Bud Norris was at spring training with the Phillies in Clearwater, Florida when the news came down that the sports world was on fairly immediate lockdown. The Cal Poly alum joined Chris Sylvester and Owen Main to talk about what it was like in the days leading up to the shutdown and what life has been like as things have progressed. 

It was an exciting time, six years ago this week. Before Frank McCourt was fully-outed as villainous swine and before the Dodgers fell and rose back into contention, there was the Manny Ramirez trade. As a fan who could watch all the games on television at the time, the Ramirez trade was a lightning bolt. I did not get anything done at work for the rest of that July 31 day.

Immediately, I started trash talking both Giants fans named Dave at my work. Immediately, I began to DVR every Dodgers game, not wanting to miss a moment. Immediately, I was hooked.

The storyline worked pretty nicely. Manny led the Dodgers to division titles in both 2008 and 2009 before the bubble burst, the smoke and mirrors were cleared, and the rank stench of the McCourt era put a cloud over Dodger Stadium that continues to need clearing.

The August, September, and October of 2008 were electric though, and it was all because of a single move at the trade deadline.

Now, the Dodgers have shown that their ownership can and will spend with the Big Boys. This year, the Dodgers chose not to make any moves by the July 31 trade deadline. Their decision-making might have been sound. It’s entirely possible that the combination of Joc Pederson, Corey Seager, and Julio Urias could be worth more to the club than David Price would have been this year. You can definitely make a baseball argument for that.

I wanted to wait a few days to let the dust settle on the deadline. To see if it still left me feeling a little empty – like I’m missing something (and yes, I’m talking about missing something ASIDE FROM the ability to watch any games on television, which I’ve been missing all year).

The verdict, on this second day of August is that there is something missing. It’s a kind of panache I think you really only find the necessity for in Los Angeles. If the “Cardinal way,” or “St. Louis way” is a head-down kind of baseball that follows all the unwritten rules and demands that the game is respected at all costs, then the Los Angeles way is about winning a certain way as well. This city demands gumption, energy, vibrance, and a narrative to tie it all together.

The Cardinals, Tigers, and A’s all made moves to significantly improve their teams before and at the trade deadline. Perhaps the Dodgers’ biggest rival for the National League, the Cardinals did what they seem to always do — ridding themselves of a player (Allen Craig) who was underperforming his contract for a player who has, potentially, a ridiculous amount of value. They gave up Joe Kelly too, but this isn’t a team that’s willing to sit around and see what kind of slightly above average pitcher Kelly can be. They want to get to the World Series again this year and were able to fill a need while not mortgaging their entire future.

The Dodgers organization has done a ton of work in the past few years to build and maintain some consistency throughout their system, but standing pat puts a lot of eyes squarely back on the players they’ve had all season.

But I’m going to keep asking the questions. Can we trust Josh Beckett, Paul Maholm, and Dan Haren at the back of the rotation? What depth does the team really have or need at infield positions? Why do the Dodgers (still) have five outfielders, none of whom can play center field with a high rate of efficiency?

These are questions that were asked months ago, and they weren’t answered at the trade deadline. If they are some of the reasons the Dodgers lose in the playoffs or fail to make the postseason at all, then fans will start asking other questions about personnel. The highest payroll in baseball and raised expectations do not easily breed the patience this team is both displaying and asking from its fans.

I suppose patience, in itself, is a gamble that just isn’t realized for a long period of time.

For as great of a thing as it is, a bubble machine isn’t going to heal what ails Hanley Ramirez. It’s not going to give Matt Kemp excellent outfield instincts and it certainly isn’t going to make Dan Haren or Josh Beckett any younger.

These are the true dog days.

June has wound itself down. July is upon us. Temperatures are up over 100 degrees and night games have become a fan’s best friend. People will try to talk NFL already but, for now at least, baseball has its turn.

It’s my favorite time of the year.

Baseball is a game that goes with the rhythm of the working man. Where football is a popular weekend distraction, forcing fan anxiety throughout any week, baseball’s rhythm is that of the 9-5 toiler. Each and every day, through the heat of the summer, baseball players and fans get to the ballpark, go through their routine, eat their hot dogs, drink their beer, and obey the most American of rituals around a game that so few non-Americans understand.

Yesterday, I heard a college football coach being interviewed on a sports radio show. It was July 1. As soon as the NBA was over, the largest sports network in the country who would love to have more of a stake in baseball started to bash it and talk football. It was a mistake.

