Best of 2012: Television

There are a few glaring omissions this year on my best of television list. The truth is that I got behind on Mad Men and still haven't caught up. It's a great show and I'm sure would land in the middle of this list but I don't want to include it without having seen the full season. I know some of you are fans of Louie, Son of Anarchy and Downton Abbey but those are shows I've yet to really delve into.



10) Modern Family

Modern Family has managed to increase viewership in each of the first three seasons. After I felt the show had been resting on its laurels over the last year or so, it's been as good as ever in its fourth season.

9) The Walking Dead

Another show that's seen a dramatic rise in viewers each season is The Walking Dead. Although still not the same quality drama series it was in the first season with Frank Darabont at the helm, it has been highly entertaining over the last year since they freed the audience of the Sophia storyline. Even if the show is flawed, we still tune in every week to see how Rick and his group of survivors get out of one predicament after another.

8) Girls

Writer, creator and star Lena Dunham has been at the center of controversy since the first episode of Girls hit the air- whether it was people upset that the cast of a show about four white girls in New York wasn't diverse enough or the amount of nudity by Dunham herself. The show has silenced most critics and recently won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series. As Reggie Jackson famously said "They don't boo nobodies."

7) Community

While it seemed like NBC was actively trying to kill Community by delaying the second half of the third season then burning the last three episodes of the season on the same night, it still managed to air some of the best comedy on network television. While I concerned about the show moving forward after NBC fired its creator Dan Harmon, I'm optimistic the goal of six seasons and movie remain a possibility.

6) Veep

While Girls garnered all of the attention and awards, for my money, Veep was the best new comedy of 2012. The show's creator Armando Iannucci, the man behind the very biting political satire In The Loop, segued nicely into HBO's Veep which battles 30 Rock as the two shows with the most jokes per minute on television. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the cast that surround her as uniformly excellent.


5) Homeland

I was worried at the end of Homeland's first season that it would be impossible for the show to keep moving at such a frenetic pace. Halfway through this season it looked like there were going to be able to pull it off but then the plot became convoluted and they stretched the audience's ability to suspend disbelief. It's still highly entertaining but if it hasn't jumped the proverbial shark already, it's getting damn close.


4) Justified

Justified is the best show on television that you're not watching. Plain and simple. It was hard to top the second season which had a spectacular performance and character from Margo Martindale and Mags Bennett respectively. While the third season wasn't quite on par with that season, it did introduce another great villain and contained another 12 episodes of Raylan Givens as perhaps the coolest character on television.

3) Parks and Recreation

What makes a great series more than anything else is the characters. You can have great writing and terrific actors but without interesting characters to inhabit the fictional world, you've got nothing. Parks and Recreation is so strong each year because the characters are so well defined. It doesn't hurt that they have a terrific ensemble cast and an all star lineup of great comedy writers. What makes Parks and Recreation eclipse what has been done by so many other comedies is that you actually care what happens to these ridiculous people and they can play awkward for a laugh and not just for the sake of making their audience uncomfortable.

2) Breaking Bad

Since I watched the first three seasons of Breaking Bad in span of just over two weeks immediately before the start of the fourth season, it's hard for me to differentiate between the seasons. When a few friends told me they thought season five was the weakest of the series (which is in no way to say it was bad), it was hard for me to agree or disagree. I wish AMC had allowed the series to end with two full 13-episode seasons instead of two mini-seasons of 8 episodes each but it's so well done that I'll clearly take anything they will give me and can't wait for the final episodes starting this summer.

1) Boardwalk Empire

Placing Boardwalk Empire above Breaking Bad was the toughest decision on the list. That being said, I believe that Boardwalk Empire was the best television series of 2012. After killing off one of the show's major characters at the end of the second season, the future seemed unclear for Boardwalk Empire. However, the writers delivered a new indelible character that made the third season the best so far.


Other shows I've watched in the past year that I've enjoyed (at least somewhat):

30 Rock
Dexter
Game of Thrones
Key & Peele
The League
The Life and Times of Tim
Life's Too Short
The Office
Workaholics

Best of 2012: Albums

I'm not sure if it has more to do with the way I've consumed music over the past year but there haven't been nearly as many stand out albums this year than in past years. There were a ton of artists who released great songs but very few albums that I listened to from start to finish multiple times. After writing mini-reviews for about half of the albums I found to be much more monotonous than in previous years. So presented without justification or hyperbole, here are my 10 favorite albums from 2012.


