TMZ obtained the termination letter mailed to Jamie from the Dodgers, and it ain't pretty. It alleges, among other things, that Miss McCourt was an insubordinate employee who regularly behaved inappropriately.Here's the gist:

"Dear Jamie — This is to inform you that your employment with and positions as Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairperson of Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, as well as any and all of the positions that you hold ... are hereby terminated effective immediately.

"Because your employment is held at-will, the Organization is not required to have cause to terminate your employment and may do so for any reason or no reason at all.

However, your actions, including, but not limited to, your insubordination, non-responsiveness, failure to follow procedures, and inappropriate behavior with regard to a direct subordinate, have made this decision necessary."

You can read the entire letter here (warning: .pdf file alert). Mr. McCourt also reportedly locked Jamie out of her office, which wasn't very nice. I suggest she gains access to her office via the venting system and force the Dodgers to sweat her out, a la Costanza at Play Now.

But what could have been the motivation to send such a cold, impersonal letter? Thankfully, the Los Angeles Times somehow amazingly managed to find someone within the legal community with with time to answer such a question.

"It could be one of two reasons," Waterstone said. "One could be emotions that have nothing to do with legal issues."

The other, he said, could be an anticipation that Jamie McCourt might argue she had an oral contract, a reasonable expectation that a husband and wife working together and presenting themselves as the top executives of the club would not have a written contract between them.

"He's moving the first chess piece to respond to that," Waterstone said.

Frank McCourt claims he is the sole owner of the Dodgers. If Jamie McCourt can establish in court that she is a co-owner of the team and not an employee, Waterstone said, then issues surrounding when and how an employer can fire an employee might not be relevant.

You know, I was always pulling for this notable power couple. If two self-absorbed, insanely-wealthy people can't make it work, what hope do any of us regular folks have? Any way you slice it, I suspect the nastiness is only beginning. All I really want to know is: who gets custody of Manny? Help us, Judge Wapner, you're our only hope.

Dodgers Owner — Cold as Ice [TMZ]
Frank McCourt claims wife Jamie's behavior was insubordinate, inappropriate [Los Angeles Times]

I know I'm not the first to point this out about mid-October, but this has to be one the best weekends of the year for sports. Two baseball playoff series, a full slate of college and NFL football, there's got to be an NHL game on somewhere and tonight is Midnight Madness. Even fake NBA can be had for the right price! There is literally something for everyone. Unless you like golf. That's why Zeus invented the Wii.

* * * * *

Anyway, this week is #over. How are those hash tags working out for everyone? Not using them at all, you say? Fair enough. Most of the kinks should be worked out by early next week, so do try to play around with it this weekend. Remember, use the big box on the front page to start new threads and yammer about whatever the hell you want. May I suggest #prayforfrog to get you started?

I have no idea who your weekend hosts are. Raise your hand if it's you! Otherwise just trust in the internet to provide you with one. It always does.

Sure you do:

To put this in terms Los Angelenos can comprehend, it's Bloods vs. the Crips.

We're red, the Bloods. The Dodgers are blue, the Crips.

An explanation for Philadelphians: The Crips and the Bloods are two mammoth street gangs born in L.A. The Crips, whose signature color is blue, are larger, with an estimated 30,000-35,000 members. Bloods, clad in red, are fewer, but are more violent. Both have branches throughout the U.S. and are composed of cold, conscienceless criminals who deal drugs and have lots of tattoos. They're like Hells Angels without wheels.

An editor here - yes, we do have them, and yes, I do speak with (a few of) them - cautioned me not to make light of street gangs. We know almost all gangbangers are ticketed for an early grave or a cozy jail cell. They're gangbangers when they're young, grocery baggers when they're old because they have no useful trade.

He calls the Dodger Crips "a bunch of Porsche-driving, starlet-chasing, cocaine-sniffing, surfboard-waxing, Armani-wearing, spritzer-drinking, sunshine-soaking, tofu-eating, leg-hair-waxing, sunglasses-wearing weinies [sic]," at which point the column suddenly becomes a bizarre mashup of Boyz n the Hood, Less Than Zero and Gidget. It goes on in this vein for a few hundred words, several of them fully capitalized. If you were to squint and cock your head, the column would begin to look like the sort of thing you could reproduce if you opened up Microsoft Word and slammed your head repeatedly on the keyboard.

