Letters: Bobbling Dodgers need a lift

Which is least likely to happen in baseball?

A) A player hitting .400.

B) A player hitting 70 homers.

C) A pitcher throwing back-to-back no-hitters.

D) A player hitting in 56 straight games.

E) A Joe Blanton bobblehead night.

Mark Popkin

Los Angeles

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I disagree with people who say it’s time for the Dodgers to dump James Loney and find a good first baseman. Three or four years ago it was time for the Dodgers to dump James Loney and find a good first baseman.

Rob Osborne

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Manhattan Beach

Please stop the torture that is Juan Uribe. It’s like watching a USC team coached by Tollner, Smith or Hackett. How can you pinch-hit him? All the pitchers are better hitters. Who stays in the majors while hitting below the Mendoza line for two straight seasons?

Are you watching this, Ned? I know Donnie is, but it doesn’t seem to matter — he keeps running him out there. This defies any and all logic. He doesn’t belong on anyone’s 25-man roster or 40-man roster. Stop this painful display, it’s just not pretty to watch.

Bruce Alan

Granada Hills

I love Vin Scully as much as anyone, but if he mentioned anything about the Melky Cabrera situation, guess I missed it. I would like to have heard Vin tell us how losing their best hitter might affect the Giants down the stretch. That certainly would have been as newsworthy as informing us how many hits Hunter Pence has on Tuesday nights.

Bert Alton

Ventura

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Baseball has devolved into a terrible chemistry whodunit. Last year’s MVP skated on some technicality and two players have been caught this last week. I and everyone else have to question every record and accomplishment ever cherished since the steroid era began. It seems to have diminished some of the joy of watching gifted athletes competing. The cheaters have sucked the pleasure out of watching a ballgame. I thought somehow that we were better.

Marcelo Barreiro

Manhattan Beach

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Bartolo Colon busted! Who knew In-N-Out burger had synthetic testosterone on their secret menu?

Larry Yells

Hermosa Beach

Traffic jam

Thanks to Bill Plaschke for highlighting Dodger Stadium’s traffic mess. On the allegedly “sold-out” Fernando bobblehead night Tuesday — actual attendance must have been in the mid-40s max — it took nearly an hour to get from Figueroa and Sunset to the parking entrance up Elysian Park. While shrinking Dodger Stadium might have some impact on traffic, as Plaschke suggests, it seems that the approach to the ravine via Elysian Park would be made easier if the Dodgers blocked off cross traffic on Stadium Way as they used to do. With the Elysian Park/Stadium Way traffic light changing every minute, traffic was worse than the rush-hour 405.

John Shutt

Marina del Rey

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Plaschke nailed it. My buddy and I left the Gardena area at 5 p.m. and just made it in time for the first pitch at 7:10. Really puts a damper on the MLB experience. I love baseball and the Dodgers, but after two-plus hours in the car and buying a couple rounds of beer for $25.75 a round, sitting in my living room watching on TV seems to be the way to go.

Matthew D. Kerster

Gardena

Lance, a lot

Lance Armstrong has taken many a high road in his, uh, illustrious road racing career, but none has been as precarious as the one he has embarked on now, giving up his legal fight over doping allegations while at the same time painting himself victim of a witch hunt. Many believe his resignation to the charges is a move calculated to keep witness statements and other evidence out of the public eye. Armstrong has never failed a drug test, but I’m afraid he has failed the smell test.

Mario Valvo

Rancho Mirage

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I was very upset to hear of USADA’s decision regarding Lance Armstrong. I think it’s rash, and it comes across as an act of vengeance, not justice.

Armstrong passed hundreds of drug tests during his years as the world’s greatest cyclist. Yes, athletes do everything they can to optimize their performance. They develop strategies within the bounds of law and the regulations of oversight organizations. And they push those boundaries constantly. Those organizations create tests for methods of enhancement that they deem unfair or unacceptable at that time. Testosterone? HGH? Coffee? Some herb from the Amazon? Whatever it may be.

Armstrong passed the tests for the allowable substances at the time of his competitions. It is unethical to change the terms of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable years after the fact.

Martin Lopez

Los Angeles

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Long after the name of Travis Tygart — a.k.a. Inspector Javert — has been forgotten, that of Lance Armstrong will be remembered, not because of his athletic success but for his unstinting efforts on behalf of cancer survivors.

Skip Nevell

Los Angeles

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Guilty until proven innocent? Lack of due process? Conviction on hearsay evidence? Who does the USADA think it is? The NCAA?

Ron Yukelson

San Luis Obispo

Don’t stop

The solution to the NHL’s current dispute with the players’ union is simple: Bring in the Stanley Cup champions as third-party arbitrators.

For example, Jonathan Quick can show how a contract can be negotiated in good faith without excessive greed, ego, or playing to the media. Captain Dustin Brown can check into a wall any individual who is unreasonable or disingenuous.

Oh, and don’t forget Dustin Penner to make a fresh batch of pancakes for everyone to ensure that they have a bellyful and thus are more amenable to reaching a deal.

