Rambling Rhoades

Well I done did it: I ticked off Dodgers fans when I wrote in my last blog that about 10 years ago I switched allegiances from my beloved blue – I can remember rooting for Tommy Davis, for crying out loud – to Angels red.

And I gave what I deemed to be five pretty surefire reasons.

I’ll say this: a few agreed with me. Dodger Stadium, now one of the older facades in baseball, has turned into a dump. Angel Stadium is clean and family-friendly. It takes an hour or so to get OUT of that labyrnth of a knot they call the Dodger Stadium parking lot, whereas you’re out of Angel Stadium in the time it takes to listen to a Led Zeppelin riff. The Angels win; the Dodgers don’t. A certain rough and tumble element at Dodger Stadium has made for unpleasantries at the park, as witnessed by the savage beating of a San Francisco Giants fan earlier this season.

And so on.

Well, maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but following are the responses I got on my Facebook page.

They’re nothing if not entertaining, believe me.

John Reger commented on your link. John wrote: “How about No. 6. You have a reasonable chance of not getting your ass kicked in the parking lot.”

Christina Esparza commented on your link. Christina wrote: “I take issue with last graph. The OC is not LA. It’s near LA and I credit you with saying ‘LA-area,’ but still. OC and LA might as well be on different planets. When you’re brown in LA no one looks twice, in OC, they stare and think you’re stealing (unless you’re in Santa Ana.) While you’re spot on on every single one of your reasons, I can never switch alliances.”

Tracy Crow commented on your link. Tracy wrote: “You know all the Dodger fans are gonna be pissed at you right Brady?”

Camille Bolton commented on your link. Camille wrote: “Hmmm… No mention of Steve Sax… I hate to admit it, but I tend to agree with you.”

Tim Traeger commented on your link. Tim wrote: “Oh, no! There IS NO GOD !!!”

Camille Bolton commented on your link. Camille wrote: “Brady – Brady Rohades… yes, rohades… I am agreeing with you on the Piazza trade too. It has been a full moon and all.”

Lillian Gallegos commented on your link. Lillian wrote: “Shame on you.”

Tim Traeger commented on your link. Tim wrote: “Yeah. The Piazza trade was a kick in the teeth. Beyond that, McCourt gives me the creeps.”

Rebecca Rollins Flenniken commented on your link. Rebecca wrote: “I will concede that the Angels provide a much better in-stadium fan experience. Even before The Beat-Down we never had a desire to take our kids to the Ravine to be subjected to obnoxious, profane, drunk fan behavior. But mostly we stay away from Dodger Stadium because of terrible, terrible Frank McCourt. But I’ll never switch alliances. I’ll just root for the Dodgers from the comfort of my own home!”

Mike Flenniken commented on your link. Mike wrote: “Those are all just superficial reasons. A real fan would not switch allegiances so easily.”

Mike Flenniken commented on your link. Mike wrote: “And I’d like to point out that there has been a death more recently at Angel Stadium than Dodger Stadium: http://www.facebook.com/l/a549c/latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/fan-dies-after-fight-at-angels-game-.html.”

Ray Nelson commented on your link. Ray wrote: “The Angels will always be the little boys in this town! They’re so envious of the Dodgers they even try to steal the ‘Los Angeles’ label.”

Tom Graves commented on your link. Tom wrote: “Root for the team that won the World Series IN THIS CENTURY! Go Angels! Brady, your comment about traffic is spot on, and the main reason why Dodger fans can barely tolerate a whole game. It’s astounding how smooth egress from Angel Stadium is. Reason 6: Dodger Stadium DESTROYED a terrific historically significant Hispanic enclave in Chavez Ravine so it could be built. Chew on that, ‘Dodger Nation’ fans.”

Ray Nelson commented on your link. Ray wrote: “Root for the team that won the World Series IN THIS CENTURY!? … That’s just it. Dodger fans loyally support their team, win or lose. Angel fans came out of their hole only AFTER they won a championship. Who knows how long they will stay if they don’t win another in 20+ years.”

Lillian Gallegos commented on your link. Lillian wrote: “Right on, Ray.”

I’ll admit it: I’m a Benedict Arnold.

After years of rooting for the Dodgers and making treks to Chavez Ravine, I switched alliances to the Angels about 10 years ago.

And I’m glad I did.

Here are five reasons why a day  — or evening — at Angel Stadium trumps Dodger Stadium any day of the week and twice on Sundays:

1)    You’re probably not going to get beat up at an Angels game, but I can tell you this: on two occasions, I experienced near-rows with drunken, rowdy Dodgers fans who my Mexican-American friends – not me, mind you, them – would deridingly refer to as “Cholos.” The fact that a Giants fan is fighting for his life after getting the snot beat out of him in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium early this season speaks for itself.

