My prediction is that the Dodgers will probably sign Blanco for 8 years, $80 million during the off-season — because we know how much the Dodgers like those recycled Giants. Speaking of the Dodgers, we talked about them as well. In case you are wondering, Adrian Gonzalez is actually only 30 years old, a full year younger than me. That makes him almost a year and a half younger than Matt. Carl Crawford is 31, but younger than me. Josh Beckett was the old man in the trade. He is 32. One year older than me. That settles that.

Matt used the word “Machiavellian,” which is notable. He will hopefully be a regular contributor to the podcast to give some Bay-Area perspective to our Central Coast and Southern California-biased blog. Hope you enjoy.

THAT is a happy Giants fan aka Matt Dale.

Clayton Kershaw won the pitching version of the triple crown.

Matt Kemp has been on a tear at the end of the season, chasing the traditional hitters’ version of the triple crown during the final week of games.

As a team, they’ve been really good also — 15 games over .500 (38-23) in the 61 games they’ve played since July 22nd.

For those of us who had generally stopped paying attention, the Dodgers’ performance comes as a huge surprise. James Loney managed to raise his average to over .280 and is in double digits in home runs once again. During the first few months of the season, nobody  would have thought either of those things had a foul ball’s chance of hitting someone at an afternoon game at a mostly-empty Dodger Stadium.

Javy Guerra and Kenley Jansen bounced back and made up for the virtual “no-shows” of Hong Chi Kuo and Jonathan Broxton out of the bullpen.

Ted Lilly and Hiroki Kuroda finished the year with more respectable numbers than I thought and while Kershaw and Kemp have put up all-time great Dodgers seasons.

For a team that was out of the race so early, the numbers will actually look more kindly on the Dodgers than the reality of the situation.

Despite being a Dodgers fan who has rebuked the current ownership, I would be remiss if I didn’t congratulate the players. The players are not the ones that made the Dodgers a joke throughout the league. The players didn’t lead a cornerstone franchise in the second largest media market into inexplicable bankruptcy. The players kept fighting. In the end, this year’s team, the players on the field, should be remembered for doing the best they could.

Despite Ned Colletti’s “logic,” who really expected aging infielders Casey Blake, Juan Uribe, or even Rafael Furcal to have impact seasons necessary for a real playoff run? Did anyone think that a team that planned on a Marcus Thames/Jay Gibbons platoon in left field would be a playoff team? Let’s not go and blame them for getting hurt and not living up to Ned’s sometimes-skewed logic.

The fans took a stand this year against the owner of a team that was more than 10 games back in the division for all but one day since June 28. In a city where getting anyone to care about anything can be a challenge, thousands of people lodged their protests against owner Frank McCourt by not going to games.

But the fans’ protest wasn’t of Kemp, Kershaw, and the players. I hope the players understand that. If not — if Kemp, Kershaw, and other young impactful Dodgers see the fans’ non-support as traitorous and use it as a reason not to be with the team long-term — things could get a whole lot worse before they get any better.

So congratulations Mr. Kershaw and Mr. Kemp for spectacular seasons. The players on the team have turned a completely embarrassing year into one that shows a glimmer of hope for the future with new ownership.

And for that, I say thanks.

With the movie Moneyball coming out soon, it’s a good time for people to legitimately re-examine his legacy as the Dodgers General Manager.

DePodesta seemed at the time like a smart guy. For those of us who read Moneyball, it was exciting to think that the Dodgers had the best of both worlds: a big market where money could be spent AND a general manager who had some kind of inherent advantage over everyone else.

When DePodesta was hired, Dodgers fans had visions dancing in their heads; not of sugar-plumbs, but of getting good value deals on some players and at the same time having money to spend on players the A’s never could (see: Jason Giambi, et al.).

His Wikipedia page includes entries like this:

During the 2004 off-season, DePodesta let Adrián Beltré, who had hit 48 home runs in 2004, sign with Seattle as a free agent.

As if it was only DePodesta who made the decision not to sign Beltré. The Dodgers’ failure to hang onto an MVP candidate in McCourt’s first offseason as the owner looks ominous in hindsight.