Baseball is truly the most patriotic of American sports. By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class David McKee, via Wikimedia Commons

July is for baseball. In August, we will start to talk about football, but let’s sit back and enjoy baseball for a few months here. Let’s get excited over the nuance. Go through our daily fan routine. Be pumped when we haven’t payed attention for a few days and look up and our team is making a surge.

Don’t even get me started about spending time at games. Being at a baseball game, getting the true dimensionality of the field, and the sights, smells, and sounds is a sensory treat that is anticipated before and yearned for after. Visiting a game is like a choose your own adventure fan experience. A fan can choose to visit with friends if he/she wants to just casually watch the game. Fans can also choose to keep score, paying attention to every intricate detail for 2-3 hours. In no other sport to fans keep score.

In other sports, there are constant fouls, penalties, and other rules infractions that result in punishment. While there are some of these still, America’s pastime is generally devoid of that kind of regular public punishment. Other sports are timed. It’s cliche, but baseball is timeless. In fact, the sport itself is a wonderful cliche of opportunistic players from this country and immigrants making their mark and experiencing the true American Dream.

“Owen, this is too corny,” you might say.

Yep. I know. I don’t care.

“You are just excited because the Dodgers are making up ground in the National League West.”

I won’t lie, that probably has a lot to do with it. The Dodgers, after all, have gone from 12 games under .500 to just 3 1/2 games back of first place, led by a player from a communist country who has turned into the spark they needed.

As a reminder to those of you who are patriotic Americans — neither orange or black are American colors. Don’t forget it.

In a league with only four keepers, Yasiel Puig was not drafted this year. It’s safe to say that he probably will be on a team within a year or so. By Owen Main

In this week’s podcast episode, Owen sits down with Jesse Pereira, the commissioner of the fantasy baseball league he and Andy are also in. We get into some mental parts of the draft, why Jesse thinks Owen picked some regression candidates, and why Owen has a much better chance than he has in the previous few years.

A breakdown of a few key players on each of the teams in the league that everyone who plays fantasy baseball will enjoy.

Who do YOU think is the most overrated player in fantasy this season?

For the past fifteen years of my life — nearly as long as I can remember — the only constant in my life other than my family has been the enjoyment from sports. In fact, most of the friends I have maintained over this time period are individuals who don’t have a problem watching Sportscenter on repeat, to the point where you memorize what Neil Everrett and Stan Verrett will say on an upcoming segment. The competitive nature of sports makes them some of the most unpredictable events in the world; there isn’t a better feeling than hearing the phrase “game 7” or waking up on the morning of a rivalry game. With that being said, when there is love, there is hate; these are the five things in sports that grind my gears the most:

5.  The NCAA’s recent actions

College sports would not be where they are in today’s society without the NCAA; however, over the last few years the NCAA has made a number of questionable decisions regarding the punishments they have given to the universities under their control. I’m not questioning whether or not these universities deserve the punishment, but rather the inconsistency regarding the terms of these punishments that are causing fans to question the integrity of the NCAA.

The sanctions against the University of Southern California handed down in 2010 were over the actions of one player from an entirely different generation of USC football. Nevertheless, these sanctions kept the Trojans out of a National Championship Game they deserved to be in and prevented Matt Barkley from winning the Heisman, both during the 2011 season. There’s no reason to punish players who had nothing to do with the actions in question Instead, the NCAA should have put restrictions on the players who committed the rule violation. The head of the NCAA’s Committee of Infractions at the time of the USC ruling, Paul Dee, was the Athletic director at the University of Miami , which committed a number of violations during his tenure (1993-2008), including the most recent Nevin Shapiro scandal. How can the NCAA appoint an individual to the head of their violations committee if he can’t even control his own school? Because the NCAA has proven they aren’t even competent enough to control their employees. Last month, the NCAA admitted to improper conduct by its own enforcement staff and their involvement regarding the Nevin Shapiro scandal, adding to the long list of problems with the enforcement staff.

The NCAA is an association that answers to no one; either that needs to change, or their policies need to, I’d personally be happy to see both change.