As for the sentiment itself, well, it's trying very hard to be offensive, and the most offensive thing about it is that it fails so miserably. There's an old tradition in sportswriting whereby the local newspaper boys would do a little Don Rickles riff on the opponent's city in advance of a big game or series. Jim Murray wrote this stuff better than anyone. He called Long Beach "the seaport of Iowa...a city which, rumor has it, was settled by a slow leak in Des Moines." He said of Cincinnati: "They still haven't finished the freeway outside the ballpark...it's Kentucky's turn to use the cement mixer." Baltimore, he wrote, was "a guy just standing on a corner with no place to go and rain dripping off his hat" and "a great place if you're a crab."

There's an art to the civic-insult column. It was an honorable tradition, once. Today, we get a guy who treats his column like a lengthy YouTube comment and can't even keep his boring L.A. stereotypes straight. Lame.

Stu: Phils-Dodgers as a gang war [Philly.com]

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#Thanks #for #your #continued #support #of #Deadspin. A reminder: If your posts aren't showing up on the hashtag page, make sure you're using the big comment box at the top of the front page. Leaving it in the comments of a post won't work. Barry P. will be here soon. And don't forget to wish Dash a happy birthday. Also, this just in: Balloon boy lives! Today ... we are all balloon boy.

There are some other differences from the Red Sox sisters' fight. For example, this time it's pretty clear who's escalating things. (Hint: In these situations, it's always the person who won't turn around.) And the boyfriend really just wants to watch the game, as his mortification seems to overwhelm his protective instincts.

While the climax of this battle can't top the Tasering of a Sox fan, this woman being pushed/falling down the stairs does wrap things up pretty nicely before security arrives.

And how about Angelenos, putting the lie to misconceptions of their passion as fans? I suppose the Laker riots gave us a taste of what gracious winners they can be.

No, not the hate crime bill. Over there in the corner. (Click to enlarge.) It seems someone on the Washington Post web staff—who may or may not be a fan of The Wilbon—jumped the gun on the Cards-Dodgers final last night. I mean, there was pretty much no way for the Cards to lose that one. No way at all. Unless....

It's no Dewey defeats Line Drive, but I'm guessing Matt Holliday will probably want to stay hidden under the covers this morning.

[Photo grabbed by reader "Boon Doggle"]

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So they're tearing down Giants Stadium and Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about it. Why didn't anyone ever write a song about the Kingdome?

ALDS
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim over Boston Red Sox in five.
New York Yankees over Minnesota Twins in four.

NLDS
Philadelphia Phillies over Colorado Rockies in four.
Los Angeles Dodgers over St. Louis Cardinals in five.

LCS
New York Yankees over Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in six.
Los Angeles Dodgers over Philadelphia Phillies in six.

World Series
New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers in seven.

Until the Dodgers did right by the denizens of eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kentucky by sweeping the Chicago Cubs out of the playoffs last season, the franchise, one of baseball's signature pieces of china, had not won a postseason series in 20 years, when Kirk Gibson was limping around the bases and Jack Buck's eyes were making him incredulous. This was so long ago that Dennis Miller, long-haired, sane and sufferable back then, in the anchor's desk at "Saturday Night Live," made a joke about it on the air five minutes after it happened. This is a very long time.

Los Angeles has been through a lot since then, race riots, O.J., mudslides, blackouts, David Lynch giving weather reports on the radio, Kobe, but they've never quite had the Dodgers at the center of the conversation the way they supposed they always should be. The Dodgers have been Vin Scully, plodding away alone every night like a national treasure encased in a snow globe, and they have been derivative would-be Lakers. The team never really adjusted, never really came down from the Gibson-Tommy Lasorda Dodgers, and they moped around with would-be replacements, your Jim Tracys, your Grady Littles, a brief flirtation with a by-then-obviously-crazy Davey Johnson. This team played Eric Karros at first base for 10 years. Eric Karros is a fine player, but if he is your signature attraction, your beacon in the storm, one can argue that you have chosen to have no soul at all. One can argue that you are killing time.

