One group of people that I have no respect for is: frontrunners. Can't stand 'em. I've lived in Southern California my entire life, minus half of my second grade year spent in rainy Salem, Oregon, when my dad took a job with Bell Potato Chips, and have been a dedicated fan of the Big 3 LA teams: Dodgers, Lakers and SC football all of those years. Loyal. Always rooting for them. Loving the glory days of Lasorda's Dodgers, Riley and Phil's Lakers, and Robinson and Carrol's Trojans. But also enduring and rooting for my teams (even harder it seemed) during the down times: the last twenty years of Dodger playoff dudness, the Randy Pfund-Del Harris-Magic Johnson-Rudy Tomjanovich & Frank Hamblin coached Laker squads, and the Ted Tollner-Larry Smith-Robinson part two-Paul Hackett led Trojan teams. Down years are part of being a fan. Like life, you gotta ride out the lows to thoroughly enjoy the highs.
Beginning of the season, not a Laker car flag to be seen around SoCal. A few weeks ago they began to resurface. The dust balls, old hairs, and french fry grease from lying around at the bottom of fans trunks since '04 blowing off with each frontrunner step of the gas, choking the already smoggy, LA air. Since then, they're making more and more of a presence. Don't need it. If you weren't flying 'em in December to show your Laker support, don't fly 'em now that they're playing well.
SC football. Couldn't get the Coliseum three fourths filled at the turn of the century. Now the tickets are going for so much coin, they're bumping out loyal season ticket holders to make way for the big time, frontrunning money that's come with Pete's success.
Dodger fans are a different story. We're loyal, too loyal actually. Like Cub fans. We support ordinary, average, mundane play by coming out in droves and constantly setting new attendance numbers. I don't support this.
Now I'm not saying fans should settle for average and be content with mediocrity or poor play or lousy personnel. We, as fans, should always demand the best product to be put out there because we're the ones paying for it.
Take the Dodgers for example. For the last couple of years, ownership hasn't exactly put a title contending team on the field. I'll never stop wearing my Dodger shirt, but I'm not going to go to as many games if they're not trying to put a winner out there.
Fans: pick a team, support it by sporting shirts, hats, flags, sweatshirts to let people know where your feelings lie, and demand an effort from ownership to be competitive by not supporting nonsense.
That being said, don't fault management for trying, only if they don't try. I went to every one of those Paul Hacket led Trojan games knowing that Mike Garret was just as upset with the on field product as I was, knowing that he was going to do what he had to do to improve the squad.
The McCourt's now appear to be on track.
Jerry Buss has always tried to field a winner and that's all a fan can ask for. So if you got a Laker flag, keep that baby out year after year.
