I had the pleasure of playing for Duke Snyder, Carl Erskine, and other Brooklyn Dodgers when we had our last Adult Fantasy Camp in 2008 in Florida and I am sure all of these heroes of Ebbets Field are either spinning in their graves or nodding with great disapproval over the bankrupcty of the 5 Dodger related entities yesterday.
You could see the foundation of the club crumbling in 2008 with Vero Beach and its 60 years of Dodger Spring Training being dismantled while the moniker, "Dodgertown," was being lost to the ages.
When we left, the street signs disappeared, and the names such as Koufax, Drysdale, Robinson, and the rest were gone and off to a museum at Dodger Stadium, we thought.The Dodgers were the glue that connected Los Angelenos during sweltering and smog filled summers. Dodger Stadium was the field of dreams and a place we could share quality time with our parents plastering ourselves with mustard and pickle relish as we downed those grilled Dodger Dogs, with the 7th inning Carnation frozen chocolate malt to cool us down.
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Seems now, however, that the warmth emanating from Chavez Ravine is from heated discussions about our beloved Dodgers playing in a bankruptcy court in Delaware and the club owing our icnonic Vin Skully over $150,000.00.
The real world has caught up with the boys in blue with violence in the parking lots and attendance hitting new lows. Our baseball camp was supposed to re-open in Arizona, but it has not. Our baseball team is under .500 and runs are about as rare as a street in LA without potholes. The Lakers disappointed us and the Dodgers, well they just aren't our Dodgers anymore.
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They are the fodder for bankruptcy and divorce courts and for ridicule amongst sports officianados. People are avoiding 'Blue Heaven' and the Stadium Way off-ramp for safer confines or are staying home opting to watch on the flat-screen.
What will become of our Dodgers? We will be losing our Voice next year and it seems we will not be seeing any free agents playing 'pay day roulette,' with the current ownership. Do we wait for a messiah from Dallas, or maybe AEG would want to add another sports franchise?
The Boys of Summer were the inspiration for many of us who dreamed to be in that uniform one day, running out to that finely manicured grass and making that play to end the game or hitting that . Now, it seems, that our beloved Dodgers are in a pall of financial neglect, with an indifference to a history which called the names of Reese, Snyder, Robinson, Koufax, Drysdale, and the rest. Is this life or is it fantasy?
