Another Damn Dodgers Take: The Breaking of Baseball

I know I know I know…A Padres fan writing about the Dodgers ruining Baseball? How fresh! How edgy! How biased! It’s okay though, cause Dodgers fans on social media spend all day everyday telling us Padres fans they never think about us, so it’ll be fine.

The Dodgers are breaking Baseball.

If that’s biased, I don’t care.

Why should I? The Dodgers certainly don’t care about Baseball. They only care about the idea of Baseball. They care about Baseball the same way Harold Hill cared about musical equipment. It’s not a passion in Los Angeles it’s a business. As long as it makes money they will spend that money only to make more money. And, I guess that’s fine, but we can’t pretend that it’s about the love of the game or caring about the state of Baseball or even to create good entertainment.

It’s all about money. And, it has to be since they’re spending so god damn much of it.

It’s not good for Baseball. It’s terrible. And, yes, it’s also terrible because it’s happening in the worst market in America. Would I be mad if the Milwaukee Brewers were spending like this every year? Yes. Would it make me as mad as this Dodgers shit does? No. And, thats because like most of America I hate the Dodgers.

Their fans are lame, the stadium is overrated, traffic sucks, and oh yea Max Muncy hates babies and puppies. I can’t prove that, but I don’t need to.

So, why is this bad? See, for as big a market as the Dodgers exist in they’ll never be an East Coast team. And, that matters because Baseball was born on the East Coast. It grew up there. It rained supreme. It dominated every facet of life and media for a hundred years. And, yes the Dodgers were born there too, but they shed that accent quicker than a weatherman from Alabama.

The East Coast game was the game of gentleman and at the same exact time hard-nosed, hardworking bricks of men. So, no matter how hard they try the Dodgers will never have that level of relevancy, and they’ll always be the “Hollywood” team. And, that aura is synonymous with laziness, wealth, and status. Which means inherently, most of America will hate them, without the redemption of the team being historically necessary (although, despite my deep-rooted hatred for them, the Dodgers franchise is).

Here’s what I mean by historical redemption: In the late 1990s and early 2000s when the Yankees were going out and buying every big name they could find no matter the cost people were up in arms. They were pissed. Remember, the Yankees were the Evil Empire. They took every good player off every small market team. Of course, the Red Sox and Cubs and Dodgers did this too, but to a much lesser degree.

But, the Yankees had two saving graces during the time they were being absolutely hated for throwing money around like it was covered in Hep B – they didn’t win that much AND they’re the fucking Yankees. In fact those late 1990s juggernauts the Yankees had were for the most part well-put together vets and homegrown talent. Their 2000 World Series win featured some big names, but nothing insane. So, you could hate the success, but they weren’t going apeshit with money. And, they were the Yankees! Then when they did go apeshit they ended up not getting another World Series win till 2009 (when they had huge deals for A-Rod and Mark Tiexeira, CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Johnny Damon, etc). And, honestly the only reason anyone cared that they won in 2009 was because CC Sabathia is one of the most well-liked players in the game and had always been stuck on subpar teams.

BUT REGARDLESS THEY WERE STILL THE YANKEES!

The Dodgers do not have that lore. Had they stayed in Brooklyn they sure as hell would, but they didn’t and they just don’t have that love other empires do because of it. So many people will disagree with me here and say I’m an idiot cause what about Koufax and Jackie Robinson and Lasorda! There’s Orel and Fernandomania! Eric Karros! These are all amazing players/managers and important figures in Baseball history.

But, Jackie was an icon for all of Baseball. The fact he was a Dodger was secondary. Koufax literally despised the franchise for decades, and other than Lasorda, there’s just not that many Hall of Fame names there.

So, what’s the point? Well, the point is the Dodgers don’t have the cache with the majority of Baseball fans to play the lovable bums, or the grizzled gang, or possess the nobility of the pinstripes. They’re just the greedy Hollywood squad playing on easy mode.

They’re now the Evil Empire who seems to have no desire for Baseball to be fun for anyone who isn’t a Dodgers fan. They’re like the embodiment of an automated telephone service – they’re the ChatGPT of Baseball.

So, outside of hating the Dodgers how is this bad for the game? Well, when one team can afford to buy every good player then it not only gets boring for everyone involved, it means other teams lose superstars, they lose fans, they lose competitiveness, they lose more fans, they lose money, the sport becomes less relevant in their cities, and either it takes decades to rebuild or they move to Sacramento.

This is not a ‘worst case scenario’ argument. This is thee argument. It was thee argument with the Yankees during their spending spree and the ONLY thing that stopped it is that teams started to spend more money and/or get much more creative and smart. It should be telling that moneyball and sabermetrics rose to fame right around the end of the Yankees Empire. It gave teams a chance for at least a couple of years before they lost all their young players or reclamation projects to bigger contracts elsewhere.

When the game is less competitive all around, when the same four teams are in it every single season millions just tune out. And, sure a Twins-Marlins World Series isn’t gonna draw in viewers, but it WILL make the playoffs more interesting and wake up markets that need the jolt. Just look at Toronto for God’s sakes! How fucking fun was watching Toronto fully embrace the game again, eh? There are millions of fans out there just waiting to wave a towel in a crucial ninth inning.

The game has never been more fragmented across the country and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It gives fans of all ages something to dive head first into. But, we need the billionaires to understand theres actually more money in your market than there is chasing down the coasts! Everyone thinks they need to be LA or Boston or New York to compete, but they clearly don’t. They can pull something off if they believe in what people like Peter Siedler and Edward Rogers have done: if you build it they will come.

So, what do we do? Well, we keep hating the Dodgers – not hard, and we kind of let the chips fall. The CBA is expiring in December and a lockout is looming. Why? Because of shit like the Dodgers. In San Diego we all remember when Papa Pete started just throwing out contracts the mainstream MLB media was like, “He just can’t do this!” and “It’s bad for the game!”, but these same people don’t say shit when LA or New York does it. Cause they have a newscasters view in a social media world. They don’t see past what they’ve always assumed was right. They still call the radio to request a song they could’ve played on their phone 45 times already.

I want the Padres to be good. I want the Marlins to be good. I want the Pirates and Mariners and Angels and Rockies to all be good. It should be a slugfest every year. Teams should be grinding it out. Every team should have two all-stars on them, a hometown hero, someone to root for every season.

The Dodgers doing what they’re doing makes that quite literally impossible. And, it makes the game worse for everyone else.

When I started playing MLB The Show back in 2000 I would play on rookie mode. It was fucking awesome. I played with the Angels cause I loved Darin Erstad and Mo Vaughn. They both finished the season with over 60 homeruns. I even think Adam Kennedy had 30 homeruns. Kent Bottenfield and Jason Dickson both won 30 games and had ERAs under 2.00. It was so fun. Then the next season it wasn’t fun anymore. It got real dumb. I was bored and I moved on.

This is how it will be for Baseball fans. We all marveled at Ohtani’s incredible season in 2024, but 2025 we didn’t care as much. We’ve already lost interest in Mookie and I can’t think of one Dodgers pitcher I care about. It’s a team of great players who the overwhelming majority of America want to see lose.

It isn’t Us against Them as most Dodgers fans will likely scream into the void. It’s Fun against Boredom. It’s Baseball against A TV Contract. It’s Fandom against Insanity, and it’s gonna ruin the game.