Star-Strangled Dodgers Just Don’t Light Up Fans’ Lives Anymore

As I watched the representative of my local cable company explain why they won’t be showing Dodger home games free anymore, I said to myself, “Who cares?”

I’ve been a Dodger fan for as long as I can remember, and I couldn’t explain why I’ve lost all interest in the Dodgers until I was watching the fireworks show on the Fourth of July. That’s when I realized that the Dodgers have no fireworks. They have no stars, no Hall of Famers, and certainly nobody who plays the game with any fire.

I need Piazza to hit mammoth home runs. I need Mondesi throwing out a runner at third. I need Lasorda running out to argue with an umpire.

The only Dodger I like to watch is Gary Sheffield, and that should tell you why I don’t care for the Dodgers anymore. But what really makes me mad is that Ichiro, who is the leading vote-getter in this year’s All-Star voting and one of the biggest stories of the year, should have been a Dodger!

Alvin M. Okamura

Encino

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Ross Newhan’s reference to the Mike Piazza trade continues the fallacy that it was a bad deal. Although no Dodger fan wants any trade orchestrated by an anonymous studio suit whose most strenuous activity is dialing his cell phone while steering his SUV on the 405, the fact is that given the circumstances, the trade was a very good one.

After Piazza turned down the chance to be the highest-paid player in baseball, he and Todd Zeile were swapped for five players. Today only two of those players, Gary Sheffield and Charles Johnson, could get you Piazza so fast, he’d be in uniform for tonight’s game.

Ben Ostrow

Van Nuys

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Concerning the recent winning ways of the Dodgers, Phil Jackson didn’t sneak into the Dodger clubhouse and strategically lay around copies of his Zen material, huh? Since the Lakers are on vacation, why not dispense a possible formula for winning attitudes in this fashion? The Lakers can always borrow the tomes back, come November, after the Dodgers (gasp!) have won a few playoff games, and maybe even (dare I say it?) sneaked into the World Series?

Mark J. Featherstone

Windsor Hills

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Every year L.A. “sports fans” jump on the “I’m gonna be first to call the Dodgers finished and let’s call up the farm team” bandwagon. Not realizing that baseball is actually a process and that the season has an ebb and flow that at the end produces results. Unless you’re the Angels, in which case it tends to happen sooner.

If these short-attention-span mokes can’t get off their cell phones long enough to pay attention to anything more than what happened last night, they miss the point of playing a whole season.

All the letter writers last weekend bemoaning the Dodgers look pretty stupid now. If I were to proclaim that they are now headed to the World Series, I would be guilty of the same rush to judgment.

My advice is, develop a longer view of history and enjoy this unfolding season as it plays out.

David Gooler

Monrovia

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When the Dodgers signed pitcher Kevin Brown, he became the team’s highest-paid player ever. At the signing, then-General Manager Kevin Malone assured us Brown was a 20-game winner and, by golly, he was right:

2000: 13 wins

2001: 7 wins

Total: 20 wins

Bill Stein

Arroyo Grande