Reactions to Manny Being 'Roided

I linked to Buster Olney's post today because I want to take some exception to it. I started to write him a note through the ESPN form but I have noticed that everything I have ever tried to post as a comment to ESPN's website never actually showed up and I'm sure lots of things (or all three things, as the case may be) that I've sent to ESPN Columnists over the years have gone from my screen to oblivion with no stops in between. This isn't what I wanted to say but I think ESPN comments are actually B.S. that is put up by employees of the Disney family of broadcaters. Having said that, let's get on to the outrage.

It is not believable at this point to say that a player is stealing money from the club he plays for. No employee at any company is stealing money from the company unless they are out and out embezzling cash. The money we are paid is based on actuarial methods that figure out what is the least amount of money you can be paid and stay productive to the point that you are aiding in the generation of income. Is that a mouthful? You are being paid as little as the company can get away with. This goes for every business in the entire world and Major League Baseball teams are not separate from that. If anything, the superfluous monopoly exemption that baseball enjoys (superfluous in the sense that monopolization hasn't been an honest target of the feds since at least the LBJ years) serves to make the environment of baseball a petri dish for what the common man goes through. You know the separation between baseball players making millions and you struggling to pay your rent every month? It's a really strong union. The MLBPA should be teaching courses to young ACLU wannabes.

We need unions because we need people who actually have the means to cut through all of the accountant-speak B.S. Revenue is a misunderstood phenomenon for the most part. I've heard the CFO at my last job say that all the workers except for the sales force don't deserve more money because they don't generate revenue. I find this logic hard to swallow because if the other workers were not responsible actors in the production of revenue they wouldn't be there. Get it? You would not have your job if the company didn't need you. And the downside (bad company accounting) is that a workforce strikes and the company discovers, "Hey, we didn't really need all those people!" is only a death-blow in a vacuum. There is revenue available for every single human being on the planet but it is very much distibuted in an inverted pyramid. Now Buster Olney is, in all likelihood, not a party to the machinations of which he is espousing. He is a willing cog and a well rewarded cog in a machine that is, for the most part, unconscious. It might seem a bit radical to paint this man versus corporation picture. It may seem irresponsible and it may even seem flighty and/or dangerous. But it is true.

The Dodgers are not going to lose money on the Manny Ramirez deal. Their revenue streams are off the charts. Generally they are ranked as the 3rd or 4th most valuable franchise in baseball, sometimes as high as second. Their seats for this season are sold as much as one could hope for and they will finish in their customary spot among the top 3 in MLB attendance at the end of the year. Their merchandise and corollary income will dip slightly from the rate at which it was being produced in August-October of last year but it could also (and probably will) be more than offset by the fact that they are going to make a playoff run with Manny Ramirez. See, he's gone until July 3rd. Right before the All-Star break. So he will be there for the second half of the season. And the media interest in "Manny's Return" will generate sales to a public that is more indifferent to steroids scandals than one might think from reading ESPN and their ilk. Manny is going to help the Dodgers generate their several hundred million dollars in total revenue over the course of his 2.5 years in Los Angeles. He is not "stealing money" and it is disingenuous to suggest that the clubs are not complicit in the use of PEDs. Also, Buster? HGH is not the magic bullet here. Most of the athletes that are gaming the system are moved on to drugs that are not even in the imagination of drug testers or, more importantly, the companies that design the drug tests.

