Letters: It’s sports, but not playing makes the headlines

Good for the NBA and good for Major League Baseball. Racism in America is rampant, and it will take continued strong actions by these athletes, as well as politicians and the police departments themselves, to turn our justice system around. It’s obvious there are two justice systems in America. One for white Americans, and one for Black Americans. Nobody deserves to be shot in the back seven times. If we are to survive, we need a change in attitude and a renewed respect for those of color. And, oh yes, please vote!

Marty Zweben
Palos Verdes Estates

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Our professional sports world employs many Black people, and there are many who enjoy sports and give hardly a thought to what it means to be Black in America outside of the game they are watching on TV. Not playing the game is a powerful way to make some people wake up. Good for the NBA and all the other sports showing solidarity. The owners of these teams should use whatever privilege they have to support the changes needed in American policing.

Pamela Dawson
Goleta

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NBA players, especially Black players, are using their position to positively influence the league and society. I wonder what might happen if elite high school and collegiate athletes, especially Black ones, discover and utilize their influence and power in a similar manner.

If a large number decide to attend and play at historically black colleges, the power and income would move from Power 5 conferences to places where the power and income might be returned to the Black communities who have generated the income.

John Latta
Pasadena

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I have been a die-hard Lakers fan since they moved to Los Angeles. Obviously I have never cared for the Celtics. Donald Sterling was everything that is wrong with pro sports, so I’ve never cared for the Clippers either.

However, you may count me, for as many seasons as I have left, a lifelong fan of Doc Rivers.

Bill Sampson
Malibu

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It was a Jackie Robinson moment, individually and collectively, that brought tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. First, Dodger superstar Mookie Betts saying of the baseball boycott to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, that he will always remember his mainly white teammates for “just having my back.” And second, the larger political impact of athletes, black and white, beloved by Democrats and Republicans alike, unanimously protesting the racial injustice that our president and his cohorts have only further inflamed.

Vincent Brook
Los Angeles

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I have been a Dodgers fan since I was 9 years old and I am now in my 85th year. I like Mookie Betts, his teammates like him, and he may be worth what he is being paid. He is an employee of the Dodgers and if doesn’t want to play he should not be paid like anyone else. Every Dodgers fan I know feels the same way. These highly paid players have some strange notion that their actions make some difference to the rest of us so they inconvenience everyone else to satisfy their egos.

I am tired of it.

Tom Bond
Studio City

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If the NBA can cancel their season in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, we as Americans can take a page from their playbook. Let’s take one day as a nation to do the following:

1. The press corps will not cover the president for one day.

2. We social media users will turn off Twitter, Facebook, etc., for one day.

3. All shoppers will not make purchases at big box stores or Amazon for one day.

Jean Toh
Newport Beach

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If you really want to get America’s attention, cancel the Super Bowl!

Edward M. Jimenez
Whittier

Out of the blue

The Dodgers are flying high with the best record in baseball, but don’t be fooled, people. We’ve seen this movie already. With fewer than 30 games remaining, the Dodgers’ weaknesses still rear their ugly heads. More often than not, Dodgers starting pitchers are taxing the bullpen. In a short series, this may not hurt, but in a seven-game series, it spells the end. If this team doesn’t hit home runs, they still have problems driving in runs.

In order for the Dodgers to finally win, they will have to do the little things to help them win. I just don’t see it with a Dave Roberts-led team.

Geno Apicella
Placentia

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It pretty much went unnoticed, but there was an amazing record set during a Dodgers game last week. In the fifth inning, announcers Hershiser and Davis stopped blabbering for .03 of a second.

Sorry, Vinny, they must have heard you, but never listened.

Bennett J. Mintz
Chatsworth

Stay cool, stay smart

Shane Thomas’ future was lost! To even think of holding a soccer practice, or any kind of athletic practice, in 110-degree heat, let alone actually having one then making the players carry the equipment from the field, is ludicrous and insane. The function of the brain is thought. The coaches and staff were either applying no cognitive thoughts or collectively possessed no brains among them.

J. Rickley Dumm
Woodland Hills

Halo heckling

The Angels are so bad the cutouts leave by the third inning.

Harlan McWhorter
Rialto

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Gosh, the Angels are awful. Good thing this mini-season doesn’t count.

Ron Reeve
Glendora

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Don’t blame Billy Eppler. Arte Moreno has had nearly a decade to build a team around Mike Trout. He has failed.

Bats not arms will be his legacy. Pitching is 75% of the equation to winning.

Fred Lewandowski
San Clemente

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No matter what the Halos do, nothing seems to work. Hiring a World Series manager in Joe Maddon and signing a World Series star in Anthony Rendon hasn’t helped. They might as well sign the grandson of their former star pitcher Dean Chance. Yes, his name is No Chance.

Richard Katz
Los Angeles

Quitter

Dear 2020, Uncle. You’ve won. Sports fans and players and broadcasters tried their best but the square peg just won’t go in the round hole. The apathy across all of sports is more than palpable and between the pandemic and the social unrest, which will invariably escalate before the election, we can not focus.

Let’s just stop. Let’s just cancel all sports until the new year, including yes, football (gasp). We all tried. It’s not working. I’ll certainly miss you.

Marcelo Barreiro
Manhattan Beach

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