Backstory: The new Dodger curse

By Michael Green

Red Sox fans, little do you know how lucky you are.

Their team was enough to make you forget the nastiness of the election. After 86 years, Boston has a world championship baseball team. The only sad part for we baseball lovers is that the season's over, although we have memories to keep us going through the winter.

We Dodger fans have something else: the transfer of the curse.

If you're unfamiliar with this bit of baseball lore--and you must be a communist or worse if you don't know--the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Thus began the "Curse of the Bambino," which the Red Sox at long last have ended.

The owners, who laid out about $120 million for this team, won a bidding war a few years ago. A runner-up was Boston businessman Frank McCourt, who then bought the Dodgers from Fox. Many of us hoped it marked a new beginning. If you think Fox News is bad--and if you know anything about journalism, you know Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity lie more than the Yankees spend money--the damage Rupert Murdoch's boys did to the Dodgers pales in comparison.

Now McCourt is following in their footsteps. He recently announced a minor move: removing player names from the uniforms for the first time since 1972, saying, "As we move into our 50th anniversary celebration of the organization's first world championship, this is a tip of the cap to our great heritage and tradition," although it's more likely an effort to make fans buy overpriced programs that tell them the names. But it's worse than that.

The broadcaster for that 1955 team, Vin Scully, is still there, about to begin his 56th year with the Dodgers and still the best ever. But he doesn't do all the games--he doesn't travel much or broadcast home games when they aren't televised. He does all nine innings on TV and the first three innings are simulcast on radio.

He works alone. He feels an announcer should converse with fans, not another announcer. If you watched the World Series, you understood why. Analyst Tim McCarver thinks he's paid by the word. Play-by-play man Joe Buck demonstrated why critics love him by displaying his usual boredom and love of pop culture references. Scully tells you about the game and those involved in it, and uses his wit, elegance and memory to recall past games that put the present in perspective.

Growing up, I listened to him and tolerated his partners. They weren't Vin, so they weren't in the same league, which was unfair to them. For the past 11 years, he has worked with former Dodger Rick Monday, whose good voice and knowledge don't mask that he is out of his depth doing play-by-play. For the past 28 years, the No. 2 announcer has been Ross Porter, the ultimate professional, also known to Las Vegans as the onetime voice of UNLV football and basketball.

Dodger executives decided the broadcasts should be changed. They're right. It would be wise to add a younger announcer to prepare for the inevitable day when Scully, 76, and Porter, 65, hang it up. They also felt an ex-player should be added to provide analysis. Since most ex-players are about as helpful to listeners as facts are to George W. Bush, that's unfortunate but tolerable.

Instead, they fired Porter after 28 years of loyal service--not just to the Dodgers, but to their listeners. They did it with a press release that didn't even include all of his statement thanking the fans and his previous employers. And they kept him dangling all season rather than giving him the chance to exchange proper goodbyes with the fans.

Of course, Porter isn't Scully, who won't have the analyst on with him. Dodger officials probably would prefer otherwise, since that would make the broadcasts dumber. But if Scully ran for office against God in Los Angeles, God might not get a dimpled chad, much less a vote, so he's untouchable.

If the Dodgers have so little respect for their fans that they drop a capable, longtime broadcaster just like that, they deserve no respect from us. So, Dodger fans, if the ownership wants to remain without class and not bring back Porter, we need to act.

Dodger games have aired locally on KSFN 1140-AM for two years. It's been bad enough that the station regularly advertises talk shows about orgasms when kids might be listening, and late last season, it pre-empted weekend broadcasts to air early-season college and pro football games. So, it shouldn't hurt you much to shut off the radio after Scully's three innings.

But you might listen--for a day. Dodger fans everywhere should find out who the sponsors are when Scully isn't on the air. Let them know you will boycott their products for sponsoring subpar broadcasting for a team that treats good people and talents like Ross Porter so badly. Maybe you could even let the Las Vegas 51s know, since they are a Dodger affiliate. The Dodgers might feel....cursed. They should.

Next, we'll start crusading against the idiots destroying "The West Wing." The election is important, but now it's time to turn to things that really matter.