The Trolley Dodger

Congratulations to Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Robbie Keane, and the rest of the LA Galaxy, the 2011 champions of Major League Soccer!

Reports are coming in that Robbie Keane is on his way to join the LA Galaxy.

Keane is unwanted by Spurs boss Harry Redknapp and said last week that he expected to tie up a move before the end of the transfer window.

The Irish international played in a friendly on Wednesday night against Croatia in Dublin, but is believed to be flying to LA to sign a contract worth a reported $9 million over next two years.

(Cross posted with Celsius1414.com.)

Watching the Galaxy has been a mostly safe escape from the doldrums of Dodger baseball this season, especially with their 14-game unbeaten streak going. However, last night’s “embarrassing defeat” in Portland, combined with the Dodgers’ failure to sweep the Padres (plus continuing bad news), made for some depressing channel switching this year.

The Galaxy will be fine, I’m sure, and the Dodgers…well, sometimes the old maxim about not saying anything if you don’t have anything nice to say is probably a good idea.

With no NFL (yet), no NBA, and the NHL season still to come, I think I’m going to need to find a new escape. As the weather cools down from the summertime 9000-degree heat and humidity out here in the Inland Empire, other options should present themselves.

There’s always the English Premier League, which starts up a week from Saturday. I’ve been following Everton FC ever since Landon Donovan had his stint there. Hopefully they’ll be able to overcome off-field worries and make a good showing.

Last July, I wrote a post here documenting the Midseason Malaise both the Dodgers and myself found ourselves in. An excerpt:

When an activity that is normally an escape from the depressing parts of existence becomes itself depressing…well, what is there to write about? Especially if you’re not one to tear down your favorite team for the sake of talking about something. There’s a surfeit of commenters online, not to mention talk show hosts and callers, who like nothing more than to kvetch 24/7 about the smallest Dodger problems, never mind the major issues — they don’t need any help from me.

Here we are, a mere few weeks into the 2011 season, and the malaise is already upon us. Except that this year, the depressing news applies to the Lakers as well. Things turned ugly last night. Real ugly. No amount of seeing writing on the wall the last month of the Laker season could forewarn us that the writing would end with a string of profanities.

(As mixed as the Dodger season has been so far, the Boys in Blue haven’t been acting like the Purple and Gold. The team, however, has had its own ugliness to deal with.)

Things are also not exactly like the (newly re-minted) Silver and Black, with a string of heartbreaking losses in their playoff series versus the Sharks. The season is still young.

No, we have ownership issues. Such issues. And now with no historical hitting streak to distract us from the latest bad news, I joked to friends of mine that I was thinking of giving up watching the local teams and switching to World News so I can cheer up a little.

As the Lakers and Kings were gearing up for their playoff runs earlier this year, I was pondering expanding the Trolley Dodger into more of an LA sports blog rather than just the Dodgers. Lakers and Kings, sure, not to mention the suddenly intriguing Clippers, the “5th-sport” teams Galaxy and Chivas USA, and the reportedly inevitable return of an NFL team to LA. Now, I’m not so sure. If all the bad news keeps up, I’m going to need intensive therapy to get over my sports depression.

I do have a summer to get over the 2010-11 Lakers and Kings, and hopefully the 2011 Dodgers will put it all together during that same period. And it’s not as if there is no good Dodger news. Ethier and Kemp are carrying the team, and despite the bullpen woes, our starters are doing pretty well. New manager Don Mattingly has been impressive enough for a rookie. There might even be a pot of gold at the end of the McCourt rainbow. As usual, patience is called for. Lots and lots of patience.

Besides, I’m not desperate enough for World News yet.