2)    Artie Moreno runs a cleaner, tighter, more efficient organization than that McCourt dude over in Dodger-land. Angel Stadium is tidy, fun and family-oriented. Dodger Stadium, on the other hand, is a dump. It hasn’t been the same since the O’Malleys last owned the team in, oh, I believe the 1990s.

3)    The Angels are winners; the Dodgers are has beens. Their records this season? The Angels are 10-5 and atop their division. The Dodgers are near the bottom of theirs at 7-9.

4)    Manager Mike Scioscia, who might want to lay off those mustard dogs, has turned the Angels into what the Dodgers used to be: Pitching powerhouses who know how to manufacture runs. Is there a better, hotter hurler in all of baseball this season than Jered Weaver? And how about Haren? Neither has lost a game. Is there a team of runners who go from first to third any better than the Angels? Or bunt better? Or tag up on foul balls?

5)    When’s the last time you tried to wend your way out of the parking lot at Dodger Stadium after nine numbing innings? Good luck. It’s a maddening 45 minutes to an hour to exit, get on the freeway and head home. A friend and I used to play games of chess while we waited for the traffic to thin. As for the Angels? Efficient, baby. You’re in the clear in about 10 short minutes. And it doesn’t hurt if, like me, you live in Fullerton.

Sorry, Dodger faithful, but your time has come and gone. With all due respect to Jackie, Duke, Nuke, Koufax, Drysdale, Wills, Garvey and Piazza, among others, you’ve been replaced in the hierarchy of Los Angeles-area baseball. Do you know that one of Moreno’s first moves after purchasing the Angels was to lower beer prices? A man after my own heart.

I’m not ready to say I told you so, but . . .

Months ago, I called for the Lakers to trade the ever-brittle Andrew Bynum to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Carmelo Anthony.

My reasoning? Come playoff time, Bynum always seems to be hobbling around on bad knees. The guy is the Bill Walton – who once injured himself while riding a stationary bicycle – of the modern NBA.

Well, Tuesday night, he hyperextended his knee while the Lakers were beating up on the San Antonio Spurs.

An MRI scheduled for today will reveal the full scope of the injury.

My prediction is that Bynum will be about 50 percent of his formidable self for the playoffs. Maybe less, which adds up to about 9 points and seven rebounds a game at best.

The Lakers have proven they can win without him, but they should have taken the opportunity to get some value for him before the dude ends up wheelchair-bound.

Think about it: Two of the most potent scorers in the game in Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony on the same court at crunch time. And think about this: Anthony can play defense when he wants to, and on this team, with Phil and Kobe jawing at him like a wayward kid on a playground, he would.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Bynum will return to his dominating self.

But history’s on my side on this one, and Carmelo, well he’s lighting it up 3,000 miles away . . .

March Madness?

That’s when we go off to war in Libya in order to . . . well, we’re getting mixed messages – from our president, from his cabinet, from our allies – so we’re not sure if it’s to protect protesters from that God-awful Gaddhafi or to GET Gaddhafi.

March Madness?

That’s when we commit our military and our money to a complicated, confounding civil war in a faraway land with no apparent endgame.

March Madness?

That’s when we backpedal from a massive, multi-lateral mission in midstream and hand over control to . . . uh, well, the latest reports indicate NATO – PROBABLY.

This is supposed to be a sports blog, but let’s face it, we might never think of March Madness in the same way after what we’ve witnessed over the past five days.

Full disclosure: I’m a registered Independent who supported Obama, and I hope against hope that we get Gaddhafi and get the hell out there, and quickly.

But our president is badly mismanaging this war.

President Bush’s fatal flaw, in my view, was the way in which he oversimplified complex problems. Obama, on the other hand, takes complex issues and makes them utterly muddy.

Where to start?

First and foremost, he should have managed the message. That is, if you’re going to go to war, make sure you, your cabinet, your military, your allies and the public at large are crystal clear on what the objective is.

Next, apply the same standards with regards to an endgame. Did we learn nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Next, make sure everyone knows who’s in charge, and make no mistake about it, that should be the United States – not NATO, not France – through and through this mission.

What else?

Don’t trust the Arab League.

Go to Congress.

Address the American people and the world at large.

Command the war – at least initially, for crying out loud – from Washington, D.C., not Brazil, not Chile, not El Salvador.

OK, that about does it.  I feel a bit better now. For all my belly-aching, I haven’t lost hope. Besides, it’s time to get off my soapbox and tune in to the GOOD kind of March Madness. Sweet 16 all over the tely tonight. Rah.