Over the last 25 years, the amount of money that sports generates has exploded. If shabby reporting is to be believed, this is the timeframe that coincides with the explosion in use for Perfermance Enhancing Drugs! So the economic lesson, in my best attempt at simplicity, is that PEDs enhance nothing more than the bottom line. What many sports writers and even sports fans really miss in the whole mass of "controversy" surround drugs is that the drugs make the games more entertaining. Would you be OK with Manny Ramirez looking like a regular schlub and doing things that you feel, in your heart of hearts, that you could do yourself? Hell NO! Atheltes are sacrificing their bodies for our entertainment and more power to them for that. The amount of money being spent on research into PEDs is good for the economy and it's good for people that want to be involved in sports but don't know how. You too can be the next Victor Conte! Don't pretend to be upset about it. And don't pretend that, in the context of a free market (an actual free market), Manny Ramirez has actually earned every cent in his career by performing a function that very few people, drugs included, could ever pretend to be anywhere close to performing. You feel it's justice to suspend him? Fine, suspend him to fill a void in a 100% PR world. But the hand-wringing has to stop. I don't feel any outrage towards Manny Ramirez. None. I feel outrage towards sanctimonious reporters and team officials acting like they couldn't figure out what was happening 20 years ago.

If I could take a drug to become a successful writer, knowing that it will probably shorten my life span and make me impotent and/or murderous, you have to know I would take it. And if I sold twenty million novels and died young with barely $100 million to my name then so be it. How is that different? If you can take a drug that will possibly help you make a shit-ton of money, don't pretend you won't take it. It's a silly pretension. Get over yourself. Athletes owe you entertainment for your money and that is all. Here's the dirty little secret to it all. You know how steroids are seen as a shortcut to athletic dominance? Guess what, Manny Ramirez still did a hell of a lot of work to be in position for the steroids to work and did a hell of a lot of work after he started taking steroids to stay in shape. It might have been aided but that shit is still very difficult. Keep your heads together, folks.

And in other Dodgers Suck News... I wrote several months ago about a horrible experience my disabled girlfriend and I, along with the family of a young girl (maybe 10?) who was crippled, had at Dodgers Stadium late last summer. And guess what? The Dodgers still haven't bothered to even acknowledge their poor handling of a situation they should already have been prepared for. We gave money to the bloodsuckers in the ticket office under a false pretense that was then proven faulty by security guards and stadium personnel violating several statutes of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The response? I hope you guys come back and spend some more money here! I have, at least, stayed true to my principle of not spending any money there this year. I would like to extend a hearty "screw you" to the whole Dodgers organization today and hope I am piling on, because Frank McCourt and his minions deserve it.

UPDATE: The Dodgers did give us some free tickets to a game vs. the Athletics in June. We paid for parking again and paid for concessions, but they did finally respond.

Never Remember, Never Forget

Oh, 9-11 exploitation. It wasn't just for Republicans. Let's see if I did this right. A little Hammer, please hurt 'em for youse:



And who could forget this eternal classic? If we don't fall for weak equivocations after a major tragedy we might end up standing against things that hurt us! Way to take the tough stand Petey Pablo and Timbaland. Sorry I'm not good at computers and math and stuff so you'll just have to follow this rabbit hole (oh, why oh why can't my life be easier?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHf7IMhaXhw

So that's it. I'm in love with 9-11 exploitation. What an awesome time to be alive. Remember Neil Young's terrible album about 9-11? And that shitty Michael Moore... wait, does that count? Yeah, it does. But it was pretty impressive as an exercise in 1st Amendment Rights (not just for Larry Flynt anymore!). Alright, I've got nothing, just wanted to share some premium morsels of rallying 'round the flag. Happy Earth Day, America, you've earned it!

Our Daily Bread - PIZZA!

Sourdough is f'ing hard to work with. I had two cultures going and they both died. I tried to follow the instructions laid out at Jeff Varasano's website but I ended up killing them both. I got one batch of pizza out of it and it was horrible. The only thing that was right was the texture. But fear not! I have found my own pizza dough recipe and it is the easiest bread dough ever. I did get some valuable information from Verasano's, mainly about the moisture content. I had to up the water content in my dough, but that's it. Otherwise I went straight back to basics. Let's go through it my way, shall we? Sorry, I ain't got no pictures but I will do this (make pizza, that is) again and probably add some.