10) The Life And Times - No One Loves You Like I Do

9) Daniel Rossen - Silent Hour/Golden Mile

8) Beach House - Bloom

7) Menomena - Moms

6) Tanlines - Mixed Emotions

5) Sea Wolf - Old World Romance

4) Geographer - Myth

3) Zeus - Busting Visions

2) Grizzly Bear - Shields

1) Twin Shadow - Confess

During my first listen to Confess shortly after it was released in July, I was pretty sure it was going to be my favorite record of the year. The entire album has a very specific and unique sound yet each song can stand on its own. As mark of most of my favorite albums, my favorite track has changed several times during my many listens but sums of its parts have stayed uniformly excellent.


Honorable Mention:

Chad Valley - Young Hunger
Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Electric Guest - Mondo
Father John Misty - Fear Fun
Grimes - Visions
Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend

Vacationer - Gone
The Weeknd - Trilogy

Yellow Ostrich - Strange Land
The 1975 - Sex EP/Facedown EP

Best of 2012: Songs

This was much more difficult than I remember it being last year. I suppose since I had to narrow down the list from the 200+ songs on my 2012 Spotify playlist and once I whittled that list down to 50 songs it became increasingly hard to pick just 30 of them. As you'll see shortly, there is a big difference between the bands who released the best songs of the year and the best albums of the year. Same rules apply that I only picked one song per band/album.


30) The Big Sleep - Ace
29) Oberhofer - oOoO
28) Daughter - Youth
27) The Life And Times - Day Nine
26) Father John Misty - Only Son of the Ladiesman
25) New Build - Medication
24) Haim - Go Slow
23) Trailer Trash Tracys - You Wish You Were Red
22) Yeasayer - Henrietta
21) Anais Mitchell - Coming Down
20) Grimes - Oblivion
19) The Samuel Jackson Five - Ten Crept In
18) Orbital - New France (feat Zola Jesus)
17) Passion Pit - I'll Be Alright
16) Yellow Ostrich - The Shakedown
15) LP - Into The Wild
14) Perfume Genius - Hood
13) Sea Wolf - Priscilla
12) Torche - Kicking
11) Grizzly Bear - Yet Again
10) Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
9) Schoolboy Q - There He Go
8) Twin Shadow - Five Seconds
7) Daniel Rossen - Saint Nothing
6) The XX - Chained
5) Tanlines - Not The Same
4) Alabama Shakes - Hold On
3) WZRD - Teleport 2 Me
2) Nada Surf - When I Was Young
1) Wye Oak - Spiral

Best of 2012: YouTube Videos

I still can't explain why I made this list last year. I'm sure there are other more comprehensive lists available online but here you go.

Top 12 Music Videos from 2012:

12) Gotye - Giving Me A Chance

11) Alabama Shakes - Hold On

10) Foals - Inhaler

9) Hot Chip - Look At Where We Are

8) Electric Guest - This Head I Hold

7) M83 - Wait

6) Menomena - Plumage

5) Ben Folds Five - Do It Anyway

4) Tanlines - Not The Same

3) The xx - Chained

2) Gotye - Easy Way Out

1) Grizzly Bear - Yet Again

Top 12 YouTube Videos from 2012:

12) Collective Soul Cat

11) Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover)

10) PETE WEBER GOD DAMMIT I DID IT WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE

9) Mister Rogers Remixed

8) A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self

7) World's Largest Rope Swing

6) Pepsi MAX & Kyrie Irving Present: "Uncle Drew"

5) Batman Chooses His Voice

4) This is SportsCenter - John Clayton

3) THE MOST AWESOME DRUNK VIDEO ON THE PLANET

2) Don Cherry's Piano Desk

1) Jon Dore Stand-Up 12/17/12 - CONAN on TBS

Here's the link to a bonus video that YouTube has taken down that's incredible.

Fifty Years of Dodger Tradition: From Clayton Kershaw to Sandy Koufax

It was fitting that the first glimpse of Clayton Kershaw most Dodgers fans saw was in the spring of 2008. It was one of only a couple games that Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully called from Vero Beach, FL in the Dodgers last season at Holman Stadium which Sandy Koufax called home for his 12 major seasons. In the top of the 4th inning with two outs, Kershaw, still ten days away from his 20th birthday, threw a curveball to Sean Casey so devastating that it buckled the knees of the veteran hitter and prompted Scully to exclaim "What a curveball! Holy mackerel! He just broke off public enemy number one." He had been blessed by Vin Scully whose smile could be heard through the microphone. Then it was the waiting game for fans. Along with the wait came the hyperbole and comparisons, or to be more accurate, the comparison.