The fallout continues over former University of Michigan hoops star Jalen Rose’s confession that “I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”

Some in the media and general public have chastised Rose for the comments, which were made for the ESPN documentary “The Fab Five,” which aired Sunday night, and former Dookie and current NBA star Grant Hill has issued a thoughtful response.

Rose had this to say to sportscasters Skip Bayless and Dana Jacobson on ESPN’s First Take on Tuesday:

Rose: “As a 17-year-old recruit, that’s exactly how I felt. I felt like I was an inner-city kid from the public school league that was waking up with kerosene heaters for heat in the house, boiling water to wash up, sleeping with hoodies and skullies, that at that time I felt like I wasn’t good enough for certain stages. That’s just a fact.”

“But also it was something I used as motivation. Now, I understand what their program represents because I’m a mature adult. I know that it’s a private school. I know that they do recruit players from well-to-do, affluent families, but also I understand some of the reason why. So that they don’t see some of their players selling goods or selling their rings for money. Also they want to get kids that are going to represent the program the right way. I get all of that. But that’s the minority, I was speaking for the majority. That’s exactly how I felt then.”

Bayless: “So you don’t feel that way today nearly as strongly?”

Rose: “Well the bottom line is this, they do recruit a certain type of player. They recruit a lot of players from private schools.”

Jacobson:  “Would they recruit you now?”

Rose: “I think they would recruit my kids. I don’t think they would have recruited me. I never seen Coach K in Detroit, but that’s just me.”

Listen, Coach K has nothing to apologize for. His impeccable record of running a scandal-free, title-winning program that produces college graduates and successful, stellar citizens for more than two decades speaks for itself.

Grant Hill and other African-American Dookies have nothing to apologize for, either. Yes, many of them graduated. Yes, some, such as Hill, came from two-parent homes. Since when does that make you an Uncle Tom?

On the other hand, Michigan, it turns out, was violating NCAA rules during the heyday of the Fab Five in the early 1990s, transgressions that Coach Steve Fisher lost his job for in 1997.

Furthermore, Jalen, they not only played by the rules while you were bending them, but they kicked your arse, beating the Fab Five every time they played them, including by 20 points in the 1991 NCAA final.

I get that Rose was jealous and bitter as a college student (who among us wouldn’t regret some of our actions and attitudes at that age?), but he’s a grownup now, and given how damaging and sticky such remarks can be, he should go overboard in stressing that he no longer holds such ignorant, hateful opinions.

He owes that much to Hill and all other African-American Dookies, as well as Coach K.

Unfortunately, judging from his comments on Tuesday, he can’t or won’t make such a claim, which means his winless streak against the most successful program in college basketball continues.

Editor’s note: The following is a guest blog by Dan Chicoine.

An NFL lockout is no longer being received by the general public as nonsense. It’s no longer something that would “never happen, not in a million years.”

It has become our reality.

The panic button shouldn’t be hit just yet. The owners and players still have time to reach a deal before the season begins. If they fail to do so, the consequences could devastate one side – not the players, but the owners. Players are now unemployed. Some may be content with being unemployed “winners,” and others may actually try to find work.

Brandon Marshall has expressed his interest in joining the NBA if a lockout were to occur. Terrell Owens would probably be soon to follow, as he talked about playing basketball years ago. Players who can’t jump or don’t want a desk job might take another option: the UFL.

The UFL was founded in 2007 and began play in 2009. Does this infant league have the potential to end the prestigious NFL for good? The idea sounds ridiculous, but let’s think about it for a second. All it takes is one big name player to make the move. If one player goes, then one more could follow suit, then another, then a group, and the trend continues.

No more Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, Bears. The storied franchises of the NFL would be history. Well known head coaches Dennis Green and Jim Fassel have already embraced the UFL. Former NFL Pro Bowlers Jeff Garcia and Daunte Culpepper are in the league as well.

All it takes is one. Peyton Manning and his irresistible crave for the game, Adrian Peterson and his love of competition, James Harrison and his addiction of bashing skulls.

Just one, and the rest will follow suit.

There are some advantages to the UFL that might interest a number of players right off the bat. There’s a “No Tuck Rule” in opposition to the NFL’s “Tuck Rule.” That right there will sway any Oakland Raider to join the league, but recruiting Tom Brady would be a lost cause. There’s no intentional grounding and there are specific down lineman and blitz rules that favor the offense. That’s a quarterback’s dream, and winning quarterbacks over to the UFL would heighten the wave of players joining the league.

On top of all that, touchdown celebrations are allowed. That instantly wins over Chad Johnson, and Terrell Owens might rethink that whole basketball dream, but DeSean Jackson wouldn’t be interested. Celebrations are only allowed in the end zone and on the sidelines.