MATERIALS (baking stone, sheet pan, skillet, mixing bowl, measuring cups)
It is absolutely necessary to use a baking stone to get a good crust on a New York style pizza. I am not a scientician, so I can't actually explain anything about thermodynamics other than "heat rises", but there is something paradigm shifting about going from using aluminum pans to using a stone. I don't get as excited about the changes in regular bread loafs because it isn't as dramatic as all that. My white bread/french bread/whatever/experiments come out similar to what they did before. I got my stone at a big box store (not Wal-Mart but I'm not advertising for the other guys, either) for $10. You might find a better one somewhere else or a cheaper one or whatever. I'm not a connoisseur of baking stones and I went out on a limb that $10 would be worth it to me. So far, so good.

Besides the baking stone it is also necessary to put some type of reflector over the pizza. I just mean that you need to put some type of pan on the rack above where you are cooking the pizza - I use my 15" Lodge cast iron skillet. The downside is that you can only bake one pie at a time. The upshot is that the one pie you bake is unbelievable. I do all this in my standard-issue, gas-leaking, crummy/came-with-the-apartment gas oven. I bet it would be better on a wood fire but I might never find out because I expect to be completely broke my whole life. It would probably help to have a peel but I've never used one. I also don't care too much if I burn my fingers, though, so take that for what it's worth.

For mixing the dough you NEED a mixing bowl. You can do this by hand (I do) so you don't need anything else. If you have a bread mixer, that's great, but it isn't absolutely necessary. To follow my steps you need four Glad or Tupperware containers with lids. Before you make the dough, you should very lightly oil the insides of the containers.

THE DOUGH (flour, water, yeast, salt, olive oil)
Now, here's what Jeff Verasano has exactly right in a way that is scalable to any kitchen anywhere in the world. The water content of your first rise needs to be 2 parts water to three parts flour. The salt? The yeast? Honestly, I never measure either one of them. I can eyeball it and get them right for the most part. Do whatever you're comfortable with here. My trick with the yeast is to put the water in a big mixing bowl (the bigger the better - mine's a 6 litre plastic thing that I got from god knows where many moons ago) and then sprinkle the yeast until there is a thin layer covering the surface of the water. This is about the same amount that there is in a packet of yeast from Fleischmann's or Star. I use Bob's Red Mill. The bag seems expensive but it works out about the same as the others.

So for the sake of this recipe, and to make the math easier, say you've got two cups of really warm/hot water in your bowl. You're better off using filtered water but you can use tap and you'll be fine for your home. Trust me, your palate isn't anywhere near as refined as the palates of the people that wrote your cookbooks. Once you put the yeast in the water, mix it in until it seems dissolved. You should have two cups of brackish looking water that smells like yeast. Then slowly mix in your three cups of yeast. I say slowly because it's easier to mix. I do everything by hand, though, so this might not be a big deal in your bread mixer. Always keep your flower nearby! Throw some salt into the mix. I use Redmond Real Salt with iodine. Like I said, I eyeball the salt. It might be a teaspoon or so. I knead the dough by hand until it is just a little bit sticky to the touch. I don't want it too dry for pizza dough because I want it to bubble a little bit. I don't want it too wet to pick up, though, either. I do all of this by feel so I can't give much of a measurement. I try to make sure there isn't any flour left stuck to the bowl and then I cover the bowl with a thin dish towel and let it rise for about 1.5 - 2 hours. Yeah, that's all. Flour, water, yeast, salt - rise for maybe two hours.

Another thing I got from Verasano - I divide the dough while it is rising. I let it go for a while first, though. I don't do this right when it's needed. It's basically giving the dough a third rise. Three cups of flour should be enough for 3-4 pizzas. The first time or two you do this I would suggest you make the dough balls err on the bigger side. You might get a thicker crust than you want but you won't scar yourself. You'll see. So you divide the dough into thirds or fourths or whatever scale you are working on and then you make each division into it's own little ball. Put each ball in one of your Tupperware containers, set it aside and let it rise again.