The Dodgers realized around 2004 that it was time to rip out the guts and start over, and they turned in a direction that couldn't possibly have fit in with their inherent character, hiring "Moneyball" cast member Paul DePodesta — the nerd, the Demitri Martin — to remake the team in Billy Beane's image. DePodesta made a few mistakes, the "fuck off you better believe I'm in charge" Brad Penny trade, and never understood that even though he had been asked to reinvent Think Blue, he hadn't, not really. He thought he was Conan O'Brien; the Dodgers secretly wanted Bob Hope; he turned out to be "Late World With Zach Galifianakis" on VH-1, ahead of his time, sure, but still unwilling to bend enough to understand what he'd been hired to do in the first place. He was born to be a doomed folk hero, a sitcom a small number of fans are rabid about but one that inspires most of us to shrug our shoulders and wonder what all the fuss was about. The best thing one can say about Paul "Google Boy" DePodesta is that his tale was the first time smart people picked up their paper and realized, "Hey ... Bill Plaschke is an idiot. I had no idea."

What DePodesta really did, though, was pave the way for Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez, the guy who made the Dodgers realize their true personality is like its city itself: Transplants tired of the anger planet elsewhere, heading to the sunshine and the convertibles and they "hey, man, will you read my screenplay?" All the gorgeous vacancy of Los Angeles that makes the rest of us despise the place while understanding, deep down, that we'd all be happier, probably, if we lived there. Torre gave the Dodgers class, Ramirez gave them drama and spectacle, and, ta-da, the Dodgers were the Dodgers again. Hell, Kirk Gibson's really a Tiger, deep down. The Dodgers are happy to take your disgruntled and tired, give them a tan and polish 'em up.

The ultimate irony of the Dodgers' success this year is that they're based in the principles DePodesta championed, and was run out of town for: This team gets on base like crazy. The lineup didn't turn out to be as deep in 2009 as everyone had been hoping — Russell Martin fell off a cliff, and we shouldn't have expected all that much from Rafael Furcal in the first place — but it is relentless, sort of a Yankees lite, like Torre now, really, hanging around, hanging in, looking up and saying, "hey, doggone it, look at that, we ended up here again." The rotation succeeds because of the bullpen; you just have to hang on, Wolf, Billingsley, Kershaw, and the geniuses at the end will take care of the rest. The Dodgers are not exciting, and if if weren't for Manny, they'd be a bunch of blandly efficient gods chugging to first base, waiting for you to figure out which one is Ethier and which one is Kemp and which one is Loney. Everyone will talk about Manny all October, but he's a name, not a number. You get a sense that no one in the clubhouse dislikes him, but no one talks to him much either.

Amusingly enough, the Dodgers have become a hot "overrated" pick this postseason, reminding people of the Cubs of last year, proficient in all ways and excellent in none, coasting on a stressless regular season with a foundation easily cracked in October. I am not so sure. The Dodgers are a young team disguised as one making a last lap around the track. They lull you into submission. You feel confident, you see Randy Wolf, you pshaw and then you look up and you're down 5-3 in the seventh, and when that happens against the Dodgers, in their stadium (where they won 50 games this year), you've already lost. Sleep on the Dodgers at their peril. They still haven't figured out a personality outside of interchangeable kids and transplants, but isn't that what Los Angeles has always been about anyway? Forget about it, Jack. It's Mannywood.

The Dodgers kept things interesting down the stretch in the NL West with an untimely five-game losing streak. However all that is forgotten after last night's division clinching 5-0 win over Colorado. That leaves the Rockies as the NL Wild Card, meaning they'll begin the playoffs in Philadelphia on Wednesday. The Dodgers will travel to host St. Louis in the other NLDS series.

With one day left in the regular season the Minnesota Twins have pulled even with the reeling Detroit Tigers in the AL Central. In somewhat related news, Miggy Cabrera may or may not have engaged in a scuffle with a large dog. Also he went 0-4 in last night's most recent loss. The Tigers have Justin Verlander on the mound this afternoon going against John Danks and the White Sox.

Michael Cuddyer's 8th inning home run lifted the Twins to another crucial win. They'll face the Kansas City Royals about an hour after the Tigers and Sox take the field. If the teams can't break their tie they'll meet for a single game to determine who wins the division and moves on to the playoffs.

Because holy shit, baseball season isn't long enough as it is.

Perry will be there at Dodger Stadium when the Giants come to down this weekend, and he plans to leave before the eighth inning. Yes, I know, so will everyone else, but he's got a different reason: he "cannot stand the fact that the Dodgers 'hijacked it first' and use it to win games."

Though he gets royalties every time the Dodgers play his song over the PA system, it feels like his 30 pieces of silver:

It tweaks me to know they're using the song as a rally song. I really wish we'd have hijacked it first. I think the song is about hope and power, and it's working for them, damn it."