Baseball’s Hall of Fame needs to make some adjustments. By Beyond My Ken (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

4. Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame voting

2013 marked the first time since 1996 the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted zero members to the Baseball Hall of Fame; subsequently, this has become one of the most fiercely discussed topics of the New Year.  After the results of this year’s voting, most of the reactions were the same; a new policy clearly needs to be adopted, specifically the 15 year limit on candidacy. There is no reason for a player who deserves membership right away, to be forced to wait 14 years before the BBWA feels the urgency to vote them in during their 15^th year, which hopefully turns out to be the case with Jack Morris. Baseball has gone through major changes over the last 20 years—the addition of the designated hitter, the wild card playoff spot and game, and the addition of multiple teams—there is absolutely no reason for the Baseball Writers to refuse changes to their voting policy and criteria.

If the Hall of Fame is a place that claims to house the history of the best players and moments the game has ever seen, then something must be done in regards to the voting problems surfacing with the steroid era players. There is absolutely no reason to keep an entire generation of players out of the eternal sanctuary for baseball lore. Other than the original ballot in 1936—with names such as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and Honus Wagner—there has never been another group of players of similar importance on the same ballot. This is an era in Major League Baseball that will never be forgotten. We shouldn’t act like it didn’t exist.

3. Conference Realignment

The landscape of college sports has seen dramatic changes over the last decade because of the constant movement between conferences by schools who are influenced by the goal of landing the largest television contract possible. I have never thought of myself as a traditionalist and I’m generally open to change, just not in this case. Conference realignment has occurred for all of the wrong reasons, and it has destroyed a handful of rivalries that have been around for over 100 years. The Missouri vs. Kansas and Texas vs. Texas A&M rivalries combined for over 225 years of competition, but abruptly ended when Missouri and Texas A&M decided to bolt for the Southeastern Conference in 2012.

Then there’s my personal favorite conference, the Pac-12, which expanded from the Pac-10 with the additions of Utah and Colorado in 2011; teams were ultimately split into two divisions as a result. Subsequently, my Oregon State Beavers have been forced to leave USC off the schedule for the past two seasons. After growing up in Southern California, there has been nothing more fun than talking smack to my friends about how the Beavers put a smack down on the Trojans or Bruins.

However, the effects of these changes don’t stop with football. The Big East conference, historically dominant in basketball, has been the primary victim of these changes with the loss of schools such as Georgetown, Connecticut, Syracuse and Villanova, just to name a few. This is a conference that sent a record 11 schools to the NCAA tournament in 2011, had a six-overtime game in the conference tournament in 2009, and most recently had a four overtime game a few weeks ago; the loss of this conference’s original core is one of the biggest travesties the sports modern era. Nevertheless, it is nice to see the Basketball dominant Catholic schools from the Big East take a stand for themselves in declaring their independence before the conference they helped create is torn apart from the outside because of football’s monetary interests.

2. The Media

Three things I would love to never hear discussed on television again: Brett Favre coming back to football; ‘Tebowmania;’ the next person in line to sue Lance Armstrong. I’m sure most people who tune into ESPN or any other sports media network on a daily basis would agree with me when I say enough with the repeated material.  Please do not flood my television with useless stories that lead to the same conversations every day. Focus on stories that are worth mentioning—this does not include Tim Tebow running through the rain with his shirt off.

I could really care less about the personal situations or problems that various athletes manage to get themselves into; does a sports fan really care how many times Pac-Man Jones manages to land in prison? If we want these individuals to act as role models for the youth, then the media needs to highlight the dozens of things athletes do every day to help people in need, rather than the things they do wrong. I see more ‘top stories’ about Gronkowski getting drunk than I do about the 350+ established charitable foundations started by sports figures.  ESPN’s “Make A Wish” series is a perfect example of athletes doing charitable work; albeit, the episodes may be a bit scripted and romanticized, but they are still working with professional athletes in all sports to make a difference in an individual’s life. With Social Media playing a huge role in today’s society, popular sports media needs to understand how much they influence the younger generations.

1. The University of Oregon

The University of Oregon’s sudden rise as one of the elite programs in College Football would not have been possible if their athletic program was not funded and utilized by Nike’s popular culture marketing campaign. Through the hundred million dollar donations of Uncle Knight, the Oregon Ducks football team started their ‘build and they will come’ recruitment strategy last decade and haven’t looked back since. Through this strategy, building and promoting revolutionary facilities is at the center of Oregon’s sales pitch to recruits; this has led to four straight BCS bowl game appearances. Some of the more recent ‘donations’ include an atrocious basketball court and a football training facility that will cost an estimated $60 million-plus. The Oregon athletic department is one of a handful of athletic departments in the country that is self-sufficient in operating without university help, I wonder why?