While the media lambasted DePodesta for action or inaction throughout his time with the Dodgers, they should have been looking at the office above DePodesta’s.

I’ll ask this question: If you were an owner without any real money who wanted to keep his team just good enough to compete without having to spend much money, who would you try to hire? I would try to hire DePodesta.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=VciA-lN5k7s

When the team didn’t turn around instantly and then had an atrocious season, McCourt needed a scapegoat. And he found one in DePodesta.

It was easy at the time to question the ability of Hee Seop Choi. I wonder whether anyone used the opportunity to question Frank?

Hindsight is sometimes a useless gift, but in this case I think we need to take a different view of Paul DePodesta. While his handling of Beltré, Choi, and some others were questionable, they weren’t any worse than some moves Colletti has made.

But we treat Ned a little differently because his boss is a bumbling fool. So was Paul DePodesta’s. Let’s not forget that.

Your email:

 In our final of four articles this week, and with the season winding down, we examine where the Dodgers might go from here. 

For the last two years, I’ve been saying, “anyone but Frank,” with visions of the Dodgers being owned by Oscar De La Hoya, Magic Johnson, and Mark Cuban dancing in my head.

With Oscar in rehab and Magic and Cuban everything but vocal recently, a group led by Bill Burke that includes Chinese investors and unidentified U.S. investors has made an offer to buy the team for probably more than it’s worth.

I am more certain than ever that Frank McCourt must be stopped, but I think Dodgers fans may be exhibiting a little more patience after the most recent offer. As Mike Petriello mused, Dodgers fans need to root for “the right sale,” and not just have an “anyone but McCourt” mentality.

Fans don’t know much about Burke, aside from the fact that he’s been involved with McCourt dealings in the past. To me, that doesn’t exactly bode well for him. With all of Frank’s sins throughout the years, fans shouldn’t want anything to do with anyone who has been anywhere near the embattled Dodgers owner (thanks MSTI! You rock!).

On the field, the Dodgers still have some young parts that could lead to success in the very near future. An article in today’s LA Times made a good argument for Matt Kemp as the MVP and Clayton Kershaw as a serious contender for the Cy Young Award. And the Dodgers HAVE won 9 of their last 10 games and are closer to .500 than they have been since June.

So things might be looking up with McCourt getting an offer and the team playing well. But where do they go from here?

On the field

With the exception of Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, the Dodgers’ everyday lineup is filled with mostly mediocre or unproven talent. Without an infusion of energy or money (see: change in leadership) this off-season, that probably won’t change. Dee Gordon has the potential to be an exciting player, but there isn’t much else to get excited about. Aside from Matt Kemp’s 31 home runs, only two other Dodgers are in double-figures.

That doesn’t sound like a real contender to me…

The team is in the bottom third in baseball in home runs and runs. Beyond Kemp, nobody in their lineup strikes fear into the hearts of opponents. This makes Kemp’s achievements all the more special this year, but if Kemp is out of the lineup, the bottom of the inning might be a good time for fans to go wait in the long Dodger Stadium concession lines.

Footnote: I was excited about a possible outfield of Trayvon Robinson, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier next year, but the Dodgers decided that Robinson wasn’t necessary and traded him for nearly nothing. Like most people who know a lot more about these things than I do, I think this is a move I think will haunt Dodgers’ General Manager Ned Colletti for the rest of his time with the team.

Pitching has always been the Dodgers’ focus. From Drysdale and Koufax to Sutton to Valenzuela, Hersheiser, Martinez, etc… pitching has always been the mainstay of the Dodgers organization. The Dodgers’ rotation has a bonified ace in Clayton Kershaw and a few serviceable mid-rotation guys in Chad Billingsley and Ted Lilly. Again, depth is an issue though and going into the off-season, the team will probably have to make a choice between shoring up the pitching OR the lineup.

Off the field

In a Dodgers’ organization run like it is supposed to be run, this choice between one or the other should not have to be made. A team in the Los Angeles market should not have to make a choice between pitching and hitting. If Yankees and Phillies aren’t subjected to having to make a choice, neither should Dodgers fans. For an organization whose fans made them a Top-5 team in attendance for over a decade in the second largest media market in the country, having to make the choice is unacceptable.

