Letters: Going crazy over the Lakers

Bill Plaschke, for the thousandth time (at least), you’re making a skyscraper out of a teepee. . . .

The sort of exchange you report that occurred between Ron Artest and Phil Jackson the other day also takes place hourly in every locker room of every team of every sport in the United States and abroad.

You and Ron both sound soap operatic. The player and his coach have already kissed and made up. So should you.

Clifford Burton

Santa Monica

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This was always going to be the final result of choosing the unknown (Artest) over the known ( Trevor Ariza). I’ve always contended that because Ariza and Andrew Bynum had the same agent and the Lakers were still mad about being forced into giving Bynum his big contract before they really wanted, they cut ties with Ariza and rolled the dice with Artest. Here’s hoping they wrote some protection into the contract, because there’s absolutely no way this marriage goes full-term.

Charles L. Freeman

Baldwin Hills

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Longtime Lakers fans are all too familiar with the lame excuses of Shaquille O’Neal regarding his notorious penchant for taking half a season off and for his atrocious free-throw percentage (I make them when they count, and, we win the important games).

Apparently, this “Shaq logic” has infected our current Lakers team. I guess embarrassing losses in December/January don’t count in the standings, and, a win down the stretch in March/April counts as two victories.

If and when these Lakers decide to “flip-the-switch,” and if and when they potentially meet the Boston Celtics (or Miami Heat or Orlando Magic) for the championship, these “meaningless” games/losses will have cost them home-court advantage in the 2-3-2 format.

Good luck!

Rick Solomon

Lake Balboa

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Kobe is requesting help from the media to print critical stories of Lakers players in order to motivate them. Let me be the first to help.

Kobe, pass the ball.

Patrick Duff

Laguna Niguel

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The public outcry always focuses on Kobe’s offense — how many shots he’s taking, how many are going in, etc. Meanwhile, the guy is building a one-man monument to ill-conceived double-teams and failed steal attempts that lead to open jumpers for the opponent. Kobe, you’re not 26 any more. Stay home on your man.

Matthew Bilinsky

Beverly Hills

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When I became a member of the Laker Nation years ago, I likened the relationship to that of a marriage. I had to take the team for better and for worse. Even though I have seen some of the worse lately, I don’t think I need to make a call to a divorce attorney just yet.

Sharon Warzocha

Valencia

Bowled over

Plaschke and other pundits wax poetic about “tiny TCU” and “wondrous moments that lighted up Pasadena darkness.”

TCU has 8,799 undergrads and Notre Dame has 8,372 undergrads. Who would have thought it?

Chris MacDonald

San Clemente

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What a refreshing ad in The Times on Jan. 3 by the Horned Frogs of TCU. They expressed their appreciation in a most appropriate and classy way with modesty.

I do not ever remember reading a “thank-you” from a Rose Bowl game participant. I’ve been an L.A. Times receiver since 1975. Did I miss one?

This made my day. Go Horned Frogs!

Jean Solomon

Los Angeles

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In my 81 years as an avid college football fan, and an alumnus of three different Midwest and West Coast universities each of which is noted for its legendary football team, I have never read an analysis of a previous day’s football game that came anywhere close, in terms of interest and analysis, to the articles that appear in Sunday’s Times, authored by Chris Dufresne, Gary Klein, Ben Bolch and Bill Plaschke. Taken together, their articles to me are the most interesting, informative, incisive and well-written articles and analysis of a football game, the teams involved and the key players I have ever read.

Thomas A. Muntsinger

Long Beach

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Gee, just wondering how that paragon of BCS righteousness and arrogance, Ohio State President Gordon Gee, enjoyed the Rose Bowl and his mighty Big Ten’s 0-5 performance on New Year’s Day. TCU and Boise State’s bowl victories and the 5-0 success of the Mountain West in bowl games exposed to all the ignorance of Dr. Gee’s comments on non-BCS schools’ being invited to the national championship party. Might be a good time for Dr. Gee to apologize to America’s little guys and focus on cleaning up his own cheatin’ Buckeyes!

Gary Little

Long Beach

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T.J.Simers was not alone in questioning the celebrity quotient of chef Paula Deen as grand marshal of this year’s Rose Parade. If a well known “foodie” was what the committee was seeking, could there have been a better choice than The Times’ own S. Irene Virbila?

Grace Nevell

Los Angeles

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That Sunday column about the Rose Bowl, UCLA and hockey was hilarious. Who does T.J. Simers think he is, Jim Murray?

