Fox Should Give L.A. Reason to Care or Cry

By J.A. ADANDE

July 15, 1999 12 AM PT

The Dodgers have turned into the worst thing you can be in this town, a dull non-story.

They’re too well off financially to draw your pity, too lame to be worth your anger.

And the worst thing of all is that this time it isn’t Fox’s fault.

Face it, things were better last year. It was easy to work up a good hatred for the Fox Group. These suits came in and threw out tradition as if it was a stack of junk mail. Names synonymous with the Dodgers, such as Bill Russell and Joe Amalfitano, were gone.

Fox executive Chase Carey traded the team’s best and most popular player, Mike Piazza, without letting the general manager in on the deal.

The Dodger faithful shed tears at the end of an era and voiced anger at the new regime.

Now what?

You have every right to be bothered by the abundance of advertising around Dodger Stadium, the music blaring from the loudspeakers instead of melodies from the organ and the disappearance of the Cool-A-Coo ice cream treats. But those things are what the Fox executives would call peripheral events.

When you look at the product on the field, you can’t blame Fox. During the off-season the Fox folks did what any fan would ask of any owner. They spent the dough.

You wanted them to sign Kevin Brown and they pulled out all the stops, from that $105-million contract to the chartered plane. They even threw in a “Star Wars” poster autographed by George Lucas.

While other teams around baseball made no bones about shedding high contracts, the Dodgers willingly parted with big bucks. They committed $80 million to the 1999 team, the highest payroll in the National League.

They brought in a long-term baseball guy, respected around the business, for their important general manager hire and let him have his way. Kevin Malone takes all kinds of shots now, but when the Dodgers signed him it was widely regarded as a good move.

Malone in turn went after Felipe Alou to manage the team. When that didn’t work out he wound up with a not-too-shabby backup choice in Davey Johnson. Johnson is a guy whose credentials need no explaining.

The dismal performance this season is a direct result of the baseball side of the operation, not the business side.

Malone signed Brown and Devon White, re-signed Jeff Shaw and Carlos Perez and traded Charles Johnson and Roger Cedeno in the deal that brought Todd Hundley to the Dodgers.

Of all those players only Shaw has met expectations, although nothing’s more useless than a high-paid closer whose team can’t give him a lead to protect.

Brown has done well, but not well enough to make the All-Star team. At his salary and level of hype, that’s unacceptable.

It isn’t just Malone’s guys who have underwhelmed. Chan Ho Park has been dismal, Eric Young slowed down after his hot start and the last time Raul Mondesi looked good, so did the Lakers, which shows you how long it has been.

Davey Johnson hasn’t found the right buttons to push to lift the Dodgers out of their stupor.

From the end of last season until now, Fox has been fairly quiet. In January, who could have imagined that the Fox Group would be less meddlesome than Laker owner Jerry Buss? Nothing Fox has done so far this season even comes close to the drama Buss wrought on the Lakers by bringing in his buddy Dennis Rodman.

Perhaps it won’t last forever. There are rumblings that the Fox folks aren’t taking this fiasco lightly, that someone is going to have to pay a price soon.

That would be more in line with their track record. And that would give us something to talk about. Better yet, it might give us something to gripe about.

If one of the prime reasons the Fox folks bought the Dodgers was for programming purposes, right now they’d be better off dredging up reruns of “Married With Children.”

Things were so slow during a recent national telecast of a Dodger-Giant game on Fox that the director spent the majority of one inning showing a ballboy in the Giant dugout who was wearing a “ballboy cam” on his head. Then the kid took off the camera, pointed it at himself, and did a quick dance move (a little something out of Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately” video). Shortly thereafter, we were treated to a replay of the ballboy dancing.

That’s what it has come to, a need to show anything but the tired Dodgers.

Maybe some Fox executives were watching. Maybe they’ll do something drastic.

At this point it would actually be a welcome change. Give us another target for throwing darts, shake us out of our boredom and remind us of the good old days . . . like last year.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

BASEBALL / THE SECOND HALF

ALSO

NEW BALLPARK: Seattle’s Safeco Field opens today amid dispute that could foreshadow what L.A. may face with football stadium. Page A1

UMPIRES SET DEADLINE: Amid rising tensions, major league umpires vote to resign Sept. 2 and not work the final month of the season. Page 4

KAHN ON KOUFAX: Upon hearing Sandy Koufax was selected the greatest pitcher of the century, Roger Kahn offers his view. Page 5

HOW THEY STAND

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