Steve Carey

Burbank

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Gary Bettman shut down the NHL in 2004 for an entire year in order to get the hard salary cap that he promised would solve hockey’s financial woes while also keeping ticket prices affordable. Eight years later, Bettman is saying the current system is now unacceptable, while the cost of my tickets has doubled. How this man has remained in charge for the past 20 years, while showing nothing but disdain for fans, players and the tradition of this great sport, defies logic.

Andrea Janner

El Segundo

Mora’s team

UCLA Coach Jim Mora is dangerous and that is never a good thing. He is lucky none of his players died of heatstroke in the excessive training camp heat. And his R-rated rants signal an immature tyrant, not a mature leader. Contrast his behavior with Sparks Coach Carol Ross, who benched her star player for not playing defense. This is how you gain the respect of your players. Mora could use more of such wisdom.

Jeanine D’Elia

Granada Hills

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As a UCLA alumnus, I am really looking forward to the coming college football season. UCLA has no place to go but up. If UCLA ends the season in the top 25, UCLA’s season will be a success.

USC has no place to go but down. If USC does not end the season No. 1 in the AP poll, USC’s season will be a failure.

For a Bruins fan, this is a win/win situation.

Martin A. Brower

Corona del Mar

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T.J. Simers’ piece about Mike Caston [Aug. 19] should be required reading for every USC player, coach, staff member and other interested parties. If this isn’t motivation for a Rose Bowl/national championship season, I don’t know what is. Kudos to T.J. and Mike.

Lawrence M. Kates

Los Angeles

Ladies day

So here we are in the 21st century, and the proud men at Augusta National Golf Club are celebrating the admission of the first two women to their long-revered society — a mere 22 years after permitting a black person to join. I wonder if those women will be invited to the less publicized after-party, where the good old boys of Augusta remove their green jackets and instead don pointy white hats and flowing robes while hoisting the Confederate flag. Somehow I doubt it.

Chris Boyd

Redondo Beach

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Now that Augusta National has women members, I look forward to the Boy Scouts to have girl members and the Girl Scouts to have … Oh no! We can’t allow that!.

Gary Robb

Los Feliz

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Ms. Rice and Ms. Moore are by reports lovely ladies. But if you’re going to break down a barrier, bust it with meaning. The real choice would have been Amy Alcott and Nancy Lopez. Or Se Ri Pak. But let’s get real. The good old boys of Augusta will never change. I don’t see ladies day at the club in the near future.

Ron Greenberg

Woodland Hills

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Bill Plaschke’s column on Augusta National was predictably dramatic. What’s the big deal about connecting a few dots for the privileged? Things would be no different today if we simply would have left the good old boys at Augusta National alone to smell their azaleas, drink their gin and do whatever else they do in Butler Cabin the 361 days of the year we aren’t watching.

Besides, women in this country were operating a much more gender-exclusive, financially powerful club for years without anybody squawking. It was called the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Jon Hastings

San Luis Obispo

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Memo to Bill Payne, “welcome to the 21st century”. The next thing you know, you will be able to get a Five Guys burger instead of a pimento cheese sandwich.

Chuck Rinaldi

Huntington Beach

Break it down

Let’s look a little closer at the Lakers’ “Gang of 4.”

First there is Kobe, an aging superstar with superior skills rolling on an ever-steeper downward grade. His greatness still flickers, but that light that shone so brightly has been sputtering. Then there is Steve Nash: an aging superstar ... well, no need to be repetitive. Dwight “Superman” Howard, with a back of kryptonite, has the distinct appearance of a question mark ever since his spinal surgery. Finally there is Pau Gasol, a 7-foot Slim Jim, too puny and too gentle to assert himself against the animals that roam under the baskets in the NBA, and ever less consistent in his play.

Not everything that glitters is a star, sometimes it’s just the little that is left of one, burning up during re-entry just before it crashes.

Michael E. White

Burbank

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I don’t want to rain on Broderick Turner’s parade [“Bench Stormers,” Aug. 19], but the statistical comparison of Antawn Jamison to Matt Barnes favors Barnes, not Jamison.

Points per game is a meaningless statistic because it is a function of number of shots taken. The more meaningful statistic is shooting percentage, which favors Barnes. In the most recent season, Barnes shot .452 overall, .333 from three-point range, and .742 from the foul line, while Jamison shot .403 overall (ugh!), .341 from three-point range, and .683 (ugh, ugh!) from the line.

Richard Raffalow

Valley Glen

Name game

With the Jacksonville Jaguars committing to play one “home” game per season in London, starting in 2013, their home city should now be called Jack-London.

Tom Scarpelli

Northridge

Pitch back

I wonder what the Las Vegas oddsmakers will set as the line on who will have more major league starts in September — Roger Clemens or Stephen Strasburg?

Ron Yukelson

San Luis Obispo

The list

I found it sad that Chris Erskine’s top 20 current L.A.-based athletes star power ranking [Aug. 24] has three Lakers, two Clippers, two Dodgers, two Angels, and one USC player — all of whom won nothing in the 2011-12 season — ahead of Kings Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick. It just goes to show how most people don’t fully understand what it took to bring the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles.

Thank you, Kings, each one of you more than earned it. And as a die-hard Kings fan, if the world should come to an end tomorrow, I’m good.

Marc Barbani

Porter Ranch

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