Look, I know it's been a long season, and L.A. and the Bay Area don't have a single decent football team between them, but that's no reason to resort to what-does-Steve-Perry-think-about-baseball stories.

Perry's 8th-Inning Journey [SF Chronicle]

Elision fields: Dodger Stadium is the bright, happy face of just about every regrettable development in mid-20th century American life, and none of them had anything to do with poor Doris Kearns Goodwin not being able to go to Ebbets with her daddy anymore.

The Brooklyn Dodgers blew town for Los Angeles in 1957, a sort of white flight on a grand scale and a move so widely and extravagantly mourned that even now New York developers can still sell a large public boondoggle on all that old Dodger necrophilia. The team's new stadium in Los Angeles would be located on a tract of some 350 acres in Chavez Ravine. The land had been earmarked for a public housing project, Elysian Park Heights, but had become newly available because a red-baiting empty suit named Norris Poulson had successfully demagogued the project — and the issue of "socialist housing" in general — straight into the mayoralty. A neighborhood was razed. In 1958, one of the last remaining residents, Aurora Vargas, was carried from her house by sheriff's deputies. The bulldozers arrived just minutes later.

The stadium itself was also a product of its time: a monument to car culture (parking for 16,000 cars against 700 in Flatbush); an ode to consumerism and distraction (Walter O'Malley's original plans included an auto service center, car washes, restaurants, and novelty and souvenir shops); and in general a rebuke to squalid urban living (Disneyland was a model for O'Malley, and in 1982 Forbes wrote: "Dodger Stadium is squeaky clean, beautifully landscaped and rests in a striking setting. As at Disneyland, Dodger Stadium attendants — even in the parking lot — are civil. The bathrooms are clean and safe.") And as with Disneyland, it was thoroughly phony. At the first batting practice in Dodger Stadium, players were said to marvel at the ballpark's deep green grass, but soon they noticed that the baseballs, too, were turning green. It was dye. Groundskeepers had coated the turf the night prior, at the suggestion of Mervyn LeRoy, the movie director.

The place was built on the fever dreams of an era — red-baiting, xenophobia, rapid suburbanization, frisky consumerism — like one big Douglas Sirk movie of a ballpark. Today, you can drive to Dodger Stadium, onetime bulwark against the pinkos, and park your car on the site of Aurora Vargas' former home.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd):

Word of caution: These may strike readers as casually racist. I've included them because, well, just about all the Dodger Stadium submissions were casually racist.

The incomparable Frank Drebin once said being in prison was like being in the stands at a Raiders game. Well the outfield bleachers at Dodger Stadium were where Traitors fans used to spend their summers. Rowdy fans sporting area code tattoos on their shaved heads, six dollars seats and lots of beer always made for an adventure on a hot summer day or night. While it was a thing of beauty to see the entire Left Field Pavilion flip off Barry Bonds in unison, things could turn ugly very quickly. Fights were the norm and wearing a Giants jersey could get you shanked Oz style outside the stadium. You always had to keep your head on a swivel in the pavilion. My particular moment came exactly one inning before the greatest World Series homerun ever. As an eight year old kid I was ecstatic to be at the World Series until two drunks picked a fight with an A's fan. The A's fan ended up losing when the two drunks picked him up and threw him three rows down. He landed square on my back and I face planted into the seat in front of me. Fortunately I was a big and sturdy eight year old (read: model for the Husky Juniors catalog) and having a 200 pound man thrown on top of me only busted my upper lip open. So as Kirk Gibson pumped his fists and rounded the bases I held an icepack on my swollen lip and tried not to cry. (Pieper)

Four years ago I'm sitting with three buddies in the bad section. The games a real snoozer. A dude that looks like Frog from "Colors" and his friend who looks like he ate Frog from "Colors" are relentlessly screaming at us for nine innings of 1-1 baseball. Finally, Derrek Lee hits a go-ahead RBI in the 10th to win, 2-1. As we're leaving, Frog yells at me "What's up Cubs faggot! It took you 10 innings to score two runs!" After I pointed out that the Dodgers only scored 1 run in ten innings he responded with "At least we didn't draft a running back from Texas!" Knowing he was referring to the newly acquired Cedric Benson, I informed this gentleman that his beloved Los Angeles did not have a football team. He responded by pretending to shoot me with a finger gun. (Ike B.)