At this point you need your oven to start heating up. I am not one to go through the potential pain of breaking a self-cleaning oven. I simply put one rack in the top position with my skillet facing down. I put my stone on a rack in the second position (out of four, if you were wondering) and I turn the oven up to broil. Just close the door and do whatever you have to do to keep the fire alarm from ringing.

SAUCE (tomato sauce, whole peeled tomatoes, fresh oregano)
Yes, my sauce is from a can. If I'm in a store that has the jarred one that I like, I'll buy that instead of the canned tomato sauce, but that's as far as I'm stepping out. I have been advised that unless you grow your own tomatoes you are throwing good food and good money after bad to make your own sauce from fresh tomatoes. The economics don't work and the effort does not match the results. You disagree? Good for you. I'm really only trying to explain my easy way of making dough. If I had my druthers I'd be using wheat that I milled myself, but I ain't got it like that so this is how I handle things. Basically, just mix the tomato sauce with the peeled tomatoes, one can to one can. Cut the stems off the whole tomatoes and dice them to your satisfaction. Tear up enough oregano to make yourself happy and stir it all together. Simple enough, no? No heating! It'll cook plenty in the oven. If I have a bottle of wine that I'm planning to drink with dinner, I'll toss in a dash of it.

CHEESE & TOPPINGS (fresh cow mozzarella, bufala mozzarella, part-skim mozzarella, provolone, goat's chevre, , raw sharp cheddar, pecorino, prosciutto, pancetta, pepperoni, fresh basil)
You can really do whatever you want here. I listed the ingredients I use most often. I will offer that if you are using part-skim mozzarella you should blend it with provolone to get it to taste like a memory. If you are using buffalo mozzarella I would use goat cheese to add some sharpness to it, as well. I do not grate mozzarella. The only cheeses I grate for pizza are the hard cheeses. Slice the mozzarella or buy bocconcini.

MAKING IT WORK
When the dough balls have risen to about 1.5-1.75 times there original size, you're ready to go. You need a heavily floured service to stretch them out. I use a round sheet pan (a.k.a. pizza pan) but you can use a cutting board or whatever, as long as it has more area than your stretched out dough is going to take up. As mentioned before, I don't have a peel, so here's how I get around it. Make sure your toppings and sauce are close at hand and ready to toss on there because you have a small window. Once the dough is stretched, open your oven, pull out the rack with your stone just far enough to not burn yourself. Be CAREFUL! My method is dumb and unsafe! Flour the stone where you are going to put the pizza. So, pretty much the whole surface, right? Put the dough on the stone, untopped, throw your provolone down on the crust first, then your sauce and basil, then your mozzarella, then your meat if you're using it. Save the hard cheeses for when it is done. The first one will cook in about 4 minutes, each subsequent pie will take slightly longer, depending on how much you leave the door to the oven open. You can use a spatula to pull the pie off the stone, it will be hot as hell though, so I just slide it off onto a wooden cutting board and let it cool. I grate a little cheddar or pecorino over the top while it cools. I give it about 5-10 minutes before I slice it but I'll leave that judgment up to your discretion. I hope I've explained this well enough that nobody reads it and ends up in the hospital. Sue me all you want, I haven't got any money. I'll have pictures on this post eventually.

No More Work, Only Fantasy

Some people tell me I'm an idiot for quitting my job in the midst of the biggest depression since Moses cast out the Red Sea, thereby inventing fantasy sports. But I'm really just following the road of that great prophet. My fantasy baseball team is not doing well in the first two weeks of the season but I'm an optimist! Want to send me some money? Sure, I'll take it!

