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Dodgers: Incompetent as Well as Unlovable

August 28th, 2008 · No Comments · Baseball, Dodgers

The Dodgers have it all goin’ on.

Not only are they underachievers. Not only are they dead from the neck up. Not only can’t they get it together in the worst division in baseball. They also are thoroughly unlikeable — as people and players.

A friend of mine (I’d use his name, but I didn’t ask permission) sent me this note even before the Dodgers’ current losing streak reached six games. This was back on Monday, when the skid was only four games.

“So, you saw the Dodgers had 13 hits and no runs?

“I am coming to loathe this Dodgers team. They embarrass themselves every single game with atrocious at-bats and boneheads plays in the field and on the basepaths. It’s hard to imagine that any team in ball plays the game as badly as they do. And they don’t seem to give a (hoot).

“Tonight, amid the usual avalanche of stupid crap they did, (James) Loney hits a looper to left field that falls in near the line, just beyond (Jimmy) Rollins’  reach. Rollins tries to pick the ball up too quickly and kicks it almost into foul territory before securing it. And while all this is happening, Loney has barely gotten around first base, because he didn’t run hard. I presume because he hadn’t hit the ball hard, apparently an insult to his easily bruised ego. He should’ve made second easy, and scored on a single by the next guy, (Russell) Martin. Instead it only got him to second base. It’s just infuriating to watch this team.”

To which I say, “Amen.”

I saw nothing of this team for the three weeks I was in China. I just know they won more than they lost for a bit there, after the Manny Ramirez trade, and now they’re playing just horrendous ball, and Manny hasn’t driven in a run since last week, and is every bit as bad in left field as advertised. They’re back to three games below .500 and are as close to the third-place Rockies as they are to the first-place Diamondbacks.

I wrote back to my friend:

“I agree completely. This team is infuriating. But I never have liked this team. Going back to last year, when I wrote a column in early September about how the clubhouse for that team was the most noxious, radioactive place I have ever been in. Any team, any sport, anywhere.

“Nobody likes each other. It’s the ultimate ’25 players, 25 cabs’ place. And to add All About Me Manny to the mix, well just great.

“I loved Jeff Kent’s audacity in taking on Vinny (Scully, in a T.J. Simers piece that appeared in the L.A. Times). Like, what a moron. ‘Vinny talks too much.’ Way to go Jeff. You’re so self-focused and dim-witted you haven’t picked up on the reality that Vin Scully is the only Dodgers employee who really matters to L.A. fans.

“And Kent isn’t even the biggest jerk in there. Not by a mile. I’d figure Manny is the new No.1, but Matt Kemp has to be right there. Massively talented, but dumb as a brick, as well as lazy. And maybe the worst base-runner in ball who’s not Vlad Guerrero. If I covered the team, I’d keep a running tally on how often Kemp has been thrown out on the basepaths. Gotta be at least a dozen times, and maybe two dozen. He is just moronically wreckless out there.

“Loney, whose dogging it you just described, actually is considered one of the good guys among the kids. But maybe the negativity of that clubhouse has turned into a malignancy on his soul, too.

“I like Russell Martin. Takashi Saito is a great guy, polite as hell, and a professional. Other than that … Chad Billingsley is OK. Brad Penny is a jerk. Derek Lowe is weird.

“Bad vibe, man. Bad vibe. And bad team.”

For those of you who missed Wednesday night’s travesty, the Dodgers gave up three unearned runs on two errors — Greg Maddux threw a ball into center field, and Jeff Kent kicked a double-play grounder — and were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position while losing to the worst team in baseball for the second straight night.

This is an awful team. Ned Colletti assembled a bunch of guys who not only are jerks, they can’t play.  It doesn’t get any worse than that. And Joe Torre, the Dodgers’ Big Offseason Acquisition, clearly can’t reach these guys because they continue to play moronic, slipshod, half-assed baseball night after night after night.

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