The Militant, For One, Welcomes Our New Dodger Overlords

Take a good look at the picture above, grabbed from the official website of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Just like that, the 8-year McCourt Regime has ended and new leadership has taken over today!

Welcome to Los Angeles sports, Guggenheim Baseball Management. Of course, one of them needs no introduction, having been one of the most celebrated athletes and businessmen of our city.

In fact, he may or may not get his own bobblehead soon:

In closing, The Militant would like to sincerely thank Mr. Frank McCourt --Thank him for being the butt of many of the Militant's jokes. Adios, suckaaaaa!

You Have To Believe, We Are Magic

And so the final three bidders who pined for the great Los Angeles Dodgers were pared down to one: On Tuesday night, Magic Johnson's investment group set forth a $2.15 billion bid on MLB-bay to deliver a refrigerator-is-closed-the-lights-are-out-the-eggs-are-cooling-the-butter's-getting-hard-and-the-Jell-O-is-jigglin' end to the evil regime of Dodger Despot Frank Mc Court.

Dodger fans, let's exhale together:
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Ladies and Gentlemen, McCourt will finally be deported.

Well, in spirit. Many Dodger fans will still point to the fact that he still lays a (albeit limited) claim to his sacred parking lot. To that, the Militant says: a) Don't expect the new owners, who have just signed a $2 billion check, to lower parking rates anytime soon and b) The Dodger Stadium Express is on again this year!

But with a pretty promising Spring Training, a big Golden Anniversary for The Stadium, a Cy Young Winner in the rotation and last year's stats leader who will resume Beast Mode (and was outright robbed of an MVP), it's a pretty dang good time to be a fan of the most valuable sports franchise in the world (Take that Yankees!)!

What's in store for the Dodger season? Win or lose, there's gonna be good vibes. The painful and even brutal past will be behind us. Heck, we may even hit 5 million in attendance (Only kidding, it's only statistically possible to hit some 4.6 million in the hypothetical event that all 81 home games are filled to capacity). Count on an emotional Home Opener (Just some 13 days away...) for myriad reasons, and maybe they'll let Magic throw out the first pitch, heralding the changing of the guard an ushering a new era of Dodgerism.

And to pay tribute to the Dodgers' new owner (okay, prominent co-owner, but which Angeleno sports fan cares about semantics today), The Militant offers this Red Hot Chili Peppers tune from the late '80s:





And to the outgoing Frank McCourt, who will be escorted into his helicopter before Magic's first pitch on Opening Da,y which will leave for LAX, where he will board a one-way flight back to Boston (Hey, A Militant can dream, okay?), he offers this tune:

Number 22 Gets His 20th

The Militant was there on Tuesday night to witness the first Dodger pitcher to get his 20th win since 1990. Back then, Clayton Kershaw was still in diapers. He's also the first Dodgers pitcher since 1946 to defeat the Giants five times in one season, and defeated two-time CyYoung winner Tim "Timmmeehhh" Lincecum in four out of four matches.

And speaking of Cy Young.... :)

You all should know that you can't spell "CLAYTON" without "CY."

The pwner of the San Francisco Giants, Clayton Kershaw.

It was also UCLA cap night, and the Militant may or may not have worn his. Despite being at the game (the turnout on Tuesday was actually fairly decent, judging by the slowness of the Dodger Stadium Express bus...), The Militant will let you all know that he still made good on his McCourt Boycott: He bought his Field Level tickets from a seller near Azucsagna who got an in with a sponsored ticket source, and got them for $15 each(!). The Militant also did not buy any food at The Stadium and took the Dodger Stadium Express bus. So Tuesday night's game by the numbers: Dodgers 2, Giants 1, Kershaw, 20-5 and Frank McCourt gets $0.00 from The Militant's wallet!

Das right...

Dreams Of Field

At approximately 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, The Militant received a voice mail from one of his operatives:

"Hey [name withheld], call me up, I got a ticket to the game today..."

The Militant knew he was talking about the Dodger game, which was a 12:10 p.m. "businessman's special" match against the Chicago Cubs. He had a few militant and extramilitant activities to do that day, but he is also all about spontaneity. So a call to the operative yielded further information.

"Dude, one of my friends got us VIP field level seats, I got an extra one. You down?"