My dumbest move of the week so far is dropping Cody Ross for Andruw Jones. I think the ceiling is higher on Jones in Texas but I'm probably wrong. Still, 50 HR is out of the question, so I've got that going for me. Here's my team:

C - Geovany Soto, Cubs
Chris Snyder, Diamondbacks
1B - Carlos Pena, Rays
2b - Aaron Hill, Blue Jays
Mike Aviles, Royals (also SS eligible)
SS - Elvis Andrus, Rangers
Rafael Furcal, Dodgers
3B - Chris Davis, Rangers (also 1B eligible)
OF - Ichiro, Mariners
Carlos Lee, Astros
Ryan Braun, Brewers
Justin Upton, Diamondbacks
Andruw Jones, Rangers
SP - James Shields, Rays
Andrew Sonnanstine, Rays
Zack Greinke, Royals
Trevor Cahill, A's
Brett Anderson, A's
Aaron Harang, Reds
Scott Baker, Twins
RP - Francisco Rodriguez, Mets
Fernando Rodney, Tigers
Kevin Gregg, Cubs
Francisco Cordero, Reds

Is this team really terrible for a full-time fantasy team owner? Yes. Yes, it is. I paid more attention last year and my team sucked on a daily basis. I've got decent starting pitching (probably league average) and a good OF. That's about it. I thought about submitting my team to HardballTimes to see if they would write it up in a Roster Doctor article. But I know I'd get impatient and change it long before I heard from them. They would be sick if they knew the keepers I've given away over the years (Miguel Cabrera, Justin Morneau and Ryan Howard come to mind). I'm really just hoping I can get Matt Wieters later this year and he lives up to the hype. Maybe he can do what Ryan Braun did for me a few years ago. Delivering me to 2nd place! We'll see. There's a few guys I'm waiting for when they get called up but, if you're a fantasy geek reading this, let me know what you think I should try to do to get in a groove in a weekly line-up, cumulative scoring, head-to-head matchup.

Locali vs. locally

All I think about is food and I really want to live a more conscientious, healthier existence. I read about this stuff, I try to cook more artisanally (I'm eventually going to break the bank and buy a mill to grind my own wheat). Towards these ends I was thrilled with the idea of shopping at locali. It's close! It's convenient! It's local! My first impression on walking in there is that it's like Nature Mart but with alcohol and no bulk bin. + Alcohol is good. - Bulk bin is bad. I love the Nature Mart bulk bin. It actually saves me money on higher quality ingredients and snacks. Actually, I like Nature Mart a lot in general, even though the biggest part of their business (and I would guess their margin maker) is in the abhorrent realm of dietary supplements. Even though I spend too much money on basics there, everything is well marked and I can't say I am ever surprised by what I spend. I expect to spend a little more and I am unwilling to make the drive to the Santa Monica Co-Op on even a semi-regular basis, so Nature Mart serves its purpose.

So what am I writing about again? Oh, yeah, locali. I don't like this place much because it doesn't much live up to the ideals that I expected from it. The beers are local. I assume the baked goods and tamales are made locally. But where are these bakers sourcing ingredients from? Why does yogurt cost so much? Why do tamales cost so much? I feel like I'm being ripped off and I'm not even supporting local farms the way I intended to. I'm buying macaroons from New York? Water from Arkansas? What gives, locali?

So the comparison I come back to is Nature Mart (no expectations of locally sourced produce, etc.) versus locali (obvious expectations of local products) and Nature Mart wins hands down. Against all odds it's actually cheaper and the products are much the same. I can just walk to Ralph's if I want to support a local business that gets food from all over the planet. I've lost my train of thought but I'm going to put something on twitter now. Yeah, twitter. Yikes I hate me so much. I haven't even written about quitting my job yet.

