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In part 3 of our 4-part series on the current state of the Dodgers, we examine how the lack of fans at the game is hurting the people who work in and around the stadium.

It was sad.

An empty stadium and too many vendors. Men and women walking around in 95 degree heat with ice chests slung over their backs having to walk a lot farther than usual to lighten their load. During the second inning, fans in one section saw the frozen lemonade guy go past them from section to section, covering 2-3 whole sections before he got a buyer. Instead of walking up and down the aisles, this vendor got smart and simply walked down one of the many empty rows.

In the third inning, still with plenty of inventory, the same vendor walked past the other way, hawking his sweet and sour refreshment. Such has life become in what used to be called the happiest place on earth.

Now it just seems like another place.

In just a few seasons, Frank McCourt has done the unthinkable. For many Dodgers fans, he has turned Dodger Stadium into a place filled with negative emotions. Had he truly tried, McCourt couldn’t do what he has done to slander the Dodgers’ reputation and name. From actual parking issues in the parking lot to security issues throughout the stadium, to the well-documented tumult throughout the organization, the confidence of Dodgers fans has slowly eroded like a tooth that only starts to hurt when a root canal is needed.

And the fans’  bad experience has to be affecting workers and other people who depend on Dodger Stadium for their livelihoods.

On a Saturday afternoon game in the heat of the pennant race on Saturday, the California Pizza Kitchen snack bar was closed on the Loge Level. Without enough people at the game, CPK and the Dodgers seem to have thrown in the towel.

For the first time maybe ever, there were no lines at the concession stands when I got a pregame Dodger Dog. My guess is that the “Save the Dodgers” rally before the game had something to do with that. And, not to be outdone (as Bill Plaschke describes), apparently concession lines were adjusted back to normal as long lines returned for today’s mid-week game vs. the Padres.

But what happens to all those people who would be manning the concessions just enough to keep my head from exploding from waiting in line? Do they just not work now? In an economy that’s already pretty bad, I feel for these Angelinos who are missing work. Sometimes, for things to get better, there has to be some pain.

What about ticket salesmen? Having taken a group of 15 or more to a game during each of the past 2 seasons, I got a call from one this year. I described to him my reasoning and told him to give me a call when the organization stabilizes and proves it can spend money on being a serious World Series contender. I haven’t heard back from him. I also described to him that the game I went to featured Felix Hernandez for the Mariners vs. Eric Milton for the Dodgers and we all know how that turned out. During that game, I actually texted the number they showed on the screen and, while I don’t blame him for the Dodgers’ trouble, I did turn Eric Milton in for disrupting my fan experience.

But I don’t want to digress. The main inspiration for this semi-rant was a scalper. On my way into the stadium on Saturday, walking up Elysian Park Ave., a man asked me if I needed a ticket. When I told him I was good, he replied with a four letter word that had an exclamation point at the end. Being a family site, it’s the one that rhymes with “McCourt is out of luck.”

As I continued on, I was a little sad. Dodger Stadium was always a happy place for me. Every game I’ve gone to since I was a kid involved a 3 1/2 hour drive from San Luis Obispo County. When we drove into the parking lot (from the Stadium Way entrance off the 110), the right field scoreboard was a huge and wonderful sight. The grand cathedral that is Dodger Stadium was poised to house all the happiness a young baseball fan could hope for. Much of the time, games were ventured to on somewhat of a whim and, in these cases, scalpers were often involved. They always seemed like happy sheisters to me — putting a smile on to make a buck from my dad, who always seemed to be able to talk them down from the exhorbitant prices they were asking for.

Again, I digress. The scalper on the sidewalk didn’t have a smile on his face. If he’s been around long enough, the man is probably used to actually selling his ticket to a weekend game.

As I walked into the emptiness that Dodger Stadium has become, I reflected on the scalper who dropped the F-Bomb. Where there used to be so many, I only saw one. What happened to the other guys? They didn’t seem like guys who had other jobs.

I don’t have all the answers to the questions about what has happened to these people. Maybe someone in Los Angeles can find out for us. The point is that due to the lack of people at the games, jobs have probably been lost, and even Dodgers fans who are boycotting the team have to feel for these people.

On the way out of the stadium, I saw the same gentleman directing traffic in the crosswalk as had been there on the way in. At least he still has a job, though with so few people at the game, one wonders how long that will last.

Dodger Stadium could once again be great. When McCourt goes away, fans will come back.

In the mean time, and though they seem to be using an interesting “volume reduction” strategy to solve the issue,  it’s nice to see that it only took the Dodgers 5 years to get the parking situation straightened out.

Visit fansmanship.com tomorrow for the finale to our four-part series on the state of the Dodgers: “Where do they go from here.” 

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

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