It Has Been A Tough Week To Be a Dodger Fan anywhere. Here in San Francisco, it has been especially tough, being the subject of taunts, jokes and reminded constantly of the Bankruptcy and turmoil in the Dodger Ownership situation.
This is a Chronology of events that I can recall of how my work week went:
Monday, June 27th:
Monday morning, a co-worker steps into my office and gleefully points to my wall with all the Dodger stuff on it and says, “The Dodgers are bankrupt! It’s all over the news.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I read about it about 4 hours ago." (Pause) "Don’t you have some work to do or something?” Since the guy is supervised by me, he quickly got back to work. It was one of those Mel Brooks, History of the World Part II, "It's good to be the King" moments.
Later in the day I see my step-son’s facebook page (the Giant fan). He posted that life is good because he woke up to hear the news that the Dodgers had declared bankruptcy. What followed though was the most annoying part of the day, I had the radio on in my office.
Transcript from Giant Station Afternoon Show
The Giant flagship station (KNBR) afternoon show guys (Bob Fitzgerald and Rod Brooks) start out the show with a “How ‘bout them Dodgers!” shout followed by a loud and annoying laughter. I’m not sure if there was an accompanying laugh track, but it sure seemed like it. At first it was bugging me and then I realized that there was some interesting material that readers of the blog might be interested in, so I started running my recorder. Frankly, their comments with regard to Vin Scully, and how McCourt listed him as another debt in his bankruptcy documentation because of his advancing age and impending death were offensive enough for apologies to be demanded of these two clowns.
I started recording their conversation as they were speaking of the list of debtors from the McCourt bankruptcy filing. It follows:
Fitzgerald: I love the listing. It’s like, Vin Scully is owed $150 grand, the White Sox are owed $3.5 million.
Brooks. Of all debt that Frank McCourt could have just found a way to pay, he couldn’t just break Vin Scully off a chunk?
Fitzgerald: I know. Charlie Steiner? I could see not wanting to pay him.
Brooks: Tommy Lasorda has been sucking at the Dodger teet since I believe the uh, what, the Johnson administration? Somewhere around there. One of those guys administrations. Ok, fine you don’t pay Tommy Lasorda, but how you gonna stiff Vin Scully?
Fitzgerald: Exactly
Brooks: He’s 90? Ohhhh, no.
Fitzgerald: Actually, it’s more the theory that Vin won’t be around long enough to collect it. (laughter)
Brooks: Considering how McCourt has gone and run his businesses and the Dodgers, I would not be surprised. If that was part of their thing.
Fitzgerald: Now with the White Sox with $3.5 million, in Chicago, they are probably saying ‘just give Juan Pierre back. Hey, we’ll call it even.’
Brooks: Now it’s a custody battle, “We don’t want Juan Pierre.”(laughter)
Fitzgerald: So we have that going on, so the Dodgers go bankrupt today.
Brooks: Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people
(end of bantor)
You be the judge. Was that really necessary? As I replayed the tape and transcribed the conversation, I realized how offensive the Vin Scully bit was and I got angrier than when I originally heard it. How classless these guys are. Am I surprised? Not one bit. Such is life for a Dodger fan amongst the hated ones.
Giant fans continue to amaze me with their lack of class and sensitivity. When the San Francisco Giants were on the verge of leaving for St. Petersburg, Florida in 1992. Never did I hear a negative word out of Dodger fans, media covering the Dodgers or the Dodger administration. And it was Peter O’Malley that was the MLB figurehead that spoke up on San Francisco’s behalf and demanded that they stay up north being fully supportive of the Peter Magowen group that kept the Giants in San Francisco.
Tuesday, June 28th
I get a text message from a friend who also happened to be my real estate agent. He’s a Giant homer from birth. Unfortunately he has about as much baseball knowledge when it comes to trades and front office moves as the lady that served him a cup of coffee at Starbucks this morning. “Hey Evan, Giants are about to get Ethier from you guys in a trade for Pat Burrell...Fire Sale!” So, I thought to myself, “Should I even respond to this dimwitted comment?” Eventually I do with a return text. “We’ll throw in Uribe, the remainder of Schmidt’s contract and you can have Ned Colletti back too. Deal?” I haven’t heard back, (Actually I'm fairly sure that the Schmidt contract has already been paid off).
Wednesday, June 29th
I’m at the shooting range doing my quarterly qualifying at work. The range master tells me to pretend that the target is McCourt in order to shoot a better score. “Hey, that might help. I usually just imagine that it is Lou Seal inside the silloutte,” I say.
Thursday, June 30th
My Red Sox fan boss sends me an email telling me to read the Bob Ryan’s, Boston Globe piece yesterday. It’s the article where Ryan questions why Selig disallowed McCourt to buy the Sox and then a few years later, rolled out the red carpet for him to buy the Dodgers. Yeah, I already had read it.
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| Boston Globe columnist, Bob Ryan |
Friday, July 1st
While on the train this morning another co-worker is all giddy to tell me that the Dodgers
are bouncing payroll checks. “Yeah, I heard about that,” I say.
Amongst the many jokes hurled in the Dodger organization’s direction on the Giants flagship station in today’s afternoon show suggested that Giant fans replace the “Let’s Go GI-ANTS!” chant with “We make PAY-ROLL!” for when the Dodgers come to town in mid July. They also suggested a few other chants that were amusing: “PAY YOUR BILLS! PAY YOUR BILLS!” and “What’s the Matter With Frank McCourt? He bounces checks!” Actually, I thought those suggestions were pretty creative and amusing. I'm pretty sure that they'll just resort to "Dodgers Suck" chants though.
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I just finished watching the Dodgers/Angels game from Anaheim.
A few things I noticed:
A pretty good Dodger fan turnout.
Chants of "MVP" for Matt Kemp when he came to the plate.
Smooth base running by both Gwynn and Gordon. Classic double steal of home.
Kuroda is really having a fine year and it was nice to see him finally get some run support.
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