Georgetown Hoyas Basketfail

I wish John Thompson III would tell his team that they are bigger than other teams and that means they don't have to, and should not, shoot so many 3's. The best freshman in the country, Greg Monroe, is playing center for the Hoyas. If he gets the ball in the area around the basket he's almost unstoppable. I don't know if his teammates feel threatened by this or if they are unaware. They seem to try and keep the ball as far outside the basket as possible. How can a team be as big as Georgetown and have a reputation for playing disciplined ball and still find a way to give up 45%+ shooting, lose the rebounding battle by a substantial margin, and shoot so many ill-advised three-pointers that they never have a chance to get back in a game (against SETON HALL!?!?!?!?!?) even when they are only down by 1 point? This team is baffling. I think after they beat UConn JTIII called up Louisville's Rick Pitino and asked him "Hey, you want to switch the personalities of our teams? I've noticed you've been able to disappoint a lot of people in the regular season so far and my team is about to get a shit-storm of hype at just the tip of a really brutal bit of scheduling. I've got this machine that could make it work..." The point is Louisville's playing out of their minds (one of my best friends is a Louisville die hard) while Georgetown might not have even shown up for the last three weeks. At this point I would actually be thrilled to hear a report of JTIII racking up an assault charge for beating DaJuan Summers mercilessly while screaming, "YOU, SPECIFICALLY YOU DAJUAN SUMMERS, CAN'T MAKE IT TO THE NBA BY SHOOTING 3-POINTERS!" My life is a big ball of self-inflicted frustration and meaninglessness, so I would really appreciate it if external factors that are meant to be recreational didn't fill me up with so much rage and annoyance. Between the Hoyas, the Terps, the Matadors, and UVa (don't want you to think I'm a Lebron bandwagoner. He's a nice player but he plays for a team I don't care about and seems like kind of a dick for the whole openly wanting to play in New York without quite exactly saying it even though he plays for his supposed favorite team growing up; so I'm not calling them the Cavaliers - maybe I could've gone with Hoos? But I never went to UVa and I never pledged a frat so I decided against that, as well) I am really kind of sick of this basketball season after it started off so well. It is unfortunate that the high-point of the year happened in December. UConn's only loss now looks very aberrational. If only I could actually force myself to get whole-heartedly behind an NBA team and just go with it. But the teams I really want to like, the Washington Bullets and the Buffalo Braves, are horrible franchises.

The Bullets are apparently run by their PR department. I hope nobody with a history in basketball actually looked at Gilbert Arenas situation and thought, "Now this guy's gonna really start helping us win!" He barely played last year, he's had more surgery, and he hasn't been good since he became a star. Hey, Ernie Grunfield, can I have $117M? I promise I'll score as much as Gilbert has and I'll probably get about as much on the open market in the NBA at this point as he would. You can just sign me to a huge one-year deal and then trade my expiring contract because NBA general managers are all geniuses. I actually stopped cheering for the Bullets when they stopped being the Bullets and became the Grand Wizards instead.

The Clippers? What good can be said of the Clippers? Mike Dunleavy reminds me of The Riddler somehow. I mean that he physically reminds me of The Riddler but he also leaves clues that his crimes against basketball are going to happen. Things like alienating Cory Maggette and bringing in Zach Randolph. Dunleavy's a perfect foil for the real-world evil of Donald T. Sterling, a mountain of bad influence and shameful behavior who is partly responsible for the high prices of apartments in L.A. So, to keep from even raising my heartbeat I'll just say that it is morally reprehensible to spend money to help Donald Sterling. Boo Clippers. But it is fun to root for the losers if you don't expect anything from them.

Anyway, I'm going to treat this like an offensive rebound for the Hoyas and just give up. Maybe I'll write about my problems with Dell and FedEx later today. Maybe I'll finally get around to writing a full-bore critical piece about The Dark Knight. I doubt it. Enjoy Sunday.

F The Dodgers

I hate the Dodgers.  I will still go to their games.  I will still root for them against the swill of the NL.  I will still give them money.  Lots of money.  For parking.  Fuck Frank McCourt and Jamie McCourt and all the B.S. they pump out to the people of Los Angeles.  Is there really a choice between signing Manny Ramirez and building a bunch of baseball parks for kids?  I'm not the only bozo out here that sees that for what it is, am I?  It's ok if you don't want to pay Manny but come out with another justification.  I have never run a large organization but I am pretty sure I understand how segmented budgeting works.  You shouldn't be drawing funds for those two things from the same pool.  But you know what else you shouldn't do?  Ignore customer service requests from disabled fans consistently and protractedly.  Sorry for the clumsy segue but I need to put this up somewhere and the Dodgers don't give a fuck.