If you are a fan of the opposing team your chances of making it out alive from the cheap(er) seats are dramatically reduced equal to the amount of gear you happen to be wearing of the visiting team. I don't mean this in a friendly rivalry type of way. The vast amounts of gangsta type individuals are more concerned with berating the shit out of you and keeping their beloved beach balls from drifting over the section than caring even for a second with the going ons of the game on the field. For too many people, Dodger stadium is only ostensibly about the baseball game. In reality the dumb beach balls and chances to find fights are the real draw. Easily the most dangerous ballpark in the country. I went to the clinching game for the Mets in the 2006 NLDS and I survived only after leaving the upper section and huddling with other Mets fans and a few burly security guards. (Sebastian H.)

A few years ago, when Dodger Stadium wasn't as "family friendly" as today, the ball comes out and is played with until a fat bald dude with a fu manchu snatches the damn thing and pops it, laughing at those around him. I was secretly and silently applauding him, but I knew shit was gonna hit the fan when stupid Dodger fans come into play. First people start teasing the guy and throwing peanuts and ice cubes. Two guys a few rows up from Bull Hurley continue to taunt him and the argument escalates. On this given night, the organization provided fans with wooden mini bat replicas. Bad idea.....one of the two Ben Davis wearing clowns releases a beast of a loogie onto Bull who retaliates by swinging his bat at them. The other guys exchange bat swings with him and get the upper hand, though no serious blows were registered by either side.

Amazingly, only one of the Mexican Mafia guys was taken away by security. The other dude remained slumped on his seat the rest of the game while Bull had to tend to some bruises. It was a fun site, especially seeing all the people in the surrounding seats part like the Red Sea towards my direction when the bats started flying. (Nato)

I was 16 years old at Dodger Stadium with a buddy of mine from High School. We were sitting in the right field pavilion. Early on in the game a guy gets up to go the bathroom and asks if I'll watch his stuff (a bag, jacket, Dodger gear, etc). I say sure and proceed to kind of forget about it until a middle aged cholo walks over, grabs the stuff and begins to walk away. I stop him and tell him that that the stuff he's taking aint his and to put it back. He looks at me for a moment and asks me what the fuck do I care, I tell him that Im watching it for someone else and to put it back. He does so, and walks away.

About 5 minutes later he yells to me from a few rows up "Hey!....look out for your own...remember that...look out for your own". I absent mindedly nod and try to watch the Dodgers play the Cubs. Then, for the next two innings he yells anti-semetic slurs at me while his other forty something year old Vato Loco homies laugh. Evidently he saw that I had a Star of David Around my neck (nevermind that I grew up in North East L.A with mostly "his own"). In that same game, and in most games I attend at Dodger Stadium there were fist-fights inside and outside the stadium between various tatted up pelons, and lots of shouts of "faggot!' and "Bitch!" directed at anyone, man, woman or child dressed in the opposing teams gear. Most Dodger fans are cool, and way more knowledgeable than annoying East Coast douche-bags in tight jeans would ever want to admit, but there is a shittily pervasive criminal element that gives us Dodger fans a thugged out reputation. (Lex)

This is too easy, Dodger Stadium. When I was in high school, my family took a trip out west. We're a NY-area family, so there's always been interest in the Dodgers in the bloodlines. I'm a big baseball fan, and was very excited to take in a game with my pops. However, as soon as we got there, which was about 20 minutes early, we did the walk around. You couldn't tell there would be a game going on that day. The place was empty til about the 3rd inning. People started filling in the seats around me and my dad. Then, the first thing this L.A. blogger/douche that shows up late/sits next to me does, is blow up a beach ball and start smacking it around, and then takes his shirt off and rests in on our shared armrest. Now, I wanted to be into the game, but between Douchey A with his shirt off smacking a beachball and douchey B who is as amused as Simple Jack by the concept of the ball going around plus a 4-tier wave, it was miserable. Then, I was pissed because we had to leave early, the 7th inning, to go to a party of a family/friend that lived in Santa Monica. As soon as my father and I stood up to leave, it seemed as if everyone in the stadium would follow us out. I kept jokingly reminding people that the game wasn't over, we just had to go to a party, there were still a few more innings.

