By T.J. Simers
The audacity of the Dodgers, wining 111 games when LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke told them to stop winning.
It’s as if the Dodgers never read Plaschke or took anything he had to offer seriously.
They obviously paid no attention to his baseball expertise, a wonder they got to where they are in the standings without listening to Plaschke.
Back on Aug. 25, Plaschke wrote: “It feels weird issuing this plea to a baseball team bullying its way toward historic ground, but, sorry, somebody has to say it.
“Hey, steamrolling Dodgers?
“Chill.”
What a stupid notion, a grown-up columnist for a major league city telling the baseball team in town to just chill rather than put on a show.
You can just imagine the chatter in the Dodgers’ clubhouse, players turning to each other to say, “Plaschke wants us to slow down.”
“Who?”
“Plaschke. You know the guy writing for the LA Times.”
“Never read the paper.”
How do we expect the Dodgers to excel if ignoring the No. 1 know-it-all in town?
On Oct. 2, Plaschke had more to write about the Dodgers: “This reporter asked Roberts…” I guess that’s the clever way of writing, “I asked Roberts…”
I asked Roberts, Plaschke wrote, “if he wished he ever longed for more unbridled regular-season joy around Chavez Ravine like in Seattle last week when the Mariners made the playoffs for the first time in 21 years.”
Plaschke apparently has something about the Dodgers winning all the time. He’d be good with every 21 years.
“Yeah, I do,” Roberts said to this reporter, and I wouldn’t think much of Roberts if he was repeating this nonsense to others.
“Unfortunately,” Roberts continued while talking to this reporter, “The world has gone very cynical, which is sad. … Are certain fans, not all, jaded? Absolutely. And [they] don’t realize what it takes, what this team, in particular, has had to overcome, to get to this point.”
Well, we know they had to overcome the No. 1 voice in the newspaper telling them to stop their momentum and just stop winning. You can imagine how upset the Dodgers must be, letting down Plaschke like that, winning 111 games..
Roberts went on to tell this reporter, “He wished there was more pure happiness in the moment.
“The sense of gratitude and joy is many times lost in our society, and certainly in sports, it’s at the forefront,” he said, adding, “I wish they certainly would enjoy the ride and know and appreciate what we do, regardless of ultimately if we’re the last team standing.”
So, in August Plaschke tells everyone the Dodgers are winning too much, just sucking the joy out of such success, and then in October he quotes the manager as saying people (like this reporter) should enjoy the moment.
Plaschke continues to make a big deal out of Roberts’ so-called guarantee the Dodgers will win the World Series on some radio show, like it’s a really big deal the manager of the team would say his team will win it all. I would hope he would say that, rather than some wishy-washy “we’ll see.”
For a columnist to act as if that is something outlandish for a manager to say speaks more to how hard the columnist is looking to make much ado about nothing. But then much ado about nothing has always been a staple of a Plaschke column
Plaschke’s got more to say, of course in his Oct. 2 blah-blah-blah: “If the Dodgers win the World Series, they could be arguably anointed as the best team in baseball history.
“If they don’t win the World Series, they could be forever known as one of the biggest disappointments in baseball history.”
Well, how’s that for a preview of what Plaschke is going to write after the World Series.
Good thing none of the Dodgers will pay any attention to it.