My girlfriend's life story is a ridiculous readymade for TV type of story involving bad doctors, a life-threatening mystery illness, a coma, long-term paralysis and the magical moment where she learned to walk in spite of what the doctors were saying.  She has problems walking and she has a big, goofy St. Bernard to act as a balance/stability dog.  When we decided to go to a Dodgers game we understood that there could be problems with seating because we would be there with a giant fucking dog.  That seems logical.  Stadiums aren't built for giant dogs.  They aren't even really built for giant people.  They're built for average-sized people from the '60s.

The morning of the game, before we'd completed our ticket purchase, I called the Dodgers ticket line to ask if there were certain sections we could sit in with the giant fucking dog.  The first person I asked didn't know so she transferred me to stadium security.  Fair enough, she doesn't know but the next person will.  Easy!  The next person who answered the phone didn't even explain he was transferring me.  He just mumbled "hlll don" and then I was on hold again.  Then another young lady came on and was stumped.  Then I was hold again.  Then somebody else told me that the ticket office would have to help out and he put me on hold before I could blurt out "No they can't!", which I did to more hold music.  Then the same girl who was stumped came on and finally just said (cheerfully, I should note) "Well, if you can't sit in (the fat-ass) section with the dog we can just move your seats.  It shouldn't be a problem!"  This quick and easy process took about an hour.  Which actually ended up being the easiest part of the day.  We bought our seats to the fatass section for $40 apiece and were off.

When we got to the Dodgers gigantic clusterfuck of the most over-priced parking in L.A. we asked the girl in the booth about handicapped parking.  She just kind of waved us on to say "You're holding up traffic."  We're jackasses for not just staying home and suing the team for the time I spent on the phone and are completely insane for thinking we were going to have a good time even up until this point.  If you've never been to Dodgers stadium there are rent-a-cops all over the place to check the parking ticket and tell you whether or not you are in the right lot.  None of them, from my experience, is entirely sure where the handicapped parking is or whether or not it's available.  One guy gave us instructions in the wrong direction and another one said "I think it's all full."  Great.  So we found parking but we hadn't factored in the part where we had to go pick up our tickets at will-call.  And we had to go find the little ticket kiosks to do that.  Fine for me, not so great for the girlfriend with the lack of cartilage in her knees and the problems walking.  Still, this seemed like poor planning on our part more than the stadiums, so we didn't get too pissed off.  We did walk past A LOT of handicapped parking spots that we could have known about if the little rent-a-cops were better informed but let's keep going, shall we?

