Let's Go Dogers!*

The Militant loves memes. In fact, if he wasn't a Militant, he'd be making memes all day long (So, uh, it's actually good her turned out to be a Militant). He also loves the Los Angeles Dodgers, so much that his life generally revolves around the baseball season (he mostly languishes during the off-season) and is super-stoked about today's home opener at the (newly-renovated) Stadium, which he may or may not attend.

But there's one dark cloud that hangs over Dodgertown, and that's the whole television thing [cue ominous thunder].

As you may or may not know, Time Warner Cable's SportsNet LA channel has the exclusive rights to all Dodger games, which they paid the team $8.35 billion two years ago to do. So, you cannot watch Dodger games unless you have Time Warner Cable (except those of you out in Bako who subscribe to Bright House Cable, perhaps the only good thing about living in Bakersfield). No more games on Fox Sports West. No more games on KCAL 9. Ergo, not only are those of us cable-disadvantaged folks (e.g. the low-income population and intellectual types who would rather read books or go online than watch cable TV -- and The Militant qualifies as both) assed-out, but so are those who have cable and satellite service that's not TWC.

The contract lasts for 25 years. So, no new TV deal until...the 2039 season (The Militant, as well as all Dodger fans, TWC-advantaged or not, sincerely hopes the team wins at least a couple of World Series titles by then). Sucks, huh?

Yes, this season's Dodgers tagline is "Live. Breathe. Blue." But Time Warner Cable took away all the oxygen.

The only other options for the cable-disadvantaged are:

1) AM 570 Radio. Remember, you need to be listening to an actual radio (you know, that little box thing with speakers, or that thing in the center panel of your car's dashboard), and not the online stream, which is blocked due to MLB licensing restrictions. Which is fine, since we can still listen to Vin Scully (for the first three innings at least...), and we can listen to Dodger Talk with Kevin Kennedy and David Vasseigh. But then we also have to deal with the endless 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS and California Earthquake Authority (it was not cool) commercials. Ack!

2) Undocumented Internet Streams. The Militant was able to watch the Dodgers games in Sydney thanks to an undocumented internet stream of ESPN's UK feed. You can try undocumented streams like Wiziwig and Strikeout.co. The Militant didn't tell you anything.

3) Go To An Actual Damn Game. Of course, that is the ideal. Considering the TV debacle, maybe it's the reason why the Dodgers have already sold 3 million tickets before the home opener.

Yeah, there will be the rare dog bones thrown at us when the games are on ESPN or Fox's Game Of The Week, and we will inevitably chomp on them like emaciated hounds. And if when the Dodgers go to Teh World Series, everyone will be happy again for more than one reason.

To protest this, The Militant has decided to, well...he can't boycott the Dodgers since things aren't as bad as when McYouKnowWho ran the team. So, he decided to combine his love of Dodgers and love of Internet Memes and create the Doger Meme.

You've heard of the Doge Meme, right? Well, from this point on, until the TV thing is resolved, The Militant Angeleno will no longer refer to his favorite baseball team by their properly-spelled name. He will now call them The Los Angeles Dogers (pronounced, "doe-jurz" - and note, no second "d," which stands for, "Damnit, The Militant can't watch his favorite baseball team's games on TV anymore"). This goes for both This Here Blog as well as Twitter and Facebook.

PLEASE DO THE SAME IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE MILITANT (Or else he'll just look like some illiterate fool who can't spell the team's name correctly).

The Militant can't wait to go to Doger Stadium and eat his first Doger Dog. LET'S GO DOGERS! 

Use them hashtags: #dogers  #ineedmydogers