I was not the first and certainly won't be the last to draw parallels between the careers of Dodgers current ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.

In fact, Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com wrote a piece detailing the first meeting between the two pitchers. The similarities are so numerous it's hard to know where to begin, but for the uninformed they are both left-handed starting pitchers with a similar build and great stuff who to this point spent their entire careers with the Dodgers.

Let's look at the numbers through the first 138 starts of their career, which for Koufax was until the end of the 1961 season and for Kershaw was his complete game shutout against the San Francisco Giants on Sunday afternoon.

Sandy Koufax:

• 947.1 Innings Pitched
• 54 Wins
• 53 Losses
• 37 Complete Games
• 7 Shutouts
• 3.94 ERA
• 1.37 WHIP
• 115 HR Allowed
• 501 BB
• 952 K
• 9.04 K/9
• 1.90 K/BB Ratio

Clayton Kershaw:

• 865.2 Innings Pitched
• 55 Wins
• 34 Losses
• 8 Complete Games
• 5 Shutouts
• 2.89 ERA
• 1.15 WHIP
• 57 HR Allowed
• 317 BB
• 888 K
• 9.23 K/9
• 2.80 K/BB Ratio

It wouldn't be an asinine statement to say that to this point in their careers, Kershaw has outperformed Koufax. Their ages were also very similar to this point with Koufax turning 26 after the 1961 season while Kershaw will turn 25 just before the start of the 2013 season.

However, the reason there is a plaque in Cooperstown, NY for Sanford "Sandy" Koufax is because of the subsequent five seasons and the 176 starts therein. Over that span, Koufax won the Major League Cy Young three times, won the Major League Triple Crown three times, threw 4 no-hitters including a perfect game and put up the following numbers: 111 wins to just 34 losses, 1377 innings pitched, 100 complete games including 33 shutouts, 1.96 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 316 BB, 1444 K (4.57 K/BB ratio).

In the World Series, Koufax sported a 0.95 ERA with a record of 4-3 including two wins in 1963 against the rival New York Yankees which resulted in a sweep. This was the second World Series title over the Bronx Bombers in eight meetings between the two teams. After game one of the 1963 World Series, the ever quotable Yogi Berra said of Koufax who went 25-5 in the regular season "I can see how he won twenty-five games. What I don't understand is how he lost five."

After I was halfway through writing this I found an article on Bleacher Report by Richard Leivenberg which is similar to what I was writing. It's definitely worth a read but I decided to go ahead with my own comparison piece since I was taking a more in-depth look at the numbers. However, his piece included a very interesting poll question which asked "Who would you rather have at this stage of their career, Kershaw or Koufax?". I'm not sure if the question implies the reader knowing that Koufax would go on to have a historic five year run and also have his career cut short by injury. Either way it's an interesting question and there is no wrong answer, which speaks volumes about what Kershaw has been able to do through this point in his career.

Obviously Kershaw won't be able to touch Koufax in the categories of complete games or shutouts and matching the ERA of 1.90 for five combined seasons in today's game seems unfathomable, but if he continues to improve upon the impressive foundation he has laid thus far, it wouldn't be far fetched to imagine that twenty years from now Clayton and Sandy could meet again- only this time in Upstate New York.

The Hunt for a Bloody November

"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw


The presidential election is still almost four months away but judging from the media coverage and posts on various social networks, you'd think it was just weeks away.


The idiom that one should never discuss politics, sex and religion among polite company clearly doesn't apply when referring to the internet. One thing is certain; the internet has made the world smaller. What is unclear is if that has created more hatred, divisiveness and bigotry or just made it more visible. The most rational explanation is that it is a little bit of both. There are those who are always seeing red on the other side of the aisle and are now emboldened by the anonymity of the web. You may not say anything to your coworker who mentions who they are voting for over fear of a face-to-face confrontation but it's easy to cast stones from behind a keyboard.


The lack of decorum from the online journalism community is especially shocking to those who are used to objective reporting. When Ted Kennedy died in 2009, writer and self described "Reagan conservative" Andrew Breitbart took to twitter with some choice words about the long time U.S. Senator. So it wasn't a complete surprise that when Andrew Breitbart died of a heart attack earlier this year, several left leaning journalists didn't hesitate to write some disparaging things of their own. Within hours of Breitbart's passing, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone had posted an article titled 'Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche' that spread around the internet like wildfire.


