Opinion of Kingman's Performance

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Reaction in Giant-ville and in Florida

Here I am at yesterday's Braves-Yankees Spring Training game wearing my www.ThinkBlueLA.com t-shirt.  Got a lot of comments, mentioned in the later part of this post.
It has been a frustrating week knowing that the biggest Dodger story in possibly decades has arrived and I am 3,000 miles from home on vacation in Florida.  What am I to do?  I scan through a many stories as possible on the cheap internet connection at this time share property, that does not have wireless capability.  Battling for computer time has not been easy with grandkids wanting to log on.  Then off to the Disney Parks, heck, right now Im pounding out these words as I stand in line (now going on 90 minutes) for the Kilamanjaro Safari ride at Disney's Animal Park.

One thing I am aware of though is that they are very afraid in Giant-ville.  The new ownership news has people very worried.  My emails have come filtering in.  I know they're worried because of the unanimous criticism of the sale.  Typical of the Giant faithful who I have learned to lovingly loath.  I guarantee you that if the sale fallen short of the $1 billion mark, they would have laughed at the low price tag.  Here is one of the classic responses sent to me from a Giant fan co-worker that constantly tries to give me a hard time:

"$2 billion for the Dodgers !! Up goes the ticket, concession and parking!  Not a good time to live in LA LA land! No way are the Dogs worth that much.  What a bunch of stupid investors.  Can't wait for the Giants to clean their clock again.I am so glad I am a Giants aficionado! Beat LA!"




Now deep down I know he does this to get me to take the bait and respond, but it so much better to do it in person.  Something that I will calmly do once I return to work next week.

Harry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle had this to say: "The predominant thinking is that the Dodgers will ignite in a bidding frenzy with the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox and other well heeled clubs for the bigger free agent...Giants fans might have good cause to fear a Dodgers organization flush with cash and competent owners, in contrast with recent disarray and penury under McCourt."


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Some reaction at Spring training venue in Kissimmee Florida

I attended the Braves-Yankees game at the Atlanta Braves complex at Disney yesterday, wearing my www.ThinkBlueLA.com t-shirt that was kindly donated to me by that bulletin board's founder and coordinator, Ron Cervenka.  Needless to say, I kind of stuck out, and since it was the day after the Dodger sale was announced, quite a few voiced their opinions to me and asked for mine.

A Red Sox fan in attendance told me that he thought it was great for the Dodgers and told me that he could have warned me about McCourt eight years ago.  "The guys is a swindler and always will be," he said.  "I was so grateful that he didn't get the Red Sox when they were for sale, he wanted to tear down Fenway."

A Braves fan told me that Stan Kasten will be a good fit in L.A.  "He let Schurholz do his job without interruption," he said and added "he let the farm system develop, don't expect him to dip into the free agent market too soon though, he's a 'build from within' guy."

More than one Yankee fan told me that with the Dodgers selling for $2 billion, they could only imagine what the Yankees are worth.  One guy speculated that it would be $4 billion saying, "Twenty-seven world championships, how could we not be at least two times the value of the Los Angeles Dodgers?"  

Hiroki Kuroda warming up in the Yankee bullpen

Hiroki Kuroda started for the Yankees.  He spotted my shirt after he finished warming up and I shrugged and pointed to the LA logo.  He nodded and laughed.  I hope he does well in the Big Apple, he was a stand up guy for us.

It was tough to do with the arm stretch, but I got us both in a shot.
For the most part, the comments were positive.  I heard nothing but good comments about Magic Johnson and most wished us luck.  "I'd love to see a Yankees Dodgers World Series again," said one Yankee fan.  "I always knew we were true legitimate champs when we beat the Dodgers.  I thought we'd see them in the series a few years ago when the Phillies beat them.  They need to get back to prominence in baseball, there's nothing like a World Series against the Dodgers."

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