CSI: The Yard

It has been CSI: TheYard these last few weeks. Horatio should have been there to flip those shades up and say, “There won’t be any more fun when he gets back from the Yard”. There was very little trace evidence but a full season of baseball allegiance and an infant college football season were murdered with extreme prejudice. We had to pull the yellow tape out for this crime scene and we can only hope the CSI team can find the culprit before next season.

It all started two weekends ago on a scorching October afternoon at the Rose Bowl. UCLA was still amongst the “other receiving votes” club nationally and proud of it. The Bruins faced a resurgent Oregon team donning one of their 81 uniform combinations that Phil Knight has bequeathed them. It was a particularly ghastly ensemble.

The home team fought hard to a 3-0 half time lead. The kick off to start the second half was gloriously booted three yards deep in the Cal end zone. The play ended 103 yards later in the Bruin end zone. Ducks up 7-3. After the ensuing kickoff, UCLA’s first offensive play covered thirty seven yards beginning with a Duck interception in the flat and ending with a personal foul for excessive celebration in the Bruin end zone. Ducks 14-3. Twenty minutes of half time optimism died in the first thirty six seconds of the second half reality. The Bruin football season left some telling DNA at the crime scene on this afternoon.

In the week that followed, the Yard and the Dodgers basked in the sweep of the favored Cardinals and the fodder contained in our first high profile celebrity divorce. Then the Dodgers were bludgeoned during a Phillies home invasion robbery on Thursday night. The CSI team was already Birkenstock deep in the Bruin crime scene before Randy Wolf threw his 34th pitch in the first inning at the Ravine in Game 1 of the NLCS. The Phillies came on harder than a DEA dragnet in Broward County. Cole Hamels pitched as marginally as advertised but two three run homers beats fourteen hits and a full house most nights.

Then on another Saturday of despair, we were reluctantly called back to the Rose Bowl by the double helix of myopia and hope. Cal was coming off a bye week after two weeks and 66 points in losses. It was a battle of California State institutions fighting through the work furloughs of their coaching staffs to come up with a game plan. Tom Tedford and Rick Neuheisel each gave 10% of their salaries back to the state. We wish Cal had given back the 277 rushing yards last Saturday afternoon. We made a decision not to read about this past Saturday’s game at Arizona until we were safely shielded in the Laker basketball season opener.

John Broxton went from being a massive 100 mph country boy flame thrower to part of the discussion that includes Terry Forster and Tom Neidenfurer. These two Dodger relievers had prodigious body types, threw hard and gave up legendary post season changing home runs. Johnny B has more upside but he has had back to back years when a save changes the series. He might have been thinking about the home run 67 year old Matt Stairs hit last year when he walked him on four pitches in Game 4 this year. In the end, Stairs started a rally that ended the Dodgers hopes and our dreams.

TMZ is good. They had the Frank McCourt letter firing his wife as Dodger team president posted on their website practically before she did. Frank wrote the Jamie had become insubordinate and had acted inappropriately. The Yard has some experience in this area and insubordination and inappropriate behavior are pretty standard offerings during divorce proceedings. Jamie seemed like a load but she was Frank’s load. They were omnipresent and worked hard to become celebrity owners in a town of celebrity fans. Gradually, the team improved and so did our perception. Suddenly, what took years to achieve has been destroyed in the past week. We understand Frank firing Jamie he should have never hired her as team president.

It was a nice touch that the news broke before game one of the NLCS. Apparently, what had been known for months had to get into the LA Times prior to the first pitch. We were at that game and Jamie gabbed on her cell phone, cried on a Dodger executive shoulder and acted about as involved in the game as Paris Hilton while Frank sat stoically two rows behind her. She now wants to buyout Frank and be the owner of the Dodgers. If that happens, I have two words-Georgia Frontiere. And as TJ Simers queried, "Who gets custody of Lasorda?"