The cross-town Angels have made free-agent acquisitions in which they’ve had to pay real money to real professionals. Torii Hunter turned out to be a much better acquisition (despite the money the Angels had to pay) than Manny Ramirez ever was. Recently, Jared Weaver signed an extension with the Angels and even gave them a home-town discount because he knows the Angels are committed to spending money and making the product on the field good.

Do you think Clayton Kershaw will give the Dodgers the same discount? What about Matt Kemp? The decisions Colletti, McCourt, Selig, and Jamie McCourt make will all contribute to whether the Dodgers get better or worse next season.

The end of the 2011 season is a crossroads in the history of the Dodgers. What management does or does not do this off-season will be closely scrutinized and, if it’s like past off-seasons, people who love the Dodgers in Los Angeles will not be much happier.

In the stands

If McCourt remains the owner, I believe the fans will stay away. The fans have spoken loud and clear with their absence this season. When McCourt sells the team, though, this fan will be sorely disappointed if fans do not sell-out the stadium during the following home games.

Let’s hope that home game is at a Dodger Stadium that Frank doesn’t still own…

If not, we could be permanently in a mental state about baseball similar to this young lady:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaDj6eT8hB0

I’m hoping against that.

1) Safety. It’s pretty simple: when a guy gets beat to the edge of his life on opening day and when the stadium already has a history of parking lot shootings, people are wary for their own personal safety.

Even if they aren’t worried about getting beaten or shot, there are increasing amounts of vulgarity and belligerent behavior that I know I wouldn’t want my wife or kids to see (if I had kids).

Can you spot the troublemakers?

2) Carlos Santana, Russell Martin, Trayvon Robinson, et al. These are players the Dodgers have traded or allowed to walk away who are all-stars or future stars in the league, and they aren’t the only players the Dodgers have made personnel mistakes with. While the Phillies (who the Dodgers faced in the 2008 NLCS)  have made every move imaginable over the past 3 years to make their team better, the Dodgers have struggled to stay even mediocre.

If you want to see everything the Dodgers should have been doing with their roster, look at the Phillies. If you want to see pretty much everything the Dodgers should not be doing, from a roster standpoint, look at, well, the Dodgers.

Who would Dodgers fans rather have right now: Casey Blake or Carlos Santana? Would you give up the playoff run in 2008 if you could have Santana at catcher or first base even? Russell Martin was probably a move the Dodgers had to make, but it’s still frustrating to see him doing so well with a well-run organization.

And what about Robinson? He was touted as one of the gems in the farm system and initial reaction to his being traded (by people who know a lot more than me, like mikesciosciastragicillness.com) is that the Dodgers got fleeced.

3. Cost/Value: During the McCourt regime, the price of a Dodgers ticket has become more and more expensive without the relative value of the team on the field changing at a commensurate level. In other words, fans are paying more for the same mediocre roster. Instead of old ex-Giants Jeff Kent and Jason Schmidt, we have Juan Uribe… and what would I do to have a Jeff Kent-level player, even during his time with the Dodgers, on the roster right now…?

The team seems like something Donald Sterling might put together if he was a baseball owner. What a sad day when I’m comparing the owner of the Dodgers to Donald Sterling.

The team has some stars, but the overall entertainment value has become a hollow shell of what it used to be. The experience is certainly different, but it’s grown far worse and this fact has never been acknowledged by Frank or any of his people.

4.  Blue Land – The Dodgers spend $14-15 million per year on, get this, rent. Apparently McCourt has broken up the Dodgers’ holdings into separate entities. One of these is called “Blue Land” and the Dodgers pay it huge bucks for rent — far more than other teams pay for rent throughout the league.

On top of that fact, the ambiance of the place has been lost. Ushers seem more like ill-trained automatons than the baseball-knowledgable, straw-hat-wearing ushers of the past. Fans aren’t able to move into unoccupied seats, even late into the game.

The scoreboard is filled with obscure stats, for example that James Loney was the 11th best hitter in late game situations when Vin Scully had chicken for dinner between June 27, 2007 and May 3, 2010. I’m only exaggerating a little here.

