Hype, Hype Hooray for the Dodgers

Hey, Dodger fans: Feel victimized? You should. But not by the Dodgers themselves. They’re just a mediocre team. You should feel victimized by Kevin Malone and the Fox propaganda machine.

What could Malone have been thinking when he all but guaranteed a championship before the season? If you look closely at the Dodgers’ numbers, the only two guys who are really underachieving are Chan Ho Park and Carlos Perez. Everyone else is pretty much having their normal season.

Malone chose to overhype his slightly better than average pitching and ignore his offense entirely, and so there should be no surprises that the team is awful.

BRACKISH MENZIES, Los Angeles

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Kevin Malone, the self-appointed “new sheriff in town” is looking more like Deputy Barney Fife every day.

STEVE FREEMAN, Los Angeles

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Davey Johnson has finally acknowledged that allowing a player to rehabilitate a serious injury at the major league level hurts the team. Todd Hundley should be playing every day. It’s the only way he’ll get his stroke back and redevelop his throwing mechanics. He needs to be doing this in the minor leagues. But that would necessitate a major league player taking buses and carrying his own bags.

Eric Karros started this precedent a couple of seasons ago when he rehabbed his injured leg for 10 weeks at the beginning of the season and hit below .200 during that stretch for the Dodgers and the team started so slowly it never recovered. But Eric recovered and “got his numbers” like he always does. It just seems those numbers never help his team win in October, when it really counts. Eric, I know the team is not yet mathematically eliminated, but can we Dodger faithful get concerned yet?

ALAN AMITIN, Montrose

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It would seem that it’s time for Fox to rename its baseball team.

I would respectfully suggest the Fortune .500s.

TONY GLEESON, Los Angeles

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Much to my amazement, the Fox TV honks on Saturday’s game proclaimed that Gary Sheffield is the new vocal leader of the Dodgers.

It really must have given all Dodger fans a warm feeling to know this. Mr. Pay Me My State Taxes to Play, Mr. Pay Me to Play in the All-Star Game, Mr. Dog It to Get Traded Out of Milwaukee, Mr. Hangnail Looking for a Place to Happen is the new leader?

VICTOR M. WILSON, Palos Verdes Estates

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Fred Claire is too loyal and too much of a gentleman, but he’s human and about now he has to be laughing a little bit on the inside.

BILL STEIN, Arroyo Grande

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New Dodger math:

Priceless franchise - O’Malleys + Fox - Piazza + Malone - common sense - $84 million - heart + ugly caps = less than zero.

BUD HANSON, Sherman Oaks

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Math is a struggle for many of us, so it is possible that while counting to 105 in millions, Kevin Brown got confused while counting to three in outs.

DENNIS VAUGHAN, West Covina