Dodger Fans Don’t Put Money Where Mouth Is

As far back as last week, I would have argued that Los Angeles had the most sophisticated sports fans in the country. That was before the Dodgers announced that they had again surpassed 3 million in home attendance.

Sports fans from other cities, easy marks that they are, have long mocked those here for their lack of loyalty to their professional teams, unaware that this is the very quality that makes L.A. sports fans so extraordinary. Until this Dodger season, L.A. sports fans demanded bang for their bucks.

Ask the Lakers. In the 1980s and early ‘90s, they sold out the 17,505-seat Forum almost every game. But when the Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar era ended, they lost about 2,000 fans a game--twice that in their non-playoff season of ‘93-94--until Shaquille O’Neal brought them back in ’96.

This season’s Dodgers, however, were recession-proof, selling more tickets than in all but 10 of the 41 seasons they have played here, while equaling their worst home record on the field.

To paraphrase P.T. Barnum, “There’s a Dodger fan born every minute.”

If there is a positive side to this otherwise revolting development, it is that not all the fans who bought tickets actually went to the games. There was an increasing number of empty seats at Dodger Stadium once it became apparent that the team was not a contender.

In that respect, the “attendance” the Dodgers announced actually represented tickets sold and not people in the park. So the Dodgers probably did not really draw 3 million fans. Their spokesman, Brent Shyer, said Monday that he does not have the actual number. The National League has not required teams to report the turnstile count since 1993.

Still, the Dodgers sold more than 38,115 tickets a game, which means that a lot of consumers, whether they went to the games or not, did not get what they paid for.

Kevin Malone, the Dodger general manager, insists that he will not turn the fans’ loyalty against them, under the management theory practiced by some teams that there is no reason to improve the product if people are buying it. He says the Dodgers will try to upgrade. Certainly no one can argue that the Dodgers haven’t been willing to spend money to build a winner.

But if it turns out that they are as bad next season as they were in this one, Malone should be let go and replaced by Ralph Nader.

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For the British press to compare U.S. golf

fans at the Ryder Cup to English soccer hooligans is a wee bit of an exaggeration. . . .

I mean, the Country Club at Brookline, Mass., hardly looked like Brussels’ Heysel Stadium in 1985, when 39 people were killed in rioting instigated by Liverpool soccer fans. . . .

On the other hand, U.S. players were guilty of over-exuberance on the 17th green Sunday in their celebration of Justin Leonard’s 45-foot putt. . . .

What do you think the penalty should be for that? It doesn’t come up much in golf. . . .

Maybe the marshal accompanying each foursome in the Ryder Cup should carry a penalty flag and drop it when he spots an infringement of the excessive celebration rule, like the one that USC’s Faaesea Mailo was called for violating Saturday night in the overtime loss to Oregon. . . .

If that rule had existed in this Ryder Cup, the marshal could have assessed a 15-yard penalty and made Leonard re-putt from 90 feet. Let’s see him make that one. . . .

Despite an impressive debut as a welterweight, “Sugar” Shane Mosley of Pomona still needs at least one more fight at 147 pounds before we’ll know if he’s in the same league with Felix Trinidad Jr., Oscar De La Hoya and Ike Quartey. . . .

Oba Carr, who has fought all three, seems a logical opponent for Mosley, probably in December. . . .

With De La Hoya taking off until next year, the Staples Center has canceled the boxing promotion it had scheduled Dec. 11. . .

But Bobby Goldwater, the new arena’s general manager, has an open date in March. It’s the same night as the Academy Awards. Oscar versus the Oscars, he thinks, would be a natural. . . .

Construction has progressed to the point at the Staples Center that hard hats will not be required after Thursday--unless Shaq is practicing free throws. . . .

The first rift has developed between O’Neal and Phil Jackson. Shaq has endorsed Al Gore over Jackson’s old New York Knick running mate, Bill Bradley.

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While wondering what Carson Palmer was thinking when he lowered his right shoulder at the end of a meaningless play and tried to bowl over Oregon defensive back Michael Fletcher, the answer is that he wasn’t.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].