William Enright

Fullerton

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Anyone else notice that ESPN has monopolized this year’s college football bowl games?

I mean come on; I turn on the TV New Year’s Day morning expecting CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox to be jammed full of football (like years past) and all I find is the Outback Bowl on ABC. Even the venerable Rose Bowl was missing from ABC!

What are we becoming? What happens to those football fans in those parts of the country where cable is sparse or nonexistent? Never mind the poor soul who lost his job and can’t afford cable or satellite.

It looks like greed is just completely winning out in this country and I guess we’ll just have to wait and watch the free entertainment when Rome burns once again! I’m just flat-out disgusted at what we’ve become.

Mike Aguilar

Costa Mesa

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Did anyone notice that the four college games played New Year’s Eve had South Florida, Miami, Central Florida and Florida State on the schedule?

What does this tell us?

Olga Houlgate

Carlsbad

Let’s go Blue

Michigan fired Rich Rodriguez after three seasons, a 15-22 record and, in essence, taking a proud program and turning it into mush. A disaster for sure, but, in these parts, we refer to such a situation as a “Neuheisel!”

Jack Wolf

Los Angeles

Sheepish grim

Like sheep, Angels fans are moaning about the team not signing Adrian Beltre. Not me. Sixteen million a year for six years is way too much and way too long for a player who flourished with a one-year contract last season but disappointed with his multiyear deal in Seattle.

The Angels had better land Rafael Soriano though, or I may just have to join the rest of the sheep.

Ron Reeve

Glendora

Losers win

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Mark Twain wrote. Case in point: Saturday’s NFC playoff game, with the Pete Carroll-coached 7-9 Seattle Seahawks vs. Reggie Bush and the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints. This could well become known as the Asterisk Bowl.

Bob Ginn

Arcadia

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Whew! For a while it looked like Pete Carroll’s Seahawks were going to be denied a postseason playoff spot. That would have been heartbreaking to USC fans and a Trojans team with an 8-5 record.

Tom Turner

Dana Point

Big switch

Here’s a vision for Los Angeles and a downtown stadium. The Dodgers need a new place to play, the current facilities are old and crumbling and the parking/access infrastructure can’t handle the number of games. Instead of the AEG football stadium, a new downtown baseball facility along the lines of ballparks built in Baltimore, San Diego and San Francisco would be much better than a football venue for local business and restaurants and could leverage the red/blue lines for public access — maybe even provide the critical mass for a San Diego-style gaslamp district.

Meanwhile, a repurposed Chavez Ravine would be the ideal location for a new football stadium and tailgating, used only a dozen or so times a year.

Rick Agardy

Palos Verdes Estates

The write stuff?

The best column in the sports section is letters to the editor. The contributors are brief and to the point. They do not pull punches. They are the best sportswriters not on The Times’ payroll.

Bob Judge

Yucca Valley

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I grew up back east and have lived in Los Angeles the past 30 years. While not a fan of any local sports team I must say this city has four of the most storied, successful programs in American history: UCLA basketball, USC football, the Lakers and Dodgers. And both hockey teams and the Angels have also had many days in the warm California sun.

I find it sad, frankly, that the letters published in your excellent sports section each Saturday are so negative. Lakers fans peevish over their team’s failure to win every regular-season game; Trojans fans livid over an overdue average year; same goes for the recent so-so record of Pauley Pavilion’s squad; and the whipping-post Dodgers.

Stop and smell the roses, L.A. And if you want to know what real sports fan pain is consider what the Knicks, Nets, Mets, Pirates, 76ers and Boston Bruins have endured for years.

Paul McGuire

Canyon Country

Boo, ESPN

Can someone please tell me why the East Coast-loving ESPN is making the Dodgers change their home opener? To showcase the hated Giants? This is absolutely ridiculous — 1:10 p.m. has been an opening-day starting tradition for years and it takes East Side Prejudice Network to bring it down. Way to go, MLB. Don Drysdale is turning in his grave.

Jeff Calzada

Monterey Park

All wet

Roberto Alomar was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame? By gosh, I wasn’t expectorating that at all! I’m so happy I could just spit!

Richard Turnage

Burbank

Oh yeah?

Here are the inductees to the 2010 edition of the sports hall of shame:

1. LeBron James.

2. Brett Favre.

3. The McCourts.

4. David Beckham

5. Kobe Bryant

6. Cecil Newton

7. Reggie Bush

8. Barry Bonds

9. Michael Vick

10. The Times sports department for not publishing this list.

Lawrence M. Kates

Los Angeles

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