O’My! O’Malley Era Ending : It Should Be Treated as a Death in Family

Drove to Dodger Stadium on Monday to hear the saddest news since Brett Butler had a sore throat.

Made a left turn on Stadium Way.

Thought, is there any other facility in the country still located on a Stadium Way?

Realized, the new Dodger ownership group will probably figure a way to sell the name to a tire manufacturer.

Drove inside past a pleasant parking attendant, who always urges me to enjoy the game.

Thought, where else do you feel like you are stepping into a living room instead of a ballpark?

Realized, this guy and his smile are history.

For $500 million, the new Dodger ownership group won’t want people who chat, they’ll want people who produce.

Walked inside the empty stadium, found a seat, stared at the pristine blue outfield walls, imagined the sound of an organ playing a Broadway tune, had two thoughts.

Advertising and rock ‘n’ roll.

Sat there staring for a few minutes, imagined the sound of something else, a familiar voice cutting through the static, had another thought.

Vin Scully is safe, isn’t he?

Then thought about all those Detroit Tiger fans who were certain their new owners wouldn’t do anything to Ernie Harwell.

While announcing Monday that he was selling the Dodgers, Peter O’Malley was full of smiles and reassurances.

But don’t think for one moment that baseball, as Los Angeles knows it, has not just flipped like a Tom Candiotti knuckleball.

Certainly, there will be an infusion of money that will probably result in the acquisition of more high-priced stars.

But just as certainly, there will an irreplaceable loss of soul.

You might watch a Dodger team that won’t falter in the first round of the playoffs.

But you might have to buy a personal seat license to do it.

For the first time in your life, you may be able to afford to watch the Dodgers in spring training.

But only because, what corporation in its right mind would ship its product across the country to homey but nonprofitable Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla.?

Want to bet that first call made by the new owners will be to some developer in a small Arizona town?

For nearly half a century the Dodgers have been run by a family, like a family, for the family.

For both good and bad, the family is no more.

So much for loyalty being a top criterion for front-office employment, which is good.

But so much, too, for being the only team without dugouts at its spring training field, which is bad.

So much for sticking with younger players over top free agents.

So much for five consecutive rookies of the year.

Some will say O’Malley was no longer willing to spend the money to compete at baseball’s top level, to build a team good enough to survive the season’s final month.

O’Malley can answer with two playoff appearances in the last two years.

While remaining, arguably, the best sports bargain in country.

An average Dodger season ticket this year--first rows of reserved level, between home plate and first base--costs about $12 a ticket.

A similar Laker season ticket costs $47.

Commit that Dodger number to memory, because you will never see it again.

It could be a crazy (Kirk Gibson), insensitive (Al Campanis), and troubled (Darryl Strawberry) family.

But it was family nonetheless.

Toni Hegemier, a Pasadena preschool owner and season-ticket holder, tells the story of how she walked inside the stadium once during the national anthem.

While standing at attention, she noticed a group of concession workers joking and laughing.

She wanted to complain, didn’t know how, so she walked into the Dodger front office and asked.

Within minutes, she was meeting with a man who promised her the situation would be remedied.

Well, it was not just any man.

“It was the manager of the entire concessions staff,” she said. “And yes, he fixed it.”

This time next year, if she has a similar problem, Hegemier wonders if a guard will even let her near the Dodger offices to make the complaint.

“I’m afraid that all of that is going to be lost,” she said. “This family is going to become like everything else in corporate America.”

Straw hats on ushers? Are you kidding? Some suit will decide that they can be stolen and used as weapons.

The actor who played Greg on “The Brady Bunch” singing the national anthem on the same night Brett Butler makes his comeback from cancer? The new people will decide it’s too weird too . . . Los Angeles.

A lengthy old-timers’ game featuring overweight stars every year?

The new ownership group may not know that to some Dodger old-timers, Joe Black means as much as Orel Hershiser.

The group may not see the benefit in teaching Bill Russell to manage, or Don Newcombe to administrate.

And just where will Tom Lasorda fit in? Can anybody who was not a Dodger understand how he is much more than simply a former manager?

The first time Lasorda leans out of a box and waves to the fans, as he did last year during the playoffs, what are the odds that some suit will tell him to get back? Safety reasons.

“For all of their occasional maddening idiosyncrasies, the O’Malley family brought a real spirit to the place,” said Scott Kaufer, a TV writer and producer who has had season tickets for 10 years. “It’s going to be so hard to find another owner like them. The last thing we want is an overbearing jerk like George Steinbrenner, or a faceless corporate entity who doesn’t care about the fans.”

The fans. Monday’s announcement will reverberate in boardrooms and law offices across the nation, but nobody is going to feel it as the fans will.

Peter O’Malley may not have always won games for them, but he always made sure the seats were clean, and that should count for something.

Howard Levine has been a Dodger Stadium usher for 25 years. When told about the impending sale, he was reminded of another O’Malley announcement, one that he heard throughout each of those 25 years.

“Kill ‘em with kindness,” he said. “That’s what we were constantly told. Kill ‘em with kindness.”

On Monday, he just killed ‘em.