Letters: They’re still not buying these NFL stadiums
People who seriously believe that the NFL is returning to Los Angeles within the next few years need to have their heads examined. Talk is cheap to the NFL and that’s precisely what it does. Owners like Kraft, Jones and Richardson have been members of a clique that for years has done everything possible to make sure that troubled franchises work out their problems in order to maintain the league’s status quo policy. As insiders know well, L.A. remains the permanent bargaining tool for producing cures for sick franchises, few as they are.
L.A. could have a dozen football stadiums built. Yet the current group of hypocrite owners would find a way to drag the L.A. situation on indefinitely, perhaps right into the next decade and beyond. After all, the NFL hates change!
Lawrence M. Kates
Los Angeles
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Your article on the “automatic” point after touchdown ignores this solution — award seven points to a team scoring a touchdown, but the scoring team would have the option of taking six points and going for a two-point conversion.
Michael Horstein
Los Angeles
Cuban connection
Wow! $62.5 million for an aging, injury-prone player with no major league experience. Think what the Dodgers would have offered if they could close the deal with DirecTV and pick up a little more extra cash to pay for these “spec” signings.
Richard Whorton
Studio City
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If Wednesday’s sports front-page picture is an indication of the future, Hector Olivera would look good in a Cubs cap.
Loren Coleman
West Hollywood
UCLA, up and down
Bill Plaschke’s beautifully written tribute to Steve Alford and his extended family [March 27] brought tears to my eyes. I’ve long felt that Alford had a special quality of decency and love of family that should be shared, and Plaschke really nailed it.
Ellie Doud
Sherman Oaks
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I guess the glass slipper didn’t fit this time for UCLA ... or Steve Lavin.
Jeff Black
Beverly Hills
On wrong track
I decided to attend last Saturday’s track meet at USC. The USC Invitational had Oregon and Brigham Young come to town along with Long Beach State and a nice collection of high school races thrown in. The track meet was well attended, and while the Trojans men and women won a total of 14 events, athletes from the other institutions acquitted themselves nicely.
It remains a mystery to myself and other track and field fans why the biggest newspaper in the Los Angeles area has chosen to ignore a sport that in many ways is the “purest” of sports. Who can run the fastest, throw the farthest, and jump the highest goes back to the original Olympics and remains a great sport today.
Howard Benioff
Arcadia
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I do so want to thank The Times for devoting a bottom quarter of a page to women’s NCAA basketball. So very kind of you!
Patricia Hoffman
Santa Maria
Stellar!
Unlike Blanche Dubois of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the Kings cannot rely on the kindness of strangers, namely the other teams in the Western Conference losing. They needed to win four of five on the recent East trip and then win in regulation against Vancouver and Calgary on the road. And then win one against Edmonton or San Jose at home. No harder than winning four in a row after losing three straight to San Jose last year.
Bruce N. Miller
Playa del Rey
Gnashing over Lakers
The NBA needs to change this stupid lottery and provide incentive for even the worst teams to win. The bottom-five teams should get the bottom-five picks according to record, not a lottery.
Instead of a lottery, perhaps the bottom five should get salary-cap relief with the best of the worst getting the most relief in descending order through the bottom five. Such an idea seems counterintuitive, but it makes more sense than the worst team being denied the No. 1 draft pick.
Further, a guaranteed pick is better draft bait than a potential lottery pick, and teams might also have the option of trading their cap bonus as well, thus giving added incentive to win instead of tanking to improve lottery odds.
Michael Solomon
Canoga Park
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Steve Nash wrote: “In my nearly three years in L.A., I’ve never met anyone who didn’t show me anything but love and support for my efforts.”
He must not get out much in L.A.
Dave Moore
Santa Ana
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How inspiring to read that Chris Borland, retiring at age 24 before his second season, plans to return 75% of his $600,000-plus signing bonus. Are you listening, Steve Nash?
Ralph Martinez
Arcadia
NCAA vs. USC
The revelations of the NCAA emails proved that they maliciously tried to emasculate USC. If Pat Haden (a great Trojan) had any intestinal fortitude we could have fought them like everyone else did. Say what you want about Mike Garrett, but at least he called them out.
Willis Barton
Los Angeles
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