It’s easy to say I am merely jealous of the support the Ducks receive from Nike, but that could not be farther from the truth—in fact the school I support receives a substantial amount from this corporate behemoth as well. What grinds my gears is the pompous attitude from the bandwagoning fans who think the Ducks belong on the Mount Rushmore of College Football. Most of the recently-turned Duck fans have never even attended the University of Oregon or gone to a game there, but popular culture has told them to become infatuated with the ‘swag’ that pulses from their obnoxious jerseys every week. It has been a lot of fun watching their Heisman hopefuls and National title intentions crash and burn the last few years through memorable loses.

I guess it would be worth mentioning my status as a fourth-year student at Oregon State University is likely the source for every ounce of self-centered hatred inside of me that gets directed towards those hippies down south. But at the end of the day, being at the epicenter of one of the longest standing rivalries in college sports has been the single greatest experience of my life.

Go Beavers.

He was a 13-time All Star, the 1999 National League Most Valuable Player, and two-time World Series Champion. From the late 80’s through the end of his career, Larkin was a franchise cornerstone and one of the top 10-15 players in the league.

My beef is this: what was there to think about over the past three years? Larkin retired in 2004 and was on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2010. He didn’t make the cut, receiving only slightly over 50 percent of votes his first year on the ballot.

In 2011, he was on the ballot again. While his percentage rose into the 60’s, he still wasn’t at the 75 percent he needed to get in.

This year, however, something changed. Larkin’s statistics didn’t. His 2,340 career hits were still on the board. His .295 batting average still sparkled.

I know some writers like to keep the title of “First Ballot Hall of Famer” for guys who are special — Gwynn and Ripken, for example.

Even using this argument, there is no way that more than 25 percent of writers should have failed to vote for Larkin the second time around. If they are going to split the Hall of Fame up in their minds into more than two categories (“First Ballot” and “Other”), then why have a Hall of Fame at all?

If those “categories” are important enough to Hall of Fame voters, why have everyone’s bust in the same room? Why not include a list of players who, for instance, made 5 or more All-Star teams and then rank them on a relative 1-10 scale. This way, we would know who the best of the best was… .

Arguments about relative placement of Hall of Fame baseball players are the ravings of insane baseball nerds — guys who think that voting Larkin into the HOF on the first ballot is somehow an affront to “First Ballot” guys like Ripken or Jeter.

————

Someday I’ll go to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Probably. When I do, I’ll walk through the rooms there and look at the memorabilia and the busts of the greatest players. I’ll see Larkin’s and I’ll see Ripken’s. In my heart, I’ll know that Ripken was better. HOWEVER, the last thing on my mind will be whether Larkin or Ripken got into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. So let me make this point – Hall of Fame voters: Stop it. I don’t know who votes and who doesn’t for the Hall of Fame. Let me repeat that.

Hall of Fame Voters: I do not know/care to know who you are. You have forgotten more about baseball than I’ll ever know, but by trivializing “when” a player gets into the Hall of Fame, you are demeaning careers that need to be honored.

A Hall of Fame player is a Hall of Fame player. Stop making the story about “when” they get in. There is no defense for Larkin not getting in last season and getting in this season. None.

—————-

And for Larkin’s co-inductee, Ron Santo, your delay has caused a man to miss his chance to be appropriately recognized. I happen to think that if you can’t make a decision about a player after one year, then maybe that player is not someone who should go into the Hall of Fame.

Santo was on the ballot for 15 years and never received more than half of the votes, not to mention the 75 percent you need to be elected. He remained a prominent public figure and people generally liked him, but that did not mean that the success of his baseball playing career, which was very good, changed one bit.

Congratulations to Ron Santo, his family etc… but again his induction makes the point, I think, that if you don’t know whether someone is a Hall of Fame player, they just aren’t. Sorry.

The popular belief of the casual tends to lean towards some sort of let-down during this current season within the season of Major League Baseball.  But do the wins and losses accumulated now count any more or less towards the eventual outcome when September rolls around? Of course not.

Most seem to dread a marathon as its mass, as the long monotonous trek that it is, rather than esteem the bare-bones assembly of its stock. Each step could be better or worse than the last one. Steps that keep improving result in a greater outcome, regardless of the length of the journey, right?

But is it as simple as that? Is this basic ideology the mindset that wins in baseball? Yes and No. Yes in the sense that true professionals always strive to improve every single day. And equally, no in the sense that always taking a step forward every single day in the tour that is the baseball season is an unrealistic premise.

