The Trolley Dodger

From the perspective of a Dodger fan, there are two teams that are Evil with a capital “Eeee!” — the Giants and the Yankees.

There have been other rivals of the Dodgers over the years — back and forth with the Cardinals in the 50s and 60s, tangling with the Big Red Machine in the 70s, and then later, the NL West foes — but not even the disgust felt for the Anaheim Angels of Orange County can match the unmitigated Evil of the Giants and Yankees.

Which is why it’s so disconcerting to come across someone so out of touch with reality as to think the Dodgers are the evil team.

Such is the case with one Dennis Bennett of the blog Peridyd’s Progress, who is a fan of the Mariners and Padres. Dennis has a list of three teams that are, as he puts it, “inherently evil” — the Yankees, the Braves, and the Dodgers.

Dennis was almost ready to take the boys in Blue off the list, what with their off-season pitching strengthening and, as he writes,

This coupled with the fact that the Dodgers are no long owned by Rupert Murdock should mean that they aren’t on my short list of teams whom I always and unequivocally root against.

Almost ready, but he is unable to do so. Check out this snippy leap in logic:

So why the title of this post, you might well ask? Because the Dodgers, despite the fact that they were soundly beaten in the head-to-head contest with the Padres and therefore won the wild card, and not the division championship, despite having the same record as the Padres after 162 games, are claiming that they’re the “defending NL West co-champions”.

Hmm. Well, he is correct that the Padres won the season series, which is the tiebreaker when it comes to potential playoff seeding. And, in a strict reading of the rules:

Scenario #1: If there is a tie for a Division Championship and the winning percentage of the two Clubs tied for first place is higher than the winning percentage of each of the second-place Clubs in the same League, the Division Champion shall be:

The Club with the higher winning percentage in head-to-head competition between the two tied Clubs during the championship season…

I think it could be read both ways, but Dennis doesn’t like the idea of the tie.

Those aren’t the rules, guys. The rules state that if you end up having identical records at the end of the season, then the winner of the season head-to-head contest is the champion. Period. The Dodgers won the wild card, not the division. The Padres, ever lackluster in the post season, did, however, win the division.

It could be argued they won the division for the purposes of playoff seeding only, but it doesn’t really matter because here’s the crux of the matter:

That they would claim otherwise smacks of unsportsmanlike conduct–in the front office, which, to my mind, negates any boon they might have garnered by sloughing off the infamous Murdock as their owner.

In short, there are still 3 inherently evil teams on Amy’s and my list: Yankees, Braves, and, once again, the LA Dodgers.

I can’t begrudge Dennis his Mariner/Padre fandom. His love for his teams is obviously heartfelt — so much so in fact that he leaves aside rationality to declare the Dodgers inherently evil. Fandom is not supposed to be rational.

Besides, I think we all know the real reason Dennis and other Padres fans are being rules lawyers when it comes to the 2006 season:

And by the way Dennis, just in case it wasn’t clear:

;D

See you next year!