Of course both Breitbart and Taibbi are protected under the 1st Amendment to state whatever they think of any person but by spewing such vitriol they are just adding fuel to a fire that needs no more accelerant. I'm all for a spirited debate and have been known to engage in a few myself but there is a time and place which is probably not 2AM on your friend's Facebook wall.

I posted the above status update earlier today and received mostly positive feedback but lost two Facebook "friends" within a few hours.


Sadly, the quote at the top from George Bernard Shaw is accurate and the reason we see such little change in politics or the world in general is because most people aren't open to change. So I'll close this out by reminding you to think for a second before you send out your next politically charged tweet, YouTube comment or Facebook update and ask yourself if you have the right audience, the right intentions or if it might upset someone you consider a friend.

See Spotify Run

On a Satuday afternoon in January I went out to lunch with a few of my closest friends while their wives and girlfriend were at a baby shower. In between sips of beer, we started talking about new music and I mentioned how much I liked Spotify. In fact, I said the following sentence that I instantly regretted; "If you don't have Spotify, then you don't truly like music." That statement was met with understandable disagreement but to be honest with you, I think it's true.

I realize Spotify is already quite popular and writing this almost feels like saying "I'm telling you guys, personal computers are the wave of the future!", but I feel so strongly about Spotify that I have to spread the word. If you're reading this, it's safe to say that you probably own a computer or use someone's computer on a regular basis. Good, because that's pretty much all you're going to need.

Now, I can really only speak to you as a premium Spotify subscriber because I only had the free version for about two days before realizing that I needed to have this on my iPhone and have it commercial-free (two perks of paying for the premium subscription). They've figured out the perfect price point for the premium subscription, which is currently $9.99 a month, because it feels like a bargain but if it were to increase I'm sure they'd lose some customers. Let's hope they learned from the mistake Netflix made with Qwikster.

The comedian Arj Barker had a very funny bit about why anyone would need an iPod with enough memory to store music that it would take 3 weeks to listen to every song. Well, according to a Spotify it would take over 100 years to listen to every song in their catalogue and I believe it. Every week there are probably a dozen or more new albums released that I get to check out to see if something jumps out at me.

My playlist for the best songs from 2011 has well over 200 songs by 200 different artists. My playlist I am currently building for my favorite songs from albums released this year already has songs from 120 different bands which is one of the reasons why whenever someone tells me "They just don't make good music anymore", I get unreasonably upset.




There has been a lot of debate about how to monetize music. It was again the topic of conversation this week because of an NPR blog post from a 21 year old intern who bragged about having 11,000 songs in her iTunes library while only having paid for 15 CDs in her lifetime. I won't get into a lengthy debate about the ethics of buying music but I believe an artist should be compensated for their work in a way no different from any other profession. I've spent thousands of dollars on iTunes, owned about 1,000 CDs, started a nice vinyl collection over the past couple years and paid for well over 100 concerts. I haven't procured any music in an illegal or unethical way since I started using Spotify.

I'll leave it to Sean Parker (founder of Napster and majority investor of Spotify) to say that Spotify is the future of music. However, a service that offers a both a desktop and mobile version as well as a pay subscription and plays advertisements for users who opt for the free version seems like it might be close. While the business model isn't perfect and there is still some controversy about whether all artists are compensated fairly, the artists are receiving money and are getting exposure to fans that might pay to see them, buy a t-shirt or get their album on vinyl.

If you still aren't using Spotify, I won't say you don't like music (not to your face anyway) but I will encourage you to give it a chance.

My Movie To-Do List

I'm pretty certain I'm not the only one who does this; your friend, coworker or family member brings up a movie that's near and dear to their heart so instead of telling them you missed that one when it was in theaters you simply nod in agreement while trying to change the subject fast enough that they never notice.

I consider myself somewhat of a film buff and have seen an average of 50 movies a year for the last 15 years but that doesn't mean I've seen everything. In fact, in looking over the list of the top 100 film at the domestic box office all-time, I've missed 36 of them. There are many, many of those movies I don't like to admit I've never seen and some which are more embarrassing omissions than others. I decided to compile a list of the films on the AFI Top 100 and the IMDb Top 250 that I've never seen. I will make it my goal to see at least one of these movies a week for the next year and I will update the list to cross off the movie I've seen.