The beauty of the game of baseball lies in its ying-yang balance as well as in its measured patience.  You can kick two ground balls today and always come back tomorrow and hit two home runs.  The worst day of your career could be followed by the best day of your career, without even a well-trained eye looking at it as any kind of relevant deviation.  The “every day is a new day,” clean-slate mindset is what drives a bat, a glove or an arm to get that next big hit, make that next diving catch or execute that next clutch pitch.

Detractors contend that there are too many games.  I hear it all the time.  “I mean, comon’, man. 162 of ’em?”  To appreciate baseball is to revel in those 162 contests.  The enjoyment and passion within the day-to-day struggle is the very essence that made baseball a trademark pastime.

Baseball was at its peak when Americans were striving overachievers.  They were grinding.  They were on the rise.  The fact that today’s society scoffs at the monotony of our great game only speaks to the lack of effort we, as Americans, are putting forth towards our common cause as an encompassing gross, a gross that has seemingly lost the gravity of the overall net result.

A valid taste for the game comes with a simple understanding.  To acknowledge great players and great teams is not to bandwagon on simply the home run they hit on a particular time at bat, but it is to admire the adversity they had to overcome over many attempts to get back to that place.

Baseball is inherently a game of failure.  Success lies in an unwavering consistency, the ability to bounce back, the aptitude to respond within the cycle after weathering the omnipresent struggle.

I marvel at the clubs that break the mold of popular belief. They are the ones who refuse to make excuses simply because on-lookers have a built-in evasion to describe mid-season failure.

A baseball valley does not live on an entire page of a calendar.  Both the peaks and the valleys live in the next game, the next inning, the next at-bat, the next pitch.

“The Dog Days of Summer?”  That’s the creed of so-called contending franchises who won’t ever see October.  Well, unless they happen to tune in on TV, wishing they were there, while hopelessly debating the baffle of why they aren’t.

What if I could, as a fan, interview anyone in the sports world, ask them any question, and get a real, truthful, insightful answer. I wouldn’t have to publish it. I’d just want to know. As a fan. If you think you have their answers, please tell me.

My interview questions for Phil Jackson:

Who was more fun to coach – Shaq or MJ?

Kobe or Michael – and why?

Seriously, what happened to the Lakers this year?

My questions for Lakers’ GM Mitch Kupchak:

What really happened with the Ariza deal? Was there a problem with him that was never publicized? Did Kobe push hard for Ron? Would you do it differently if you could?

Would you rather have a slightly mentally unstable Artest or the Artest we saw all year?

For Frank McCourt:

What the hell?

For Stu Lantz:

Tell me one Chick Hearn story nobody has ever heard before.

For Tommy Lasorda and Vin Scully:

When did you know McCourt was going to be a failure as the Dodgers’ owner?

For Bud Selig:

How much did you really know about steroids throughout the 90’s?

What did you really think would happen with Frank McCourt? When did you know he wasn’t the guy?

For Mark Cuban:

Will you please buy the Dodgers already?!

For David Stern:

Did you make Jordan retire because of gambling?

Who wins in a fight- Prokerov or Cuban?

For EVERY major college basketball and football coach:

Who was paid to go to your school and how much?

For EVERY Major League Baseball player who played between 1980 and now:

How much performance enhancing drugs did you use and for how long?

There are so many questions that could be asked, I could have sat here for hours and hours writing them. I’ll leave it there for now and ask you the question: WHAT WOULD YOU ASK?

The Benchmark for winning: Jerry Buss’ Lakers

I’m turning thirty this year. Two years before I was born, Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers. All I’ve known my whole life is the winning tradition of the team. I have early memories of Magic’s sky-hook to beat the Celtics and when Kobe threw the Game 7 alley-oop to Shaq to beat Portland I jumped through the roof of my first college apartment. With the exception of a middling few years in the 90’s, and another set of interesting, if not victorious seasons during the last decade, the Lakers have always been championship contenders.

When the Lakers traded Shaq in 2004, it was the first time I had ever openly-questioned the Lakers’ decision-making. At the time Shaq was flirting with being my favorite Laker. Ever. He still might be.

I prognosticated to anyone who would listen: “If they don’t win another champi0nship within five years, they will decline, Kobe will asked to be traded, and we’ll be back to a time worse than the mid 90’s.”

