A free suggestion for the marketing geniuses at Dodger Stadium

Tonight might be your last chance to watch a Dodger home game. So what are you waiting for? Roll on down, and while you're here, you might as well load up on all the Dodger Dogs, nachos, and 438 other varieties of starches and trans fats that we offer. Dodgers vs. Giants. Live like there's no tomorrow.

"MR OMALLEY PLEASE COME BACK"

Having a restaurant so close to Dodger Stadium use to be really awesome until attendance took a nosedive.

Can you blame this guy for wanting O'Malley back?

Rick's on Riverside and Fletcher. Photo via Wade Beckett at Twitter.

On eBay you can bid on Dodger tickets, Dodger gear, and pretty soon the Dodgers

Forbes is reporting that if Frank McCourt can't come up with $6 million to $9 million to fund payroll, the team will be sold in an auction. If this picture offers any clues, he's going to have a hell of a time getting there.

Dodger Stadium on Clayton Kershaw Bobblehead night. Photo is courtesy of 6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog via ChadMoriyama on Twitter.

Putting James Loney's slow start in historical perspective

Jon Wiseman compares James Loney's wretched start to other wretched Dodger starts of the post-1988 era. "Loney has a .534 OPS, putting him firmly in position to have one of the worst Dodgers starts through the end of May of any regular since 1988."

Worst OPS through May
(minimum 3.1 plate appearances per team game)
.452 John Shelby, 1989
.457 Alfredo Griffin, 1988
.532 Mike Davis, 1988
.582 Cesar Izturis, 2003
.595 Jose Offerman, 1994

If post-1988 history is any predictor, don't expect Loney to bounce back this season. That is, unless he moves to Albuquerque.

Till Selig Do Us Part

Firsthand accounts by former Dodgers employees are tremendous bang for the buck. Michael K. Fox, a Dodger marketing executive from from 1978 to 1987, wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today about the O'Malley family's clear vision toward preserving Dodger baseball for future generations. Curiously, Fox never mentions McCourt by name, my guess being because he never worked for him. I can't gauge his personal feelings toward McCourt, but anyone who basically says "This is how the O'Malley's did things" can't help but characterize the current owner as inept and short-sided, whether they mean to or not.

You don't need an MBA from Stanford to realize that drawing families to Dodger Stadium was and continues to be a sound business model:

In 1997, a family of four could enjoy a Dodgers game for $104, which included a package deal of four $12 box seats, four hot dogs and four sodas, two beers, two game programs and two Dodger caps and parking. Today, the same experience can run $600 or more; an authentic Dodger cap alone now costs $35.

Here's my take on ticket prices. McCourt's outsider status troubled me from the outset. Coming from Boston, I felt the historical love affair between the Dodgers and its followers was foreign to him. To me and other observers, McCourt's twisted way of acknowledging this union came early and often in the form of higher ticket prices.  Everything else — from shoddy personnel decisions to extravagant lifestyle choices — was hostile to the bond between team and community.

How many times have the McCourts tried to sell the public on the concept of family ownership, as if they were the second coming of Ozzie and Harriet? When Frank sobs that he wants to pass the team along to his "boys", are we supposed to get all warm and fuzzy inside? The troubling truth is this: In the futile process of trying to pass themselves off as O'Malley-like, Frank and Jamie were sucking millions out the heirloom and driving it off a financial cliff.

If Bud Selig wants to fulfill the wishes of virtually every Dodger fan, he'll see to it that the McCourt boys never get the keys to daddy's kingdom.

The face of Dodger baseball, circa 2011. We live in a sorry time of weak hitting