My Town, My Team

Over the last two baseball seasons there has been much internal conflict with the Los Angeles Dodgers Organization. As a fan it is hard to understand what is happening and at sometimes hard to know how to react. There are problems everywhere: the owners’ divorce case, low attendance and a team that ended up in third place this year.
“Court” in the name of Frank McCourt seems about right. It kills most fans to know that a divorce case by the owners affects the team this much. We are starting to find out that not only do the McCourts claim to have no money but also they never had the money when they bought the team. Deals and borrowing are how they have come up with the “money” they have been spending on the team. Their wealth is measured on the six homes they own and their extravagant lifestyle.
There have been talks by Major League Baseball to force McCourt to sell the team. This is an outcome that the team and fans would like. Moving forward and winning championships are all this city wants. Los Angeles is a Dodger town, but with the success of the Lakers down the road, they need to bring back the excitement of baseball here.
The City of Los Angeles loves the Dodgers. Ever since 1956 when the Dodgers moved here from Brooklyn, the city has been behind the club. The Dodgers has had one of the highest attendance records in baseball today. Consistently they have averaged more than 45,000 people a game.
But within the last year the Dodgers have not hit that mark. The stadium looks bare. On normally busy nights it feels like a Tuesday night game, and on weekday games it feels like it’s a college baseball game.
         The last struggle the team has is the play on the field itself. Thankfully this is the only area players themselves can change. Regardless of who is signed or who is in the starting lineup, there has to be nine players on the field. This season the Dodgers had about four or five that were good.
Clayton Kershaw, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp were all All-Stars this year. The three of them are young, rising stars and they have a bright future. The Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs about a week and a half before the end of the season but to the regular fan they were eliminated back in May.
In baseball today you need to be a big spender during the off-season and during the trading deadline. The Dodgers were nowhere close to that this year.
With all the negative stories and actions made by the organization there are bright spots. Clayton Kershaw continued to pitch the entire year at the highest level of excellence. He beat last year’s Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum, four different times (a feat never been done before).
Kemp continued his campaign to be the MVP this year by producing 39 home runs and 126 RBIs. In the middle of July the Dodgers were 13 games under 500 and way out of first place. They ended the season 82-79 and only 11 games behind the Diamondbacks and 3.5 behind the rival Giants. With the off-season for the Dodgers just starting all we can do is hope for an exciting 2012 season.