Baseball 2015

[Brian]

Again this year, 70 percent of households in greater Los Angeles cannot get Vin Scully on television.

If time begins on opening day, as I believe, then I'm already a day late.  This is the seventh annual baseball thread on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board.  Please feel free to post here about any team -- even one from the American League! -- if only to provide some relief from me being my most self-indulgent.

The National League West is the center of my universe.  The Dodgers seemed to jell in spring training despite the immense roster upheaval in the off season.  But I won't be surprised if the Padres, who got Matt Kemp, win the division.  The Rockies and the Diamondbacks have also improved.  That leaves the Giants -- with all of the starting pitchers in their 30's and hardly anybody left in the starting lineup who can hit -- ranked in last place.  The Giants finished six games behind the Dodgers in 2014, yet they won the World Series for the third time in five years, thanks to the wild card.  The NL West could replace the Central as the best division in the league, if not all of baseball, this season.

I read recently that the average viewership of a Dodgers telecast, which used to exceed a quarter million, is down to 56,000, which is little more than the capacity of Dodger Stadium.  And that the team has sold 3 million tickets already -- compare that to 3.8 million by the end of last year.  It's insulting to keep hearing how bad the Dodgers brass says they feel about the television blackout, and how much they care about the fans, when the only proof of that would be  renegotiating their contract with Time Warner Cable -- and, at the very least, allowing one game per week on a local broadcast station, so poor people can watch Vin Scully too.

[Brian]

I never imagined that I would say this:  I'd much rather watch a baseball game in San Francisco.

The Dodgers kicked off their season against the Giants up north -- and kicked away a seven game winning streak -- Tuesday night in the beautiful retro ballpark next to McCovey Cove, where every game has sold out since 2010.  They also lost the second game on Wednesday.  I'll have to miss the day game on TV today.

But the Dodgers and the Giants will meet in Chavez Ravine next week.  I won tickets to any game of my choosing through May at the Glendale Human Rights Coalition picnic last autumn, and seeing the Giants would certainly be the best way to use them.  Yet I dread going back to Dodger Stadium.

Watching and hearing the people in the stands in San Francisco -- many of whom wore Dodger blue -- reminded me of what I used to love about attending Dodger games here.  They reacted to most pitches, and to every play.  They paid attention.

[Sharon W]

If you want to go the Glendale Dodger night May 15th we'll cover the vigil. They're playing the Colorado Rockies and there's fire works afterwards. It benefits the Glendale Parks & Open Space Foundation so it's a good cause too. www.glendaleparksfoundation.org/events/glendale-dodger-night

[Brian]

Apr 22, 2015 23:41:26 GMT -8 Brian said:

I won tickets to any game of my choosing through May at the Glendale Human Rights Coalition picnic last autumn...Yet I dread going back to Dodger Stadium.

Anni and I had a great time -- because I chose a game that started at 4:50 p.m. on a Wednesday against the Miami Marlins, the formula for the lowest possible attendance. We got our tickets at the gate and sat down in the fourth row right above home plate in the big Reserve section. The Dodgers sold some 38,000 tickets, but a lot of people who bought them did not show up. The fans around us were attentive and respectful.

I'd read that the Dodgers had diminished stadium organist Nancy Bea Hefley's role to just leading "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the seventh inning.  But there she was playing standards and old show tunes before the game and between the early half innings, before the audience participation bits like the Kiss Kam and the two-minute game shows took over.  The highlight of the evening for me turned out to be "They Called the Wind Mariah." It took decades of hearing that song played on the organ in Chavez Ravine for me to start enjoying it.

A game at Dodger Stadium, circa 1980.

[Brian]

I've refrained for nearly two months -- 28 percent of the season! -- from blathering about the race in the National League West, where the Dodgers have held the lead.  I can hold back no longer.

While the Dodgers were resting Thursday night after flying to St. Louis to play the Cardinals, the team that ended the Dodgers' last two postseason attempts to reach the World Series, the Giants were defeating the Braves 7-0 in San Francisco.  Now they're only half a game behind the Dodgers.

Such news would have bummed me out six years ago.  But even then, I wrestled with my lifelong opposition to the ballclub also known as the Hated Ones:

Apr 27, 2009 23:21:42 GMT -8 Brian said:

No better time than after a bitter one-run loss to talk about why I hate the Giants.

