One thing I noticed at the beginning of last night's game was, despite the large announced crowd of 44,988, how empty Dodger Stadium was. Traffic really must be that bad, which is why the Dodgers start their Friday night games even later, 7:40 PDT, so that makes it even tougher for us Midwesterners (and Easterners, too) to stay up late. I won't make it tonight as I must get up early tomorrow for work. Hold down the fort, OK?
My dad pointed me to this Wall Street Journal interview with noted sports economist Andrew Zimbalist; here are a few key clips from the interview, which had to do with the sale of the team:
If you are a buyer, you are going to estimate what kind of net income you are going to have for the next 20 to 30 years and you discount that back to the present. And if they have at the current payroll a winning team rather than a losing team that gives you more net income this year and more net income for a few years into the future. Hence it increases the value of the club. So yes it does improve that.And about the future of Wrigley Field:
The Red Sox are a model franchise for anybody. The additional parallel to the Cubs is the park with what the Red Sox have done with Fenway. They’ve made investments in Fenway, and they have all paid off. They put over $200 million of their own money into Fenway and it’s all paid off in spades. The changes were architecturally brilliant, and they didn’t do anything to undermine the historic value of the park. I don’t know Wrigley Field well enough to know what they could do along those lines, but I do know that certain prospective owners of the Cubs have talked to the people on the Red Sox about reworking the park. And it’s one of several reasons why I think the best deal for Cubs going forward is for the owner of the team to own the park.Emphasis added by me on that last sentence.
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Again tonight, it's rematch time, this time from May 27 at Wrigley Field. As was the case last night, the Dodgers' starter pitched well that day, but the Cubs' starter pitched better. It was Sean Gallagher's best start as a Cub so far, and I think bodes well for the future.
The major difference we'll see tonight from that game is this: it was brutally cold at Wrigley on May 27 with the wind howling in from left field, which obviously was a big help to the pitchers. It'll be just a bit warmer than that in Los Angeles for tonight's game.
And Sean? Please go get another photo taken. That one is, well, just plain weird.
WGN carries tonight's game which is also on cable in the LA area. Also see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)
MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Today's overflow comment threads will post at 10:45 pm and 11:45 pm CT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.