It took Kobe less than 5 years to demand a trade, but the Lakers ignored his plea, got back to the NBA Finals in 2008 and won title each of the past two seasons. The Lakers did what it took to win with savvy trades and a willingness to go over the salary cap when necessary to ensure a complete roster. Dr. Buss’ team didn’t just quietly develop a culture over 30-plus years that espoused a winning mentality. When it came time to make roster decisions, or make their product better, their actions matched their rhetoric despite a collective team salary that put them consistently over the cap.

Frank McCourt and the Dodgers

I hate to say it, but the McCourts have become a punchline. The “joke” might go something like this:

“How do you take over 50 years of solid ownership-fan relations, and in just a few years make one of the most beloved franchises in modern professional sports a laughing-stock?”

The answer/punchline, of course, is to follow the McCourt road map.

After winning with low-priced, young talent and benefiting from being at or near the top of Major League Baseball’s attendance for nearly a decade, the Dodgers fell-off dramatically last season. When young players didn’t produce, there were no solid stars for them to lean on. The icon they had come to rely on failed like a used car that ran great for a short while and then became a lemon. Of course, “Man-Ram” did come to the team “on-sale,” and proved the “you get what you pay for” adage when he missed much of the past two seasons due to injury and suspension.

Without their star to lean on, the entire house of cards collapsed like, well, a house of cards.

So what do Dodgers fans have to look forward to? If you listen to the general manager, they could be just like the Giants this year (more on why the Giants are enablers as the baseball season goes on).

Our rose colored-glasses would have us ask the following questions: Why couldn’t the Dodgers, with newly acquired Juan Uribe and John Garland, rely on their pitching and scrappy play to win the division this year? Why can’t they stay in contention for the entire season? Maybe they can even make the playoffs again, and wouldn’t that be good enough make everyone in “Dodger-land” really super-duper happy?

My sarcastic tone comes for a few reasons:

1) For a team from Los Angeles to be out-spent by a team from San Francisco is the baseball economic blasphemy. Dodger Stadium is one of the best-attended stadiums in all of baseball, in the second-largest media market in the country, and the Dodgers are constantly operating under a budget tighter than (you fill in the blank). They tried to win “on the cheap” with the genius from the A’s and when even he couldn’t win under McCourt’s budget, he became a scapegoat and was let go.

2) For the Dodgers to try to “imitate” the Giants, as they have been seemingly for the past decade, is embarrassing. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of Giant retreads. Schmidt, Kent, and now Uribe. Bleh. ENABLERS!

3) Also embarrassing: The Giants won the World Series last year. Maybe I am not, in fact, really over it. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. Anyway, moving on…

Finally, in a city that supports the Lakers with the condition of success demanded from them (the sky was falling in Laker-land before the All-Star break), fans seem to support the Dodgers unconditionally.

Whether or not the ownership makes sound decisions, we will go to games and make ourselves believe that the Dodgers have a real shot. In baseball, this may be a reality, as the Giants proved. But it shouldn’t have to be the reality in a strong market like Los Angeles.

In the spirit of being a Dodgers fan with a new season approaching, here are my baseball season predictions. As you’ll see, my rose-colored glasses are shattered as soon as I look at the Phillies’ roster (why can’t the Dodgers just be more like the Phillies!?).

Before my prediction, I’ll leave Dodgers fans with an image of a different owner. Picture this. Mark Cuban in the owner’s box. Oscar De La Hoya doing real outreach to fans in Los Angeles. Magic Johnson’s genuine smile as the new face of the Dodgers. Somebody with a LOT more money and a LOT more stable of a situation than is currently present. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Owen’s 2011 MLB Predictions –

NL West Champ: Dodgers

NL Central Champ – Cubs

NL East – Phillies

NL Wild Card – Braves

AL West – Angels

AL Central – Twins

AL East – Red Sox

AL Wild Card – Yankees

Phillies over Dodgers, Cubs over Braves, Phillies over Cubs

Red Sox over Twins, Angels over Yankees, Red Sox over Angels

Red Sox beat Phillies in 6 games. Halladay is great, but Lee and Hamels get roughed up.

AL Cy Young – John Lester

NL Cy Young – Roy Halladay

AL MVP – Carl Crawford

NL MVP – Matt Kemp (Had to do it and he’ll have to have an MVP year for the Dodgers to win the West…)

Yep. My rose-colored glasses are intact.

owen@fansmanship.com