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.