Anyway, I know this might sound stereotypical of an LA trip, but come on, doesn't that say something on its own? (TheOnlyNetsFan)

Actually, I don't have that much bad to say about Dodger Stadium, but ever since the O'Malley's sold the franchise, the owners (both FOX and McCourts) have endorsed a limited or now no tailgating policy. WTF? I remember going to my first Dodger game after they were sold to Fox and was unaware of the no tailgaiting policy. We set up shop in the (near) empty parking lot about 90 minutes before game time. We were in the middle of setting up our bbq when the police come driving up telling us that it was against the rules now. I asked them if that was permanent or temporary. They claimed it was probably only going to be temporary (a limited bbq area was later established and then banished) but for now we had to put our bbq away. They saw our drinks (non booze in appearance, but filled with delicious alcoholic goodness in reality) and they mentioned it was a good thing that we weren't drinking alcohol as that was against the rules too. The cops then relayed a story from the last group of people they were harrassing, wait, I mean, informing of the new tailgaiting rules. Basically, that group was drinking their alcohol in the open and the cops wrote them up tickets, made them dump all of their booze and one of the group got pissed off at the cops so they arrested him - and slammed his head into the cop car on purpose - as they put him in the back of the car. They thought it was hiliarious. We laughed along with them and went back to boozing as soon as they left. Well, we were pretty pissed off at the new policy and when the game was over we raced back to our car and fired up that grill and ate our non Dodger Dogs just out of principle. (ADR)

Dodger fans get a well deserved rap for arriving late, leaving early, and checking tmz.com for the remaining 4 innings they're in the stadium. My story however reflects the 3rd world soccer enviornment that sitting in the "cheap" (read $15 to park, $25 per shitty seat, and $5 for the ground possum anus Dodger Dog) seats entails. I'm sitting in the far right-field upper deck with my girlfriend and another female friend watching the Padres get demolished by the Dodgers. I'm the only white-guy in the section (including my friends, both hispanic) and I'm taking a pretty fair amount of abuse for being a "faggot", I assume since I have a Padres hat on. Anyhow, dealing with homophobic abuse in two languages is about par for the course in a town that hasn't won a baseball championship since I was 8, but the only thing that really bothered me was the little boy behind me kicking my seat for 5 innings asking his papa how many points the Doyers had. They decide to leave in the middle of the 6th (to beat traffic I assume) and as the kid gives my seat one last kick for good measure I finally turn around and politely tell the father that he should at least educate his son enough to know that points are for soccer or jai alai, they're called "runs" in baseball. In short, he questioned my sexual orientation in Spanish (in front of his son no less) and then called me the Spanish version of a motherfucker (failing to see the inherent contradiction in his insult). This was merely the most interesting story in a day that ended with the local chapter of MECHa pouring beer on the two women I was with, while I was in the bathroom. No public transportation to a stadium built over the razed homes of thousands of families, a worthless fan-base, and a history GM's running the team like a bad fantasy roster (signings of Kevin Brown/Eric Davis/Daryl Strawberry/Darren Dreifort/Carlos Perez/Juan Pierre/Jason Schmidt/Andruw Jones) are why this soulless team peaked in the Reagan administration. (Chris)

The biggest issue is the damn parking lot, which works to undermine the whole experience of being a Dodger fan and certainly the image we have. Everybody thinks Dodgers fans show up late, and leave early. And you know what? It's true. Due to the shitty parking lot that takes for-fucking-ever to exit after a game, coupled with the insanity of SoCal traffic, and considering that a ton of Dodgers fans are admittedly idiotic assholes (there is a lot of crossover between Dodgers and Raiders fans), every Dodgers game features the annoyingly late attendance of about half the crowd, and the early exit by about the same amount. To make matters worse, the same half who show up late and leave early spend the entire time playing with goddamn beach balls and talking about whether they should leave before or after the Dodgers bat in the eighth. If a committed fan feels the urge to yell, jeer, or to stand up for any moment other than immediately after a homerun, they are pretty much alone in doing so and are sometimes outright mocked by other fans who are seemingly so road-weary that they can't be bothered to actually pay attention to something they just spent all their drug money on. So, sometimes, even when they're winning, or in an exciting season like this one, it's just not that fun to be at a Dodgers game and the parking lot that the O'Malleys designed when they brought the team to Chavez Ravine is 90% responsible for that. (Daniel B.)

It is a universal truth that anyone visiting Doger Stadium for the first time is, as we say in Texas, shit out of luck (SOL, when kids are around). We arrived 5 minutes before first pitch, took a decent looking parking space, and got to our seats in the second inning, after climbing up 143 stairs, walking 2/3 of the way around the stadium, and trying 4 different gates before we could enter, only to have 4 ever-so-helpful ticket takers tell us that OUR gate was the next one down. Three of them were lying dicks. The fourth was also a dick, but at least he was honest.