To top off the point about “Blue Land,” I’ll describe something that happened to my family during the last game I attended. In the 8th inning, on a 95 degree day, the Loge Level concession stand ran out of water. The water at the stadium already costs $6.50 and on a day this hot, they SOLD OUT OF BOTTLED WATER. It seems like someone could have made a Costco run when they realized that there is an announced crowd of over 35,000 people and they clearly didn’t have enough water for a hot day. The funny thing is, there were probably only 15,000 people there. If there were more, I can’t imagine what they would have done. They would have run out by the 4th inning. It’s no wonder that nobody wants to go to the games anymore. But it is sad. And it needs to change.

In the words of the protesters in front of Dodger Stadium on Saturday, “the sooner the better.”

The stadium sold out of water on a day that looked like this 15 minutes before game time...

In the first of our week-long series on the Los Angeles Dodgers, we look at last Saturday’s rally.

This wasn’t about the day’s game.

It’s was not about Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, or Chad Billingsley.

This is about a bus ride to Loserville with Frank McCourt behind the wheel.

Bankruptcy has taken over all recent dialogue about the Dodgers

On Saturday, at the intersection of Sunset and Elysian Park in Los Angeles, Dodgers fans decided, for a second time in as many months, to show their displeasure with the direction and ownership of their beloved Dodgers.

Led by Roger Arrieta, founder of markcubansavethedodgers.com, fans picketed, shouted, and generally made their voices heard to any car driving by. Signs read: “Game Over, McCourt” and “Get out of Town, McCourt.”

Three years ago, the Dodgers and Phillies were the two best teams in the National League. The contrast since then has to be sickening to die-hard Dodger fans. One team has done everything they can to continue their winning ways, never satisfied even after winning the World Series. The other team, well, is the Dodgers.

If a person showed up to the rally looking to make trouble and be a hooligan, they were in the wrong place. While it may be surprising to some, the fans at the rally were not just well-behaved. They were also knowledgeable and purposeful in their anti-Frank McCourt message.

“He isn’t… here, but he needs to know and he is going to know,” said one fan. “Game over.”

While the Dodgers announced attendance well over 30,000 for the game Saturday afternoon, there were clear indications to all those in attendance that the real number of fans at the game was probably under 20,000. In other words, the fan-organized rally seemed to be making a difference.

There were plenty of good seats available as the Dodgers took the field on Saturday

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzFw_0PkglI

Christy is ready for Frank to be gone. One thing you can tell from her and others at the rally was how ingrained the Dodgers are as an icon of good times for so many Californians and especially Angelinos. The only additional question I wished I would have asked people was what the Dodgers meant to them. That being said, the protesters made it clear in their passion, emotion, and description of how the team was being run now.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=09U8WhTSoE0

Like many Dodgers fans, Roger’s “frustration level is high.” For many, that is an understatement

Eric from Covina isn’t a crazy fan using this opportunity for someone or something to yell at (like the type of person you might expect at a rally or organized protest). He’s smart and reasonable like many Dodger fans and has some excellent points.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4MoPbbyj-k

Finally, there is Mark. Mark brought his whole family out, signs and all, to protest Frank. He hasn’t been to a game yet this year and refuses to go until the team is free from McCourt’s grip.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRX0VCL1snw

In the end the biggest thing missing from the rally was one big thing that McCourt has done to anger fans. When these situations happen, they are usually based on a large breach of trust. The Brian Stow case was a tipping point for many people. But if the fan base was bought into the team and to ownership prior to the opening day atrocity, the reaction would not have been anywhere close to the same.

The fact that such a large number of “little things” can add up to two unprecedented protests of ownership really says something for the “bloodletting” that McCourt has overseen. Maybe a picture of him as a vampire rather than the one of him as a rat would have been more appropriate on Saturday.

Or maybe Dodgers fans would just as soon never see a picture of him, in any form, ever again.

owen@fansmanship.com

Check back Wednesday morning for a checklist of reasons why fans aren’t coming to games anymore.

