EDITORIAL : PLAY BALL, RUPERT; THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES, O'MALLEY.IT'S not your father's Dodgers anymore. When baseball owners overwhelmingly approved the sale of the Dodgers from Peter O'Malley
The Boys of Summer are now the Boys of Synergy. O'Malley was the last of the family owners who dominated baseball during an era before it became a business, back when you could hang your hat on order, continuity and civility in sports. In L.A. especially - a city obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with reinventing itself - knowing the O'Malley family presided over the Dodgers and Chavez Ravine for the past four decades was the one reassuring constant in an ever-changing town. At one time, baseball was dominated by family owned teams: Stoneham (Giants), Carpenter (Phillies), Wrigley (Cubs), Griffith (Senators and Twins), Fetzer (Tigers), Galbreath (Pirates) and Yawkey (Red Sox). But with the Walt Disney Noun 1. Walt Disney - United States film maker who pioneered animated cartoons and created such characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck; founded Disneyland (1901-1966) Disney, Walter Elias Disney Co. buying the Angels, Time Warner owning the Braves and the Tribune Co. controlling the Cubs, baseball has become a media event. Even the New York Yankees  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. are rumored to be headed to the world of corporate media-ball with Cablevision talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to"lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to George Steinbrenner George Michael Steinbrenner III (born July 4, 1930 in Rocky River, Ohio), often known as "The Boss", is an American billionaire businessman and the principal owner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees. . And who better than that global media mogul himself, Rupert Murdoch, to teach baseball a lesson? In a way, O'Malley's father wrote the script when he pulled the Dodgers out of Brooklyn and moved an all-star cast that included Manager Walter Alston and future Hall-of-Famers ``Pee Wee'' Reese, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax to Tinseltown. And is anyone in L.A. sad he brought the team to the West Coast? Certainly not. Murdoch and his mounds of billions will complete the transformation of baseball as a stodgy stodg·y adj. stodg·i·er, stodg·i·est 1. a. Dull, unimaginative, and commonplace. b. Prim or pompous; stuffy: national pastime into a fast-action TV event. Crowds will throng. Salaries will soar. And with Murdoch's media empire spanning the globe, the game no doubt will become a world show, an international pastime. That's the world we live in. So let's play ball - Rupert ball. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion