Hard Times in Dodgertown

June 24, 2011, LA Angels at LA Dodgers. ESPN had the total attendance on record as 43,640; these 17 seconds of video might say otherwise:

You'll hear it's 7th inning stretch time, well before the Angels put the thing out of reach for the Dodgers.  Patches of the yellow box seats are showing and both sides of the upper deck are clear from first and third base on back.

We basically had free-reign of the upper concourse and our own concession stand.  Beer lines would have been 5-10 deep just last year.  This is a team that's just over one season removed from back-to-back NLCS appearances; now there's a general malaise about the premises.

I can stomach listening to the "local" sports radio here for only so long.  I have no interest in hearing a regular season Lakers game broken down over the course of three hours, with several more hours of accompanying phone reaction.  And make no mistake, this is Lakers' town.  They were more upset last week about the mere mention of trading Gasol or Bynum than anything Dodger-related.

It really is a sports sin what McCourt has done to this franchise.  But the people have yet to bring out the pitchforks; this is a town that feeds on scandal.

This Is Why

LeBron James' defenders seem to turn a blind eye to his antics, such as this:

When a fans' drink was spilled courtside and the game stopped down for about two minutes, LeBron decided to take a rest at the base of the Heat basket. Gather up with your team mates and figure out the next course of action during the bonus time-out? Nah. I'll just take a siesta and let the cameras fawn over me.

Man, I so wanted the Heat to lose Game 3 so the press would go after him for this. But, hell, I'll take a Mavs 3-2 lead instead.

You'd never see Dirk do this. Nor Wade. Not Jordan. Hell, not even Kobe.