All this aside, does the UFL even have the potential to pull something like this off? After all, the league only has five teams. Some conspiracy theorists would try to get you to believe that the UFL was created for the lone reason of a possible a lockout occurring in the NFL. The UFL could steal all of the NFL’s players and become the premiere football league in the world.

Is the UFL even a slight threat to the future of the NFL?

OK, so what if the UFL owners ultimately failed in their goal? Big deal, they made money regardless. If they succeed though, they inherit the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry that is American football.

Now, all of this is hypothetical. No one but the UFL owners know their true intentions behind creating the league, and the NFL lockout still has plenty of time to be resolved. “If” is the key word, and isn’t it always? If the NFL actually experiences an extensive lockout, and if the players begin to make the move to the UFL, sports history could be changed forever. The deciding factor at that point will come down to if the move to the UFL is a just a temporary fix for the players to pay the bills or a permanent stay.

In this fight between the NFL owners and the players, wouldn’t destroying the league be the ultimate revenge for the players?

Honestly, right now I wouldn’t bet money on any of this happening, but of course, I wouldn’t have bet money on a lockout occurring six months ago either. So, before you answer that it would “never happen, not in a million years” remember how that last unfathomable warning became reality faster than you can say “Greedy millionaires need more money to feed their families.”

Just over 40 years ago, the eight-team football league called the American Football League merged with the NFL to create the league we know today. The merger was necessary because the AFL became a threat. The five-team league of the UFL hasn’t been labeled as a threat just yet, but the recent lockout gives them that opportunity, and if the lockout gets ugly, the UFL may just gain enough power, not just to force a merger, but to take over.

Lost amid the media hoopla over Miami Heat players boo-hooing in the locker room after losing to the Bulls on Sunday is the pithy point that becomes more obvious after every last-second stammer by King James: Why isn’t Dwayne Wade shooting the rock with the game on the line?

Flash is a proven closer and a proven champion, and one of the best one-on-one players in the NBA.

It’s got to be killing him to watch James toss-up air balls and left-handed prayers time and again with games on the line.

Erik Spoelstra, are you listening?

The Heat, on a five-game skid going into Thursday’s game against the peaking Lakers, is going to have plenty to be depressed about in coming weeks and months.

Middling at the point guard position. Frown.

A frail front line. Snuffle.

An overwhelmed coach. Blubber.

A laughable bench. All-out, in-the-nude, shower-blasting weeping . . .

But back to James and Wade. LeBron, who, in a sequel to the Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech” addressed teammates about his late-game failures after the loss to Chicago, may be a two-time MVP but hasn’t shown himself to be a closer in the Kobe Bryant mode over the course of his career.

Wade? Well, put it this way: If I’m an opponent of the Heat, I don’t want to see the rock in that guy’s hands down the stretch. I mean, he’s unguardable and, as he proved during Miami’s title run in 2006, as clutch as they come.

So one of two things has to happen for Miami to right the ship and extend its season beyond the first or second round of the playoffs: LeBron—don’t hold your breath on this one—must defer to Wade, or Wade has to—Flash: check out vintage footage of a dude named Jerry West—demand the ball when it counts.

Otherwise, guard your coats, your blouses, your shoulders. The tears will be flowing.

I knew it and you knew it: our president ain’t no superhero.

Now it appears that Barack Obama, after taking it on the chin—and other places—for two years, knows it too.

Obama is taking a hands-off approach to the NFL labor dispute that threatens to derail the upcoming season. Here’s what he had to say today when asked whether he’ll intervene:

“For an industry that’s making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way and be true to their fans, who obviously allow for all the money that they’re making,” Obama said.

Early in his term, Obama seemed to be taking the Bill Clinton approach to the executive office, meaning he had something to say about everything—from politics to pop culture to sports to . . .

Don’t get me wrong. I miss the Clinton economy, not to mention the ex’s savvy and gift for elocution, but the dude still can’t keep his yapper—sorry, but I have to wonder about his fly, too—closed.

I don’t much miss the Bush economy, but one thing about George: he didn’t and doesn’t suffer from what I call Ba ba ba ba ba Syndrome.

Really, I don’t care what my president thinks about LeBron James’ decision to flee Cleveland, or, for that matter, his takes on Stevie Wonder or Lady Gaga or the Oscars. When my president does comment on such matters my reflex reaction is: Doesn’t he have more important things to deal with?

News flash: Obama does. First and foremost, there’s the economy and Libya.

So good on you, Barry, for taking a pass on an issue that’s out of your lane.

Now go and get Gadhafi already, would you?