Wednesday: Reasons why fans aren’t coming anymore

Thursday: Impact on the “little guys”

Friday: How did we get here? Best and worst case scenarios for the future

The Yankees are standing pat on what they currently have, as there hasn’t been a deadline in recent memory where baseball’s top spending franchise has failed to bolster themselves in even the slightest amount.  They were in the Hiroka Kuroda sweepstakes along with the Chicago White Sox, but Kuroda ultimately held the trump card in the form of the no-trade clause built into his contract.

The biggest splash of the deadline had to be the San Francisco Giants acquiring Carlos Beltran from the New York Mets in exchange for the top pitching prospect in their minor league system, Zach Wheeler.  General Manager Brian Sabean was quoted as saying that the team owed the move to their fans, noting that the the Major League Baseball championship-winning window is a small one.

Almost a decade ago, Beltran was traded at the deadline to the Houston Astros from the Kansas City Royals and proceeded to put up the best August and September by a deadline acquisition in recent memory, only rivaled by Manny Ramirez’s late-season clip when he was traded from the Red Sox to the Dodgers a few years ago.  While Beltran isn’t that same player he was even five years ago, he does have the offensive ability to help the anemic Giants offense significantly.

The Atlanta Braves are contenders in the NL East as well as front-runners in the wild card standings.  The addition of Michael Bourn will bring much needed outfield speed at the top of the lineup, something Atlanta has severely lacked in recent years due to the ineffectiveness of Nate McLouth and the trading away of Melky Cabrera.

Ubaldo Jimenez will strengthen the Cleveland Indians’ pitching staff, as they actually have a realistic shot at the playoffs.  You would expect nothing less with a move like this from a team that is having a dream season after more than a decade of futility.  Jimenez hasn’t had his usual dominating season thus far, but his veteran presence and Cy Young-potential talent will bring some much needed stability and leadership to a young clubhouse.

The reigning Senior Circuit champions, the Philadelphia Philles, did not sit on their full house – they decided to try and draw to a straight flush.  The addition of Hunter Pence will help balance an attack that is left-handed heavy, and will only improve an already elite offense.  Getting closer Ryan Madson healthy will be the key to the Phillies running away with the East again, as having a stable finisher is something that is key for a team like Philadelphia, who depends on winning a lot of close, low to middle-scoring, station-to-station, National League-style games.

The Milwaukee Brewers bolstered their bullpen with Francisco Rodriguez, a great backup plan if their young closer, John Axford, happens to falter down the stretch. This move is by far better than anything the St. Louis Cardinals ended up doing at the deadline, and with the Brew Crew already holding a 3.5 game lead over the Cards, they have to be the distinct favorite in the Central as the finish line approaches.

The Pittsburgh Pirates added first baseman Derek Lee in an attempt to inject some run-production with runners in scoring position.  You have to admire the Pirates for being proactive, but their brutal schedule down the stretch coupled with their inexperience makes a playoff berth in the tightly-contested National League Central a prospect that looks to be futile at best.

The Los Angeles Dodgers traded away arguably their top outfield prospect in Trayvon Robinson, who has seen limited action at the major league level while bombing 26 home runs thus far this season in Triple-A.  As a Dodgerfan, this move baffles me, due to the fact that they only received two average minor-league arms and a minor league catcher who has only hit 7 homeruns so far this season in return.

The Dodgers franchise is not only selling out its fans, but now they are starting to even sell out their best players.  The sad fact that one of the greatest and most storied franchises in sports continues to get dragged deeper and deeper through the mud and filth is as disgusting as “owner” Frank McCourt’s existence as a region-wide punchline.  Dodgerfans seem to be almost numb to the debacle as it gets worse and worse.  This is a true testament to how low the franchise has sunk.  But, a brighter day is hopefully around the corner.  What brighter day?  The day that the inevitable happens – McCourt buys a one-way ticket on a flying sourdough bowl of chowder and flys his ass back to New England for good.

Having said that, one should digress this time of year no matter how bad your favorite team happens to be navigating the treacherous waters of the vast sea that is the baseball season. Regardless of the gravity of the moves that are made every trade deadline, the underlying fact always remains – some moves end up resulting in pennants and some moves blow up in a general manager’s face.

