

JACK VON BULOW, Temple City

Everett Takes Heat, Which Is OK With Knox

All this blather about starting T.J. Rubley at quarterback for the Rams just proves local sportswriters are stupid and the fans are naive.

While I, too, would like to see whether Rubley offers some hope, I realize that Chuck “I never met an off-tackle play I didn’t like” Knox is utterly incapable of making such a gutsy call. He is a charter member of the NFL establishment and is thus terrified of anything that smacks of innovation or risk-taking.

Knox knows it is doubtful that he would be around if and when Rubley develops. And Jim Everett, rather than the coach, is taking heat for the Rams’ dismal showing. Good ol’ Chuck knows his future is now. The Rams be damned.

AL DALY, Sherman Oaks

Raider Fan Is Tired of Team’s Sour Notes

Art Shell is revered as a great Hall of Famer, but as a coach he’s headed for the Hall of Shame. Granted, he’s required to use Al Davis’ outdated game plan, but 18 penalties and no offense emphasizes that this very great orchestra with its the glorious din of a kettle drum defense and the smashing cymbals on the corners is definitely without a conductor. These weekly overtures are a “Symphony of Errors” which must end.

BOB AND SCOTT GREER, Brentwood