I'm trying to quit

What a gift it is to have good young players, guys you can root for, win or lose. Guys who you want to see grow and learn and thrive, who will bring frustration but also promise and exuberance and excitement. And what a waste it is to squander this gift. To let Andy LaRoche linger in AAA. To threaten Blake DeWitt with Nomar Garciaparra. To make both Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier have to look over their shoulders at Juan Pierre. I don't want to write about this anymore. I'm so $#^&@!& tired of it. It's boring and depressing to read the complaints about who the Dodgers play and the young players they screw around with and block.

So, yeah, I guess I just conceded that the last paragraph was boring and depressing. This is a lot like recent Dodger games. That five game losing streak, in particular. I can take the losing if the best, most promising players are the ones doing it. But if I have to watch them lose with Juan Pierre leading off? Forget about it. Really, my interest in the Dodgers has dropped so low in this last week --- you could almost call me a fair weather fan now. I blame Colletti and Torre. Sheesh, I almost typed Little. I can't even get my head in the right year.

But deep down I'm not a fair weather fan. I tried to boycott Wednesday's game, but eventually I came back, turned it on, saw the Dodgers down 4-3. I was sort of defiant at that point. Like, is that as bad as you can suck, Dodgers? If you're going to lose six in a row you might as well get blown out. But really a one-run loss is better: more painful for the fans who foolishly think the team ever had a chance. And then the Dodgers went ahead and scored three runs. I remember watching Pierre and hating myself for rooting for him to get a hit and then being stunned when he hit that ball in the gap. It's really messed up to be upset about rooting for a player, isn't it? I don't hate Pierre --- I hate his contract, and I hate how managers can't see how bad he is. But I don't hate Pierre. If I did that would make me a jerk, and I'm trying to quit. Insert obligatory sentence about what a nice guy Pierre is. Follow up with sentence about how hard he works. ( Query: if he's such a hard worker how come he can't bunt worth %$&#? )

Thursday's game I mostly missed because of work. I hear rumors of Billingsley pitching a gem. Yeah, could be. I also hear rumors that Bennett, Kent and Jones hit home runs in the same inning. Yeah right. I think some beat writer is having everyone on.

Thursday was a day for the Dodgers to show what they haven't had a whole lot of this year. Power and pure pitching. I mean they have guys who are capable of pitching a gem, but rarely do they actually do it. Everyone in the rotation is capable of greatness except for Chan Ho Park who sucks. Maybe if I keep saying how bad Park is he'll keep proving me wrong. I'd be okay with that.

Truthfully I'm much more excited to watch the Lakers play tonight than the Dodger game. The thing I love about watching the Lakers is that they don't have any overpaid vets who steal playing time away from the young, promising players. Even when someone like Farmar is out there screwing up at least I know that he's learning from this and should get better. It's so great not to have to watch Kwame Brown play center and fumble passes out of bounds anymore. Lordy loo that was excruciating. It was even worse than seeing Pierre pop out on a 3-1 pitch or seeing Pierre bloop a throw to the infield. It's too bad the Dodgers can't trade Pierre's expiring contract for something good. I wish baseball had an NBA-style salary cap. The beauty of the cap is that even horrible contracts end up having a good side because they eventually become expiring contracts that can be traded for good things ( unless you're Isiah Thomas ) or held onto to give you new cap space that lets you sign a new overpriced bust free agent. Baseball could use that. It would really help me deal with the Pierre situation.