Who will end up wearing  the egg and who will end up wearing the ring?  Its about to unfold.

It’s a Buddhist mantra oft quoted by, among others, Los Angeles radio host Vic “The Brick” Jacobs. Jacobs uses the line mostly to describe the attitude of Lakers players at their best. It also describes the workmanlike attitude of Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda. While his career record in Major League Baseball is 9 games under .500, Kuroda’s 3.50 ERA over that time makes him the second most consistent Dodgers pitcher. At the age of 36, Kuroda’s career may be winding down and, for all he’s given the Dodgers, he is deserving of so much more.

_______________________________________

A night etched in history. And a pitcher always up to a big moment. This is how Dodgers fans will remember Kuroda’s 2008 postseason.

In the first round against the Cubs, the right-hander gave up no runs in more than six innings and, in what was the Dodgers’ first LDS win in 20 years, Kuroda protected his teammates, and in turn shut down the eventual World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

See the near-brawl he started here.

On a Dodgers’ team with other pitchers who probably have better stuff (see: Billingsley, Kershaw, et. al), the Japanese pitcher in his mid-30’s has been the rock. For the past two seasons, as the Dodgers organization has crumbled around the team, Kuroda has quietly resigned and given the team and fans everything he has each time he steps on the mound.

With any run-support, Kuroda might have been unattainable for the Dodgers to sign as a free agent in the offseason. If he had marketed himself more, the Dodgers’ $12 million offer might have been for naught this offseason.

And now Kuroda is at the heart of trade talks. Rumor is that the Yankees and Red Sox are both considering trading for him to bolster their starting rotations going into the stretch run. As long as Ned Colletti can get a good prospect or two in return, the move seems like a no-brainer. Along with the move being a great business decision, Kuroda is one of the easiest players to root for and I, for one, would have no problem trading him at this juncture. He deserves another shot on the big stage and, furthermore, he has proven he can handle it.

The Dodgers are far out of the playoff hunt, the team is bankrupt, and keeping a 36 year-old with high trade value doesn’t make any sense in the first place. They have an opportunity to do the right thing for everyone for a change. The front office can give an aging Kuroda the opportunity he has earned and get a good prospect in return. It won’t change the divorce, the disconnect from fans (have you seen the ballpark lately?), or the bankruptcy.

Hiroki Kuroda has oodles of good baseball karma stored up in his favor. Maybe the Dodgers can take his lead. Good karma, after all, can be started with a single good act.

When Dallas clinched their NBA Finals series against the Miami Heat, fans and media began to bring up Cuban’s name again in relation to the dumpster fire that is currently the Dodgers’ ownership. On television, radio, and across Internet blogs, Dodger fans are practically begging Cuban to be ready if and when the Dodgers are taken over by Major League Baseball and, God willing, sold.

Maybe the most direct plea to Cuban has been through a website titled Mark Cuban Save the Dodgers, created by Los Angeles native and West Covina resident Roger Arrieta. A web designer who started MarkCubanSaveTheDodgers.com, Arrieta created the site two months ago. During the past week, he says, hits on the site have grown exponentially. On Tuesday, there were 800 “likes” on Facebook and as of Thursday night, there were about 1,250.

“My initial thought was ‘save the Dodgers’ as a general idea,” said Arrieta. “Later on, Mark Cuban came to mind. He’s had ten years of success [in Dallas] and he is someone with instant recognition.”

Arrieta’s site features pictures of Cuban with Dodgers gear on, along with images of past Dodger greatness like Sandy Koufax, Fernando Valenzuela, and Kirk Gibson. His Dodgers Fansmanship goes back to the 70’s and 80’s, and his goal is to help encourage an owner like Cuban to take the reins of the Dodgers, an organization clearly in turmoil.

Being a die-hard Lakers fan doesn’t give him any pause either, despite Cuban’s Mavs knocking the Lakers out of the NBA Playoffs this season.

“It doesn’t deter me,” said Arrieta. A lot of people can’t get over that, but it’s simple. You have to look at what [Cuban] has done. Show me a Dodger fan who wouldn’t want that same success for the Dodgers.”