We picked up the tickets with no incident, figured out where we're supposed to enter the stadium (I've been coming here for ten years and can never remember where the hell I'm going) and got up to the front of the security line.  And this is where the story gets stupid.  One of the cops there told us "You can't bring that dog in here."  I wish I'd gotten this guy's name because I believe that's actually illegal for him to say about a service dog in a vest and harness.  And then he walked off.  Another cop angrily explained to us that there wasn't space in the section for the dog to sit down.  The lady cop sitting at the little folding table listened to our explanation that we'd called ahead and were told that we'd just be moved to another section and asked us to step aside so the line could move forward.  Then she went on break.  The next lady cop (I guess that's the job for lady cops - sit at the folding table?) eyed us in a way that could be called wearily.  It's hot in Los Angeles in September and my girlfriend's illness is exacerbated by heat and sunlight.  We were not offered a seat, or water, or shade, or water for the dog.  And, I'm not joking or lying to say that the people in line right behind us were a family with a little girl in a wheelchair.  From looking at the girl I would guess she had ALS or something similar.  They were getting the same treatment as us.  They were sitting in the sun for 45 minutes waiting for some kid out of customer service to make his way down to us.  I have to point out that we had, all of us, paid for the fatass seats.  The all you can eat pavillion (yep, that's what it's called) sets.  And the giveaway for the game was bottled water.  But nobody offered us anything to eat or drink this whole time.  We were at the front of the security line in front of the right field line to hear the National Anthem for nearly an hour, baking in the sun with nobody offering help or even attention until the customer service kid came up to us to lead us to our seat.  He was a nice kid but isn't great with directions.  Over the next hour he lead our procession from downstairs in front of the right field line all the way around the stadium, up an elevator, to the handicapped seats at the very end of the stadium along the right field line.  Then he left to find folding chairs we could use.  A security guard nearby saw us and brought out some folding chairs to use before he showed up again 10 minutes later.  We had paid for all-you-can-eat and goddammit that's all that could make this worthwhile by now.  We sat down finally in the fifth inning.  It took five fucking innings for the Dodgers to find us seats.  Just like the customer service phone "helpers" said it would be - easy!  Now we were told to sit and wait for the guy to bring us some wristbands so we could get our all-you-can-eat from the hot dog stand right next to us.  It took another 15-20 minutes for him to show up.  It was the 6th inning when I finally got to order some food.  I had it in my mind I was going to make this worthwhile.  I was going to stage my own hot dog eating contest before leaving.  And then I got to the front of the line and was told we would have a special helper who would come to our seats and take care of us like a waiter.  Ramon was our guy, we didn't have to and weren't allowed to wait in line for food.  We just had to track Ramon down.

That's all fine and well.  We got our 4 hot dogs, 3 bottles of water, Coca-Cola and 2 nachos to make up for lost time and devoured the whole lot.  I can put away food like a garbage dump.  I'm not THAT fat (6'2, 205#) but I am still a bottomless pit.  By the end of the seventh (maybe an hour late) I wanted more garbage and my girlfriend wanted more water.  She wanted to stand and so she went searching for the guy.  She stood through an entire half inning waiting right next to the guy we'd just walked around the stadium with.  I told her to sit down and walked up to the guy at the counter.  I wanted him to call for Ramon again.  He did and was informed Ramon had left for the day.  What the fuck?  You work for a baseball team.  Baseball games last like 3 hours.  Your work day is about 4 hours and you had to take off early?  How do you pay rent or eat?  The guy at the counter finally just filled our orders.

We left before the end of the game.  We registered separate complaints by phone and by email.  We never received a response.  My girlfriend has complained several times now, has spoken at great length with customer service staff for the Dodgers, and the farthest that's gone is they asked for a copy of the tickets.  Haven't heard back from the club of their own accord, haven't been refunded any part of the $100 we spent on parking and tickets to watch about 3 innings from a spot in the stadium where you can't see the field, haven't been offered any free seats, free gear, anything.  Fuck the Dodgers.  Fuck the McCourts.  It appears my girlfriend will have to sue you to get your attention.

So why do I think of this now, two plus months since this happened?  I saw a crawl on the bottom of the screen while watching Georgetown suck against Wichita State saying the Dodgers are considering signing Andy Petitte.  He was great when he was 27 and had the best team in baseball history surrounding him.  He's now old, expensive and fragile.  He'll team up great with Jason Schmidt next year.  And I read the LA Times article where the McCourts were trying to decide if they should build some youth baseball fields or sign Manny Ramirez.  Are the McCourts really so shitty at business that they are drawing the money for those two things from the same budget?  Maybe if you are going to save money on Ramirez you could also spend a little to fix your bungling, bumbling, heartless staff of jackasses that work at your stadium.  I am not a lawyer and, for myself, I was not damaged by your organization's jackassery.  But my girlfriend was in the hospital two days later having surgery on her leg.  And I'm pretty sure that your lack of service and responsiveness should have some monetary ramifications for you.  There is no excuse for anything I ever see from the McCourts and I hope they lose everything in this world.  They even made me empathize with Bill Plaschke.  Which is not easy.  I hate that I will still go to Dodgers Stadium because I like baseball that much.  Maybe I'm wrong.