After the game, another super-helpful usher told us to go the other way around and take the escalator to get to our parking spot. The single escalator was running the wrong way - set to help lazy Angelenos, surely worn out from hours of hot yoga, take a treacherous journey down a stairway. Somehow we ended up climbing up another 50 stairs.

193 steps up, none down. Chavez Ravine is clearly some hell pit vortex, which defies all sense of logic. This somewhat helps to explain Dodger fans' love affiar with Tommy Lasorda. (Jacob L.)

Photo via hburrussiii's Flickr account.

Next up: The San Diego Padres' Petco Park. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

On June 3, the Rockies were 15.5 games back of the juggernaut L.A. Dodgers. Now they're three back, with those very Dodgers arriving at Coors Field tonight. They've taken control of the NL Wild Card race, but could very well win the whole shebang, especially after last night's storybook win over the Giants.

Down three runs in the bottom of the 14th inning, with no one left on the bench, a runner with a limp on base, and forced to send a pitcher to the plate with the bases loaded, the Rockies eventually pulled out the victory on a grand slam by Ryan Freakin' Spilborghs. It's the kind of game that makes you feel like somehow, someway your team will always find a way to get it done. (Unless they're playing Boston in the World Series.)

Would winning the NL West be more impressive than their 21-for-22 run that ended the 2007 season? It would be the biggest comeback in baseball history, even after losing their manager in May and with barely a single superstar among them. Seriously, Jason Marquis is leading the team in wins? There's a long way to go, however—maybe even long enough for Denverites to figure out that their baseball team is good again.

Rockies bask in heat of playoff push [Denver Post]
Spilborghs redeemed by walk-off slam [MLB]
Giants serve up walks, Rockies walk off with win [SF Chronicle]

•That's UMass mascot Sam the Minuteman crashing the wedding of one devoted Red Sox blogger. His blushing bride appears thrilled! Well, maybe not thrilled. Pleasantly surprised? How about just...understanding? Okay, she's mortified. But too late to back out now, since he got the whole thing on film!

•A high school baseball coach is under fire for allegedly hiring strippers to "entertain" his players in a hotel room. Silly coach, everyone knows baseball players shouldn't hang around with strippers until they hit the pros, and then marry them.

•Well, holy crap. Newly-promoted Burnley win their first Premiership match in 23 years. And they did it against Manchester United. Look, it's the middle of August. There's no news but baseball news. So you'll get your soccer update and like it.

•Anytime you can sign a guy who's hated by opponents, but cut because he was hated by his teammates even more, you have to make that move. Vincente Padilla steps into the black hole that is the Dodgers #5 starter spot. At least he's guaranteed to be less of a headache than Hiroki Kuroda's.

•Patrick Kane is indicted on assault and theft charges, but it's unlikely he'll do time. He's a first-time offender, they're just misdemeanors, and most importantly, he's a professional athlete.

•Will Bryce Harper be the last baseball player to earn far more than any 18-year-old ever should before ever taking the mound field in an MLB game? That could be the case, if the next CBA includes mandatory slot signing bonus amounts.

•The Vikings have sold 3,000 season tickets and 10,000 single-game tickets since they signed Brett Favre. A word of advice from a New Yorker: make sure you get your tickets for the first 11 games of the season, because those last five tend not to go so well.

Mota was ejected last night after plunking Fielder with one out left in the ninth inning of a 17-4 Dodger blowout. Fielder didn't take kindly to this provocation and was quite vocal about it on the field. However, he felt that he did not completely and accurately make his feelings known, so after the game was over, Prince attempted to storm the Dodger clubhouse. He got the door partially open before security and some of his teammates eventually corralled him and sent him back to his corner.

This is why we need more security cameras in baseball stadiums. Not to prevent crime, but so we can laugh at baseball players when they try to turn postgames into a scene from The Warriors. [UPDATE: And now there's video.] (LAist's detailed diagram is nice, but doesn't quite bring the scene to life.) The teams have one more game left in their season series, but the odds of Mota facing Fielder one more time are remote. So why don't they settle this like men? With a pie eating contest. (Obviously, Fielder's handicap will be enforced.)

Prince Fielder's Trek [LAist]
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers - Recap - August 04, 2009 [ESPN]

Bill Plaschke is like the nerd who can't understand why the head cheerleader prefers to date the quarterback and not him. He's no good for you! He's just a musclehead! I'm the one who really cares about you! Grandpa Grumpypants seems constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown and his lament to Dodger fans today is that you shouldn't love someone who doesn't love you back.