Hmmmmmm....The Militant thought hard about this one. Although he attended Opening Day, he does want to honor his "Deport McCourt" quasi-boycott, just like nearly every other Dodger fan these days...but Field Level seats? For free? That adds to the ethical conundru....

Wait, this is a free Field Level ticket -- Okay, he was down.

After hopping on a (M) Red Line train and meeting with the operative at an undisclosed location in Chinatown, he carpooled with the operative and two of the operative's friends to The Stadium. Normally, those involved in a carpool would have to fork over a percentage of the $15 parking cost, but the person driving showed a VIP parking pass, so nothing out-of-pocket for us so far!

Upon arriving at the mostly-empty stadium (even the annual UCLA-USC games here seem to get more people...) he was also on the look out for the Dodgertown Police State, with tons of uniformed LAPD officers standing guard to avoid another Bryan Stow incident. Yes, they were present, but it wasn't like we were in Soviet Russia or anything like that.

Then we took our seats. DAYUMN.

The Militant, more accustomed to sitting in Infield Reserve, occasionally Top Deck, and once in a while Loge when he wants to spoil himself, isn't used to Field Level. He only sat in Field two or three times before, but not this close. He was three rows behind the actual field. Had he knew he would have been this close, he would have brought a glove. Seriously, because this was potential foul territory.

The vantage point of the game was radically different here. It was actually a little harder to follow, since you're nearly at level with the field, and don't have the full view of the diamond below you. Line drives towards the left field side are hard to discern, as with any base calls at third. However, double plays were awesome from here. James Loney becomes your homeboy by default. Davey Freaking Lopes was like standing right on front of you.

To add to the situation, this was a different game altogether. Most of all the team wore their baby-blue Kansas City Royals Brooklyn Dodgers (circa 1940s) throwback uniforms. And because it was a "throwback" game, the Cubs also wore their own retro threads. Likewise, the contemporary rock/hip-hop/reggaeton/merengue at-bat music was nixed altogether to simulate an old-school baseball experience. Even the "Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" performances were done as instrumentals courtesy of Nancy Bea Hefley.

The game was pretty lame anyway; Andre Streak-ier was not in the lineup, Jay Gibbons batted in the three-hole (Whaaat?) and former-former-Dodger Dioner Navarro (and not The Pride of Norwalk, Rod Barajas) was behind the plate. It's as if they planned on losing the game. On top of that there was this freaking annoying Cubs fan in the row in front of us. Arrrrrgh!

But what mitigated all that was The Prime Ticket Club. Our fancy-schmancy tickets (From a business associate of a friend of the Militant's operative) entitled us to access the exclusive bar/buffet area towards the end of the Field Level, where we could treat ourselves - for free - to a salad bar, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, hot wings, roast beef, pasta and Dodger Dogs. There was also a full-service bar (not free though) and free fountain drinks, coffee and soft-serve frozen yogurt. Like whoah. You show your ticket on the first visit, they stamp a "?" on your inner left wrist, and you've gained AYCE status for the rest of the game (Sitting in the 90-degree heat, though, left The Militant sunbaked, and multiple trips for soft serve frozen yogurt were made).

It was the free grub alone that made a 5-1 loss to the Cubs not that bad. Can you imagine if every fan in the stadium had this luxury? Stadium violence would be rendered nonexistent (Unless you're talking about a food fight...). Perhaps the team should just spend the money they're forking over for all that overkill police protection on subsidizing the stadium food (Got that, Mr. Schieffer?).

But the best part of Wednesday's game was that The Militant and the others in his group didn't have to pay a cent for the tickets, for parking nor for food. Nada. Zip. $0.00. The Militant got to take in a Dodger game and not a single cent went to the McCourt Regime! Bahahaha! Up yours, Frankie boy!

The Militant, For One, Welcomes Our New MLB Overlords

On Wednesday afternoon, the Los Angeles sports world was rocked by a virtual earthquake when Major League Baseball commish Bud Selig finally grew half of a walk and announced that the MLB be bum rushin' the Dodger organization after he had had enough of team despot Frank McCourt's recent scheme to borrow $30 million from Fox to supposedly pay off the team payroll (riiiight...). The Commish will henceforth appoint a trustee to run the day-to-day operations of the club.

Where were you when you heard the news?

