Shuffling Off to Sheffield

In this time, when the nation has gone through so much, it is comforting to know that many of our American traditions live. As the new year dawns, I see that Gary Sheffield is unhappy with Dodger management and feel comfort knowing that this traditional rite has not changed one iota.

My unsolicited advice to Dodger management: Excise this malignant tumor. Trade for players, cash, prospects, magic beans, anything. Just lose him. The team should have no time for whining millionaires.

Mike MacDonald

North Hills

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So Gary Sheffield is at it again, complaining about a so-called lack of respect, claiming that Dodger General Manager Dan Evans isn’t being straight with him about whether or not the Dodgers have been trying to trade him.

Sheffield, since you’re insisting, here’s what Evans didn’t have the heart to tell you: “Gary, we’ve been trying to trade you, but we can’t find a sucker team stupid enough to put up with such a sniveling, whining ingrate. But Gary, because we want you to be happy, we’ll keep trying.”

Jim Bendat

Los Angeles

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Gary Sheffield is wasting his time complaining about the lack of respect from Dodger management.

If Gary would just look around him and see how much the Fox management team cares about putting a winning team together, compared to some of the other marquee franchises out there, he would know that his value to the team is looked at the same way they care and commit to the fans about giving us that championship they talk about every year.

Gary, you should be so lucky as to go to the Mets, Cards or Yankees.

Dan Roman

Tarzana

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I don’t blame Gary Sheffield at all for being frustrated with Dan Evans and the Dodgers. It’s common knowledge that Evans has spent most of the off-season trying to shop Sheffield to Oakland (and God knows where else), even though Sheffield’s consistent clutch performances were one of the only things that kept the team above .500 in 2001. In light of last year’s spring training fiasco, it wouldn’t have taken Nostradamus to predict that Sheffield would be further alienated by Evans’ trade talks, as well as his subsequent denials thereof.

Then again, such two-faced behavior seems to have become something of a Chavez Ravine tradition; for years, the Dodgers’ front office has used the team’s glorious history as a major selling point, while shelling out ridiculous wads of cash for such useless dupes as Tom Goodwin, Alex Cora, Jeff Shaw, Darren Dreifort, Mike Trombley, Terry Mulholland and (sad but true) Eric Karros--and that’s just the 2001 roster.

What’s next, Dan? Paul Lo Duca and Shawn Green to Milwaukee for Devon White, two aging triple-A prospects and some frozen bratwurst?

I’m with you, Gary; I don’t trust the Dodgers, either.

Dan Epstein

Los Angeles

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For Gary Sheffield: Enough already. Take your paltry $10 million a year and just play ball! We are tired of hearing it. Retire or play, who cares?

Hal Peabody

El Segundo

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Steve Freeman’s “A Dodger Christmas Carol” [Letters, Dec. 22] was eloquent and accurate.

I don’t expect the Dodgers to spend millions more to buy us a championship. However, I do expect them to show some pride. After all, they used to be the Dodgers.

William Sharp

Los Angeles

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Wouldn’t it be something if Peter O’Malley bought the Angels and brought major league baseball back to Southern California?

Bill Stein

Arroyo Grande