When I was a kid, it was the thing to do. The traditional Brooklyn-New York rivalry moved west with the teams but veered toward murder when Juan Marichal clubbed Dodger catcher Johnny Roseboro in the head with his bat. After that, the Giants were out of contention for many years, so it was hard to fear Frisco -- hell, we loved to visit and eat Rice-a-Roni -- but fans there loved to hate us.

Which didn't really hurt until Joe Morgan hit the home run off of Tom Niedenfuer on the last day of the 1982 season, the same year, as I recall, that Giants fans pelted Tommy Lasorda and the team with a ton of trash when they went through the tunnel to the clubhouse after another victory. So we hated the haters.

Around the turn of the century, Dodger Stadium turned ugly. A teenage boy in orange and black attending with us (who, by the way, went on to serve in Iraq in the National Guard) got serious verbal abuse throughout a game. A Giants fan was shot and killed in the parking lot. I cringed at all the racist vitriol shouted at Barry Bonds when he was closing in on the home run record.

I like to pretend that my fixation on the Hated Ones is healthy, just a parody of animosity that helps me purge all of my prejudices by projecting them on those wussies who play in AT&T-Spies-on-You Park.

Still, I won't be truly satisfied unless the Dodgers take the next two games.

I wrote that two years before Giants fan Bryan Stowe, a paramedic from Santa Cruz, was nearly beaten to death by two guys in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium on opening day.  He has recovered enough to speak at schools about the consequences of bullying from his wheelchair.  I've healed a little too, no longer fearing or hating his favorite team.  Like Bryan, they're just too good.

[Brian]

It could happen again this season.

Before last weekend, the Giants briefly led the Dodgers by half a game in the National League West -- and they only needed one more game for their club to have its winningest month in six decades.  They've lost every game since.  This morning, they're back in familiar territory, two games behind the Dodgers.

The Dodgers have played so much better than anyone could have anticipated.  But so have the Giants.   Meanwhile, the other three teams in the NL West are only a few games below .500.  But the NL Central remains the best division in the league this year, with the surprising Chicago Cubs holding second place in the first two months.

[Brian]

Cincinnati is hosting its first All Star Game in the beautiful Great American Ball Park tonight. The last time that the Reds hosted an All Star Game was in 1988, when they played in Riverfront Stadium, an oval facility built for football with artificial turf. Five Dodgers -- the most in 20 years -- have been named to the National League squad, including the starting pitcher, Zack Greinke, currently the hottest pitcher in baseball.

The National League dominated the Midsummer Classic through the 1960's to the mid-80's. More recently, the NL failed to win 13 in a row through 2009 as the exhibition game became diluted and polluted with expanded rosters, the designated hitter rule, the 2002 game suspended in a tie and, worst of all, letting the All Star Game determine which league gets home field advantage for the World Series.

I can't help myself.  I'll be watching as soon as I get home from work, probably during the third inning, rooting for the National League to break its two-game losing streak on the home field of the oldest team in major league baseball.

[Roberta]

I'm sure that Brian shares my disgust that the junior League has won again, and my delight in seeing Pete Rose, all-time hit leader in baseball, on the field as one of Cincy's "franchise four" and, I believe, correct me if I am wrong Brian, one of the MLB top four.

Jul 13, 2015 23:01:02 GMT -8 Brian said:

[Brian]

Jul 15, 2015 0:07:44 GMT -8 Roberta said:

I'm sure that Brian shares my disgust that the junior League has won again, and my delight in seeing Pete Rose, all-time hit leader in baseball, on the field as one of Cincy's "franchise four" and, I believe, correct me if I am wrong Brian, one of the MLB top four.

Well, the four greatest living major league players, as voted by fans, were Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays.  Koufax played for University of Cincinnati's team, by the way.  He threw the ceremonial first pitch to Bench -- a strike.

I have to withhold any judgment about Pete Rose's first appearance in a MLB ballpark since his banishment from baseball for gambling and lying about it because I missed the pre-game festivities and I only saw the coverage.  We probably disagree, Roberta, about whether he should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Like you, I'm bummed about the outcome.  The American League has won three in a row.  I was most depressed with Clayton Kershaw's performance and most impressed by Mike Trout, who may already be the best young player, ever, in the game.

[Roberta]

Well, not only did I not get the top 4 in baseball right, I am having a sudden email problem -- can't get any new mail. just fyi in case anyone is wondering why I am not answering stuff.