The Trolley Dodger

So this means the Yankees are going to pay back the $1.2 billion of public funding for that new stadium then?

No?

Ah.

Chris Jaffe at the Hardball Times has an article up tracing the worst endings to postseason games “10 worst endings to postseason games” — and there have been some doozies, including a couple of Brooklyn Dodger-related items in 1941* and 1947, one good, one not good at all. (Passed ball on the final strikeout, anybody?) As Vin Scully says from time to time about the old days, that’s Dodgers baseball.

* – there’s a “1971″ typo, but it’s ’41.

Congratulations to the New York Yankees on their 27th world championship. Nice job inaugurating the new stadium.

And while I can’t say I was too sad by the looks of disappointment on the Phillies’ faces ;) congrats to them as well for a hard-fought battle and a great year.

Now the off season can commence. Not that there’s anything going on in LA this time around. Should be real quiet in the Dodger world. Yep. Real quiet.

Until 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers had gone through a long series of near-misses at World Series glory, coming close but not close enough. It became a running theme and spawned a team slogan: “Wait ’til next year!” Next year finally did show up, but it was a long wait.

The Yankees were the Dodgers’ perennial opponents when they made it to the series back then, so the Bombers losing it in 1955 to the Bums made it even sweeter. Putting it in video-game terms for the younger set, they were the final boss that it took forever to beat. This was one of the reasons I was hoping for a Yankee-Dodger World Series this year.

Apart from the wrenching disappointment the past week, and a few issues here and there, the 2009 season has been more of a joy to follow than not. On a personal level, having the opportunity to attend the Bluetopia premiere, the annual Dodger Blogger Night (the night before the Manny revelation), and particularly getting to cover the game as a member of the press are memories I’ll never lose.

Thanks to the Dodgers organization and team for a great year and for continuing to reach out to the online fan community. Thanks to my fellow Dodger bloggers for lots of entertaining and thoughtful commentary this season — especial thanks and kudos to Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, the sundry Sons of Steve Garvey, the intrepid lads of True Blue LA, the aptly named Blue Heaven, Ken Steinhorn of isportsweb, and Larry and Keith over at the always-fascinating Daily Mirror.

Congratulations to the Phillies on the NL Pennant, and while I don’t see myself exactly cheering you on the next few weeks, please destroy the Yankees if you get the opportunity. Pretty please? ;)

Finally, thanks to everybody for reading Trolley Dodger in 2009. The site’s third anniversary is coming up next week. Can’t believe it’s been three years!

I expect to be posting here during the off season, as there will be the inevitable melodrama, speculation, and other craziness, but I’m guessing a short break will do a body good. So we won’t have to wait ’til next year to solve the myriad problems of the baseball universe, thanks to 24-hour sports news and the Internet, but we will have to wait ’til then for more Dodger baseball.

See ya!

There is a certain myth perpetrated about how “classy” the Yankee organization is. Derek Jeter is the poster child for this.

Of course, the organization tends to behave in the “Chandelier Galaxy” sense of the word, as evidenced in “New Stadium classy not flashy”:

[Hal] Steinbrenner said he doesn’t see the ballpark as too extravagant given the economic situation. He said the organization did its best to retain the tradition from the old stadium and integrate it with new amenities to enhance the fan experience.

“I don’t see it as ostentatious or flashy, I see it as classy,” Steinbrenner said.

Last week, there was a brief brouhaha after MLS commissioner Don Garber commented on empty seats at Yankee Stadium due to the economy and their outrageous prices. Randy Levine, Yankees President, went off on him:

“Don Garber discussing Yankee attendance must be a joke,” Levine said yesterday. “We draw more people in a year than his entire league does in a year. If he ever gets Major League Soccer into the same time zone as the Yankees, we might take him seriously.

“Hey Don, worry about Beckham, not the Yankees. Even he wants out of your league,” he said.

Humorous as the statement was, it doesn’t match up with the notion of the Yankees as big leaguers.

To go with the Classy Myth, there’s also the Yankee Mystique, which has to do with how much the club has won over the years. Their record speaks for itself.

The team has won 26 World Series, appearing in 39 of them, which “currently amounts to an average appearance every 2.7 seasons and a championship every 4.0 seasons.”

When you’re that good, when you “have an all-time regular season winning percentage of .567 (a 9472-7235 record), the best of any team in baseball,” you don’t need to act like an insecure asshole. There’s few things more pathetic than an insecure 800-pound gorilla.

To put it in terms New Yorkers will understand, it’s like the difference between a Mafia Don acting like a Mafia Don and not like a goombah pushing a guy in a bar parking lot. If somebody is beneath you, you don’t acknowledge them. They’re beneath you. If they’re insulting, you don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

In any case, Levine’s insecure jokes look even smaller today as the news comes out, “Yankees Slash the Price of Top Tickets”:

Twelve days after opening their new stadium, the Yankees on Tuesday bowed to the sour economy and the specter of empty seats by slashing in half some of their top-end, $2,500-a-game prices.

Going further, the team also announced it will provide significant numbers of complimentary seats to existing season-ticket holders in premium sections, including some of the critical, and very visible, real estate behind home plate.

Whoopsie. Guess all those empty seats looked pretty bad on TV.

Over all, the new policy represents a dramatic retreat from the team’s initial luxury-sales strategy for the new stadium, which was underlined in advertisements that crowed “Own the Greatness” and “Select the Greatest Seats in the World.”

It’s as if the Evil Empire actually still wants to have the class and mystique of the Old Republic. That way lies madness.

Be Darth Vader, or be Mace Windu. Either way, you’re a bad ass. But if you try to be both, you look like a whiny prick.

You know, like Anakin Skywalker.