After blowing off honesty, accountability and one-third of the season, Manny Ramirez did something more egregious in his return to Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

He blew off Mannywood.

In the first inning of his first appearance in a left-field corner adorned with the "Mannywood 99" banner and filled with hundreds of loving fans who paid a premium for their proximity, Ramirez acted as if none of it existed.

Interesting. Or ...

Maybe I'm crazy, but doesn't it kind of look like he's acknowledging them there? Plaschke complains that Manny didn't throw the Mannywood fans—who pay extra to sit in that section—a warmup ball, but that he "threw it in the left-field stands instead." Again, I'm not a expert, but isn't Mannywood in the left-field stands? Isn't the gesture the same no what which set of seats the ball happens to land in?

Plaschke again goes into the crowd, desperate to find someone (anyone!) who will boo Manny. He owes you! Why can't you people see that? Only one lone soul half-heartedly yells "cheater" and then gives up, because he's a Manny fan too. Even worse, Manny interrupted a Joe Torre press conference, something Bill Plaschke has NEVER SEEN IN ALL HIS YEARS. The disrespect to Torre is mind-boggling!

"Nobody says its OK to violate rules, but he took his punishment and fans came here to be entertained," Torre said.

Entertained? That's just silly.

(Oh, and he also thinks Dodger Stadium should be razed but that's another column.)

Manny Ramirez shows little gratitude to his fans [LA Times]
Boo-birds extinct in Mannywood [Yahoo]

This whole situation is putting such a strain on Bill that there's concern he may be starting to crack. Four of his last five columns in the L.A. Times have been Manny-centric—the fifth was his predictable harrumphing about the Ron Artest signing—with the overarching theme being that Manny has not been punished enough for his crimes against baseball's humanity. Of course, all of these missives came after his brave Twitter stance that he was not going to be a party to this comeback charade.

I didn't go to albuquerque, and I won't go anywhere else he "rehabs.". He shouldn't be allowed to touch a bat for 50 games period

His very next Tweet?

Just got to lake elsinore for second stop in manny rehab tour. Its about 200 degrees. Poor manny. A teammate probably assigned to fan him

So I guess by "won't go" he really meant to say "will definitely be at." An honest mistake. His column from Lake Elsinore was about an epic quest to find even one Dodger fan who would buy ticket to a Class A game in 100+ degree heat simply to boo a dreadlocked cheater. To his eternal frustration, Plaschke's roll came up snake eyes.

Surely, somebody will hold him accountable for a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy?

Surely somebody would let him know that, because he has yet to offer any true remorse or explanation since his May 7 suspension, somebody was going to publicly wonder why?

He had appeared in two games at triple-A Albuquerque, where he was showered with love, but folks down there rarely see a celebrity that didn't come out of a UFO, so they can be excused.

Dodgers fans are tougher, right?

Ramirez was going to be, um, needled, right?

This was my hope as I walked over to a dozen blue-jersey-wearing fans lining a white fence that led from the parking lot to the visitors' clubhouse....

OK, fine, I gave the people a pass because they had waited in subhuman heat to see their hero, maybe their heads were as mottled as Ramirez's testosterone levels ....

The mistake here is all mine, thinking that one of these thousands of Dodgers fans among the crowd of 8,099 would act a little, I don't know, angry?

No such luck for Plaschke, however. Manny's fans still like him. He signed autographs. He hit a home run! Yet, they refuse to boo. Manny cheated Bill Plaschke out of ... something. Why won't they make him pay for it? At least, Manny's next stop (an actual MLB game in San Diego) did provide Bill with a small moment of solace:

David eckstein, toiling in obscurity in sd, is my favorite world series mvp ever

Of course.

SoCal really lets Manny have it . . . with love [LA Times]
Bill Plaschke @ LAT (BillPlaschke) [Twitter]

Well, that was a quick 50 games. Manny Ramirez returned from his summer vacation last night, going 0 for 3 with a walk in a 6-3 L.A. win over San Diego. None of his MLB-leading Dodger teammates could be reached for comment, however, as they were all too busy cramming fertility drugs in his celebratory champagne.

******

Good morning, and Happy July 4th. We've got Wimbledon! We've got Tiger! And...um...hopefully some late-breaking athlete-related fireworks mishaps!

Wake up, boys and girls in America.