AFI Top 100:
Singin' in the Rain*
Gone With The Wind*
Lawrence of Arabia*
City Lights*
The Searchers
Sunset Blvd.*
The Graduate
The General*
On The Waterfront*
The Grapes of Wrath*
High Noon*
All About Eve*
Annie Hall*
The Bride on the River Kwai*
The Best Years of Our Lives*
The Sound of Music
Midnight Cowboy
The Philadelphia Story
Shane
It Happened One Night*
A Streetcar Named Desire
Intolerance
M*A*S*H
The Gold Rush*
Nashville
Sullivan's Travels
Cabaret
The African Queen
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid*
In The Heat of the Night
All the President's Men
Modern Times*
The Wild Bunch*
The Apartment*
Spartacus
Sunrise*
A Night at the Opera
12 Angry Men*
Bringing Up Baby
Swingtime
Sophie's Choice
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Ben-Hur*

IMDb Top 250:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Seven Samurai
Once Upon a Time in the West
M
Paths of Glory
The Pianist
Amelie
The Lives of Others
Aliens
Das Boot
A Separation
Cinema Paradiso
The Great Dictator
Bicycle Thieves
Amadeus
Metropolis
Old Boy
Unforgiven
The Sting
The Untouchables
Downfall
Die Hard
Grave of the Fireflies
The Seventh Seal
The Elephant Man
The Great Escape
Yojimbo
Rebecca
Witness for the Prosecution
For a Few Dollars More
Ran
Wild Strawberries
Ikiru
Cool Hand Luke
Strangers on a Train
The Kid
The Wages of Fear
The Secret in Their Eyes
Donnie Darko
The Thing
Notorious
Diabolique
Life of Brian
My Neighbor Totoro
Amores Perros
How to Train Your Dragon
The Terminator
Judgement at Nuremberg
The Manchurian Candidate
The 400 Blows
The Night of the Hunter
Mary and Max
Harakiri
Gandhi
Persona
The Battle of Algiers
The Killing
8½
La Strada
The Hustler
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Howl's Moving Castle
Sherlock Jr.
Ratatouille
Fanny and Alexander
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Stalag 17
Barry Lyndon
Night of Cabiria
All Quiet on the Western Front
Infernal Affairs
Rope
Roman Holiday
Tokyo Story
Ip Man
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
High and Low
Come and See
Stalker
Rosemary's Baby
The Celebration
Let the Right One In
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Anatomy of a Murder
Throne of Blood
In the Mood for Love
La Haine
3 Idiots


(* means the film appears on both the AFI Top 100 and the IMDb Top 250)

Most Anticipated Films of 2012

We're four months in the year so I'm probably a bit behind schedule in posting the movies I'm most looking forward to but let's be honest; There's generally not much released early in the year that any true movie fans await with baited breath. That's not to say there haven't been any good movies. Friends With Kids, The Grey and Jeff, Who Lives At Home were all very good with a chance of making my list for the best of the year and 21 Jump Street was very funny. During the last two weeks, I saw both The Cabin in the Woods and The Raid: Redemption which were both great. However, my other trips to the theater (The Hunger Games, Chronicle, John Carter, The Lorax) haven't been nearly as enjoyable.

This year has potential to be a very good year for movies considering that I had to leave off The Dictator, Lawless, Looper and few others that could be very good.


10) The Avengers
Release date: May 4
To be honest, I had a bad feeling this movie was going to be less like Iron Man and more like Captain America but the early reviews are fantastic. It won't be the first blockbuster of 2012 because of the nearly $400 million that The Hunger Games has pulled in but it has a chance to be much better and even bigger.

9) The Bourne Legacy
Release date: August 3
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy who wrote the first three films in the Bourne saga and whose directoral debut was the criminally overlooked Michael Clayton is enough for me to get excited. The trailer looks phenomenal and I believe Jeremy Renner will be great as the lead in this film.

8) Lincoln
Release date: December
Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg. Need I say more?

7) Skyfall
Release date: November 9
Don't yell at me when I tell you I've never seen a Bond film that didn't star either Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. Hey! I said don't yell. I was thirteen years old when Brosnan took over as 007 and haven't gotten around to watching the Roger Moore or Sean Connery versions. That being said, I prefer Daniel Craig to Pierce and am quite excited about Skyfall.

