Readers React: Dodgers TV blackout: For fans, it’s 1950 again

To the editor: As a little kid in Brooklyn, I loved my Dodgers. When I couldn’t go to Ebbets Field, I’d listen to the games on the radio and Red Barber would make me feel like I was right there with Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo and Jackie Robinson. (“Dodgers TV blackout may loosen team’s grip on fans,” editorial, April 7)

Now, more than 60 years later, because I don’t subscribe to Time Warner Cable, I’m once again left listening to the Dodgers on the radio. I still love the team that followed me here from Brooklyn, and when there’s a simulcast, Vin Scully paints vivid pictures of the action on the field.

But I’m not that little kid anymore with only a radio and my imagination. I’m an adult now who finds it unconscionable that Time Warner Cable continues to deprive me of the joy of watching my Dodgers play baseball.

Ron Kramer, Malibu

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To the editor: Wow, talk about a contrast. In Monday’s paper, there was an article regarding Time Warner Cable’s Dodgers TV deal and its holdout in negotiations to see who can get the most millions to add to their already existing multimillions.

Elsewhere, there was an article on the minimum wage and the efforts of some to try to get a couple of dollars more added on.

It won’t cost the Dodgers or Time Warner Cable much to hold out for as long as it takes. But for those working for the minimum wage, the waiting time for an increase can be very costly.

The one percenters win again.

Thomas Hoerber, Valencia

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To the editor: I was born in 1941 in New York City. I was a Dodgers fan as a boy. I learned about racism when Robinson became the first black Major League Baseball player in the modern era in 1947. I saw Carl Erskine pitch a no-hitter in 1956 against the Giants with Robinson playing third base.

I cannot understand why Dodgers fans do not organize and protest the greed of the team’s owners and Time Warner Cable executives who are denying so many fans the pleasure of watching the games. Why not ask TV subscribers to cut the cord or ask Vin Scully to show his loyalty to the fans by refusing to work until the Dodgers renegotiate the TV deal?

A few cars “breaking down” on the way to the Dodger Stadium parking lot before a game would be a powerful statement.

Julian Weissglass, Santa Barbara

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To the editor: As a lifelong Dodgers fan, I have one thing to say to team owner Guggenheim Baseball Management and Time Warner Cable: Go Angels!

Mary Gordon, Rancho Palos Verdes

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