HOW MANY OTHER TEAMS HAVEN’T MADE THE WORLD SERIES SINCE 1988?

Arrieta discusses Cuban’s potential ownership like it’s a done deal already.

“He’s going to do everything to make the team better,” he said.

Having been to many games at Chavez Ravine this year, Arrieta has definitely noticed a difference.

“There are so many less fans this year. It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s not even packed on bobblehead night.”

He has also noticed the increased police presence and it makes him (like Fansmanship) sad that the additional security is needed.

For Arrieta and most Dodgers fans, a failure by current ownership to act at crucial times is an unforgivable offense.

“The Dodgers were never even in the discussion for Cliff Lee or Halladay. They didn’t build on the LCS. They didn’t add to the roster,” he said. His voice a combination of disgust and sadness. “Even if it took [Cuban] 10 years like the Mavs, we haven’t had a championship in 25 years.”

Actually the number is 22, but the point is well taken.

SAN LUIS OBISPO – BLACK OR BLUE?

For him, and so many other Dodgers fans, the McCourt reign has been untenable.

“He said that even if he wasn’t in financial trouble, he’d still be doing the same thing. That’s not acceptable.”

The lack of non-Manny-related big splashes, a penchant for spending money inappropriately and then blaming everyone but himself, and an ego the size of Los Angeles have all marked the McCourt era. For the sake of Arrieta, this writer, and Dodgers fans everywhere, here’s hoping for an end to this situation sooner than later.

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON AT DODGER STADIUM?

Things may have to get uglier before they can get better.

The picture of Mark Cuban on Arrieta’s website sure looks pretty right about now…

owen@fansmanship.com

And so the bizarre McCourt drama continues.

A few things struck me as I read this:

1) Good for Frank that the clergy likes him, but what does it have to do with anything related to the Dodgers?… which brings me to my second point:

2) I’d rather have a “new” ownership group buying a majority of the team express their support from the Dodgers. Having God’s support is fine, but it would take an act of God to repair McCourt’s image and credibility in Dodgertown.

3) Who are these ministers and what is their angle? Times reporter Abby Sewell obviously asked some questions of the clergy members amounting to, “What are you getting out of this from the Dodgers?” but we still have no real answer.

Part of their reasoning was the Dodgers’ history in the African-American community — Jackie Robinson, etc…

But here’s where the clergy are wrong and McCourt supporters need to change their thinking. The clergy said that McCourt has been a “faithful steward” of the franchise. I know plenty of Dodger fans who would argue that McCourt has been the worst owner the Dodgers have had since before World War II. Based on the information available, I would tend to agree with that assessment.

Here’s the other thing I have to keep in mind: It’s OK to like and root for the Dodgers and their players while at the same time rooting against their owner. McCourt and the Dodgers heritage are not intertwined in any other way than the fact that McCourt has failed fans in nearly every way including (but not limited to)

* Trying to get a contender “on the cheap” with Paul DePodesta as the GM and then deflecting blame and putting it on DePodesta and others when “on the cheap” wasn’t good enough for the fans.

* Price of fansmanship: It’s really expensive to be a Dodgers fan. I got a seat at Coors Field for $40 on Thursday night that was in the 11th row directly behind home plate. Not something easily found at Chavez Ravine. Parking was only $5 in a downtown lot too.

* Fan Safety: This has been relentlessly covered by the media and it will take years of better experiences to start getting some of the lost fans back. Just look up “Dodger Stadium Brawl” or “Dodger Stadium Fight” on YouTube.

* Fan Experience: Dodger Stadium is great, but little things I used to be able to do, I can’t do anymore. Even when there is nobody there, the “Straw Hats” are more strict than ever. For a job where your goal should be invisibility, they have been doing a progressively worse job. People follow the lead from their management.

I have to just keep telling myself that the Dodgers are bigger than McCourt, and that it’s OK to root for the Dodgers without rooting for Frank.

Personally, I’d be much happier if a group of bankers or investors decided that the Dodgers were OK — at least until God can make payroll without jeopardizing the viability of the organization for the next twenty years.