6) Moonrise Kingdom
Release date: May 16
When watching the trailer for Moonrise Kingdom, there's no mistaking that it's a Wes Anderson film. He's back with old favorites Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray alongside Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand. It's a great cast and could be Wes Anderson's best work since The Royal Tenebaums.

5) The Campaign
Release date: August 10
You could make the argument that there are no better comedic actors working today than Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis and many people would probably agree. So the idea of them playing rival politicians in a film directed by Jay Roach should make for great entertainment.

4) Prometheus
Release date: June 8
After attending a world premiere of the trailer with director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Damon Lindelof, Prometheus has quickly become one of my most anticipated science-fiction adventure movies ever. Terrific cast and great pedigree of writer and director make this an almost can't miss film.

3) The Master
Release date: October 12
Two of the top three spots are reserved for writer-directors who have made some of the most interesting and compelling films of the last twenty years. The Master is reportedly Paul Thomas Anderson's loose interpretation of the start of Scientology staring Phillip Seymour Hoffman as an L. Ron Hubbard type character. I can't wait.

2) Django Unchained
Release date: December 25
Quentin Tarantino's latest effort about a slave turned bounty hunter rescuing his wife from a Mississippi plantation sounds extremely promising. The cast includes Tarantino veterans Kurt Russell and Christoph Waltz along side Walton Goggins, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx as the titular character. Those who have read the script say it might be the best script Tarantino has ever written which is very high praise.

1) The Dark Knight Rises
Release date: July 20
Although I have some concerns about the catwoman character being played by Anne Hathaway, I'm willing to give director Christopher Nolan the benefit of the doubt. After watching the riveting opening scene on IMAX last December, I was already chomping at the bit to see Tom Hardy's full performance as the new villain Bane. However, after the new trailer was released earlier today it has now become my most anticipated movie of the year.

An Open Letter to Bud Selig

Office of the Commissioner of Baseball

Allan H. Selig, Commissioner

245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor

New York, NY 10167

Ph: 212-931-7800

Dear Allan,

Is Allan to formal? Does anyone even call you Allan?

Dear Bud,

As you well know, ever since Frank McCourt purchased the Dodgers in 2004 there have been problems. In fact, to say that he purchased the team is somewhat of a misnomer because he never had the money for the team. Don't get me wrong, I know that in today's world even the ultra rich, the owner of a sports franchise, doesn't just sign a check and write the GNP for Liberia in the amount.

Frank McCourt was asked to sell the team by your office but I'd like to think that it was in part thanks to the efforts of fans who had it up to here (I forgot you can't see me- but I'm standing on my chair with my hand close to the ceiling) with the deception of this 21st century carpetbagger. Below is a picture of a meager crowd on hand at Dodger Stadium on a Saturday in the middle of the season.

Finally, some good news!

After a long and arduous process including a very messy and very public divorce it looks like the team is being sold. Based on the reports that surfaced last night, it appears the group headed by Stan Kasten, Mark Walter and Ervin 'Magic' Johnson are just a formality away from being the new owners of an iconic sports franchise. Frank McCourt is to no longer be a thorn in the side of Angelinos and baseball fans alike.

So, what's this I hear about the new ownership group prepared to pay $2,000,000,000 (yes, that's two billion American dollars) but it won't include the land? Why would anyone spend billions of dollars on a team without owning the property?

Knowing that there was light at the end of the tunnel, I ended my two year boycott of the team and bought a Dodgers ticket package with the knowledge I wouldn't be supporting Frank McCourt and regime that nearly drove a proud franchise into the ground. Please don't let Frank McCourt have any involvement with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chavez Ravine. If there's any chance that Frank McCourt stands to profit one penny from the pricey $15 per vehicle parking at Dodger Stadium then you can be assured I'll find alternative plans that might include attending fewer games if it becomes a hassle.

For fans of the team that are looking to avoid paying for parking that could possibly benefit Frank McCourt, I urge you to write or call the Office of Commissioner of Baseball, park outside the stadium and/or take the Metro.

http://www.metro.net/around/dodger-stadium-express/

Sincerely,
Nolan Walker
Loyal Dodgers fan since 1982


CC: Ervin Johnson, Stan Kasten, Mark Walter, et al

**** UPDATE ****

As reported late last night in this article from Ramona Shelburne at ESPNLosAngeles.com it appears the Frank McCourt will not be able to profit from parking revenue. I'd rather that McCourt no longer be affiliated with the team in any way but this looks close enough for me.