The Militant was conducting some Militant research at an unspecified location in Downtown Los Angeles when an Operative mentioned the news in a text message. A loud, "WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT?!?!" was uttered by The Militant, startling those in the room. A quick check of Twitter confirmed the report. Like whoah. WHOAH.

Although the players claim "What happens in the front office, stays in the front office" and give political responses saying they are unfazed by the organization's soap opera/Greek tragedy, some eight hours after the news broke, the following things happened:

- Andre Ethier extended his consecutive hitting streak to 17 games.
- Ethier hit his 100th career home run.
- Ethier went a triple shy of Hitting For the Cycle.
- Juan Uribe also hit 3 for 4.
- Starter Jon Garland, like out of nowhere, discovered this thing called "a splitter."
- Garland pitched a complete game.
- The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 6-1. Happy Birthday Don Mattingly.

But before we dance for joy and sing, "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead," the Moammar Gadhafi of professional sports remains defiant. But on top of all this, the Internal Revenue Service is also launching their investigation of Frank and his babymama Jamie over $145 taken from the team and unpaid taxes (Whoever thought we'd see the day when we laud Bud Selig and the I.R.S. as heroes?)

Like McCourt's Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, defiance is but a futile reaction. It's now a matter of "When," rather than "If" they'll finally get to Deport McCourt.

As to who would be Selig's appointed trustee, the Militant wouldn't be surprised if the following names pop up: MLB Executive VP of Baseball Operations Joe Torre, Angeleno and former MLB commish Peter Ueberroth (who, like, ran the most successful Olympic games in history right here in 1984, baby) or former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley, who not only volunteered to run the team in the interim in the event of a sale, but is probably interested in doing some Lenten penance after handing the keys over to an unspecified Australian-owned broadcast television network back in '97.

In the meantime, time will tell whether attendance will recover from sub-30k levels and fans will return to The Ravine (there's still that whole issue of Police at The Stadium, and The Militant ain't talking about no concert in 2007...). But if you do go to the half-off throwback midday game today, please start a "BUD SE-LIG!" stadium chant for The Militant, will ya?

Yes, these are still uncertain times; The Dodger fan blood bleeds an unusual shade of blue these days. But fear not, The Militant sees better days ahead. Simply heed the enthusiastic miming of our 8th inning lip-sync star Jameson Moss: Don't Stop Believin'.

CAPTION FUN TIME!

Write or Photoshop your captions to this lively exchange between
The Despot and The Commish:

It's That Time Again...

The Militant took it upon himself (via a little Photoshop action) to cook up a parody of the Dodgers' "It's Time..." series of billboard ads for this season. This one was was a no-brainer. Feel free to download or share the full-size version here!

It's That Time Of The Year Again. In just hours, the preseason exhibition tradition known as The Freeway Series will commence - for the 49th year - where the Los Angeles Dodgers will square off against the California Anaheim Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Win or lose, it won't matter anyway since these games don't count (and neither will Wednesday's game against the Mariners). In less than 100 hours, the season becomes official with Opening Day vs. The Hated Frisco Gints (The Militant may or may not be there), which will be more like Opening Evening (Thank you ESPhuckingN). But all this just means that it's That Time Of The Year Again: The sight of freshly-cut Santa Ana Bermuda grass on the sacred Dodger Stadium field. The smell of Dodger Dogs wafting through the air. The sound of loud cheering when Andre Ethier hits the inevitable walk-off homer, or booing when Jonathan Broxton blows the inevitable save. The taste of overpriced beer and salty, greasy Gordon Biersch garlic fries. The warm-and-fuzzy feeling upon hearing Nancy Bea Hefley's organ chords swell through the Stadium's PA system for the first time this year. The unavoidable emotional rollercoaster that accompanies every winning and losing streak.

The Militant may or may not have a bad feeling about this. The proverbial eight-ton elephant in the room is the embarrassing reality show drama that is the McCourts. Dodger fans of all stripes have had enough, and they probably are as riled up as Tahir Square protesters on the streets of Cairo. Mubarak...Khadafi...McCourt. Sure has a ring to it.

Will our despot of professional sports finally be deposed? Will the Dodgers have a consistent catcher or left-fielder? Will the team even see First Place at any point this year? Will Donnie Baseball prove all the doubters wrong in his rookie managerial year? Will even Jameson Moss stop believin' at some point? So many unanswered questions.

But baseball season is just about here, Los Angeles. Here we freaking go again.