Letters: Dodgers make quite a splash

Sept. 20, 2013 4:30 PM PT

The Dodgers’ celebrating by jumping in the Diamondbacks’ pool was insulting and tacky. I loved every minute of it!

Paul Zimmelman

Marina del Rey

I waited all year for the Dodgers to retaliate for the Diamondbacks hitting Yasiel Puig and Zack Greinke. Jumping in their pool after clinching the West did it 10 times over.

Vincent Martinez

Arcadia

Regarding the Diamondbacks’ players and fans upset about Dodgers celebrating in their pool after clinching the division: You have a swimming pool in your ballpark. A swimming pool.

Bill Hokans

Santa Ana

There may not be crying in baseball, but apparently there’s whining in Arizona. I was in Dodger Stadium in 2004 when the Cardinals eliminated the Dodgers from the playoffs. The Dodgers came back out on the field to congratulate the Cards. Now that’s class.

David Weber

West Hollywood

With so much focus on the payroll, it should be remembered, talent wins pennants and World Series banners, not money. The Dodgers’ payroll is not salutary or salvation nor is it a testament to what money can buy. It is a bitter reminder of 20 years of neglect.

This was a team that needed to rebuild top to bottom. A farm system that once routinely produced teams that won championships in each of their respective minor league divisions could do little to replenish a club so depleted by previous owners. It took a steep investment to produce a winner with no Garveys, Ceys or Buckners on the availability list.

The Dodgers fittingly won the division with a come-from-behind victory as they so often did as they climbed from the cellar to first place. This team when healthy has repeatedly shown it not only has talent, it has heart.

That’s worth exponentially more than money can buy and a good foundation on which to start building for the future.

Michael Solomon

Canoga Park

Why so negative?

Matt Kemp’s return couldn’t be overstated — except by Bill Plaschke. This Dodgers team just won 42 out of 50 games without Kemp in the lineup, so to even intimate that he’s the straw that stirs the Dodgers drink is ridiculous. Leave it to Uncle Bill to get excited over one game, a game where Hanley Ramirez’s return was just as important, if not more important, than Kemp’s.

Allan Kandel

Los Angeles

I am not comfortable with this team and manager’s laissez-faire attitude the past couple of weeks.

Baseball teams aren’t light switches, you can’t turn momentum off and on. They are slowly developing the same losing attitude they had in May and June and playing like it.

At least with the new playoff schedule, they may get the first two playoff games at home. I’ll be at both because I don’t see them coming back for any more games, based on recent play.

Steve Owen

San Diego

If this baseball season was a marathon, I’d say the Dodgers have hit the wall. And what timing, just after announcing raised ticket prices for next year.

D.G. Artis

Woodland Hills

What the hell was Donnie Baseball thinking Wednesday night? Sitting Kershaw and starting a rookie in a very important game? Donnie, you cold have rested him the rest of the season after you clinched. You have two weeks until the playoffs — that’s when he should be sitting. Let’s manage and quit babying.

Tom Whitebirch

Palm Desert

It is obvious that anyone could win with the All Star Dodgers of July and August and did. But now that the Dodgers of May have reappeared, the glaring inabilities of Don Mattingly to do the job shine through. He is incapable of manufacturing runs, and when basic National League strategy is called for, he stands in the dugout with that deer-in-the-headlights look and inevitably makes the wrong move. It’s time for Donnie Baseball to go to some nice lower-tier American League team and learn his craft rather than having it handed to him with no experience. It’s also time for Guggenheim to get us a manager worthy of this team.

Gregory Larkin

Camarillo

Fitting tribute

At 5 feet 7, you do not become a college football player without the height of large dreams and the heart of a fighter. By all accounts, UCLA’s Nick Pasquale was this man. In the wake of his tragic death, the Bruins took their broken hearts and pieced together a victory over Nebraska which will stand tall through the ages. Nick made his debut a week earlier, and he remains in the game to forever inspire.

Jeanine D’Elia

Granada Hills

In a country that has degenerated to the point that competing forces must demonstrate ugly hatred for one another, whether in politics or something as simple as athletics, the University of Nebraska and its student body were a bright light of class last Saturday in Lincoln. Their tributes to fallen UCLA wide receiver Nick Pasquale showed class and humanity unmatched by most. Were you watching, Congress?

Alan Abajian

Alta Loma

Troy trouble

Boos rained down at the Coliseum, the coach maligned and the quarterback labeled ineffective as USC came off its worst loss in years.

It sounds like 2013, but it was 2000. The coach was Paul Hackett and the quarterback was Carson Palmer.

It’s nice to know (and remember) that USC is always two years away from a new coach, a Heisman Trophy, and a national championship.

Jack Saltzberg

Sherman Oaks

Pat Haden, want to end all the controversy and underachievement your football program is immersed in? Here’s the phone number to the solution:

1-800-P-A-T-H-I-L-L.

Dan Johnson

Burbank

Chris Dufresne’s piece on the difficulty of college football coaches giving up calling plays was quite revealing. The most significant statement in the article for USC fans was “head coaches who call their own plays have not won very many titles.” Pat Haden, you played for a head coach who did not call plays, let alone wear a headset or carry a play card: the legendary John McKay. Do you remember?

Wayne Muramatsu

Cerritos

What about Dwight?

It was interesting to see that in Ben Bolch’s list of NBA Western Conference top challengers, Dwight Howard’s Houston Rockets were omitted. Maybe that’s because, like the rest of us Lakers fans, Bolch watched Howard’s amateurish shooting and hands of stone cost the team several games last year. It’s likely Rockets fans will experience the same disappointment once they see what they really have in Howard and their season collapses brick by free-throw-line brick.

Frank Shapiro

Chatsworth

Do not call

Is the PGA Tour really considering the “Tiger Woods Rule,” under which if a player violates a rule and fails to penalize himself as the rules require, the rest of the world has one hour to catch him or there is no penalty?

Edward A. Ruttenberg

Rancho Palos Verdes

Back-to-school sail

Larry Ellison should have used Pac-12 referees to give his Oracle Team USA a home-field advantage at the America’s Cup.

Don Geller

Irvine

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