By T.J. Simers
I just watched the morning news on TV and learned it will cost $30 to park at Dodger Stadium this season, $27 if I alert the snipers and let the Dodgers know ahead of time I will be coming. Ah, the Parking Lot Attendant is alive and well.
The Screaming Meanie in me tells me the Dodgers are ripping off folks again, and that’s just fine with the folks.
I made a big deal out of the Dodgers raising parking prices to $15 back when Frank and Jamie McCourt owned the Dodgers and it might have cost the Tipper Gore Lady her job. She was the Dodgers top PR fall guy at the time, trying to blunt the criticism directed at the McCourts. She had worked in the White House prior to her fling with Dodger Stadium.
The Tipper Gore Lady really was a good egg, terrific at her job, but how do you defend the McCourts? I attended their divorce confrontation in court and watched a guy representing Jamie, who used to stand before the Supreme Court, flounder.
The price to park at Dodger Stadium has steadily increased, and the media has never told us if that is Frank McCourt’s doing or the Dodgers’ owners.
Dodger preferred parking, which is parking within the inner circle and a less likely place to be mugged, is $40 in advance or $50 at the gate. For a single game. I had free media parking when I attended Dodger Stadium because the LA Times was offering so much free coverage/advertising on the Dodgers.
When Frank McCourt sold the Dodgers he held onto the parking lots because they are such money makers and knowing Dodger fans are such hopeless romantics they would spend whatever to go, park and moon over their heroes.
You can just imagine the calculations going off in the head of Frank McCourt right now, a sellout for opening day and 16,000 parking spaces being grabbed by the faithful at $27, $30, $40 or $50 a piece of asphalt. Enough to keep him in starched white shirts for another season, and that’s just from one game.
The media no longer makes much a fuss about fans getting ripped off because the media isn’t much of anything anymore in Los Angeles. That’s why I get my news on TV.
I have no idea what Dodger tickets cost, a beer, hot dog or whatever. I presume most fans agree to take out a second mortgage if going to a Dodger game.
There’s also Anaheim, of course, and the Angels are charging $20 to park because I guess there isn’t as big of demand to park in Anaheim. I’d be more likely to spend $30 to go see Trout & Ohtani before going to Dodger Stadium to be reminded there is no Scully & Lasorda.
Angry Arte Moreno rode a wave of popularity after lowering beer prices; where are those prices now and my criticism remains the same: He should have lowered the price on water, maybe even sodas.
. I understand the Dodgers didn’t spend a lot of money this offseason, so I wonder if this qualifies as grand larceny. After all, the Dodgers still have to pay Trevor Bauer $22.5 million and who better to pay it than the suckers paying so much to watch a dying sport.
I know your dad used to take you to the ballpark, but come on, he never got ripped off like you are today.
By the way, why are the Dodgers passing out Freddie Freeman bobbleheads on April Fools instead of Trevor Bauer bobbleheads? Or, a bobblehead of the fool who made the decision to sign Bauer?
I would argue baseball is no longer America’s pastime, so slow now and boring, thus the move to the pitch clock to speed up the game for people who no longer have the attention span to watch. For the most part, the game is tedious after being exposed to so many other exciting sports events.
I’d rather watch South Carolina women’s basketball versus Iowa’s Caitlin Clark Friday night than the Dodgers’ second game of the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Preferred parking right in front of my TV.