Joe Torre + Dodgers = Who Give a Shit?

If you go here, you will see an article on espn.com (THE sports leader!) lamenting the fact that while the news that Joe Torre is leaving the Evil Empire is HUGE, the news that he's replacing Grady Little's sorry ass in Los Angeles (the real Los Angeles - Chavez Ravine. Not this "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" bullshit. Which, if you actually do the translation on, does, in fact, read "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim. Assholes) is barely making a plop out here on the Left Coast.

Let me tell you why. Yes, sure, out here in Southern California we're all too busy making sex tapes and then aborting the fetuses created in said sex tapes, and having dinner with famous people and then surfing, but there's more to it than that. First off, we don't get our sensationalism out of the world of sports. Unless the sports figure is caught railing some crazy 20-year old in Colorado, or murdering an ex-wife and a waiter. Because we have Hollywood right here (NIMBY!), we don't need ornery 60-year old baseball managers on our front pages (looking in your direction, Post).

But, more important than that, and I say this as a moderate Dodgers fan, is that no one cares if Joe Torre is coming to the Dodgers because no one cares what happens to the Dodgers. The Dodgers, yes, used to be cool. They had Tommy Lasorda. They had multiple rookies of the year in a row. They even had Kirk Gibson. Now, all the Dodgers have is the almost-preternatural ability to rise to first place in the NL West for one day in July, and then slowly start the decline into third place by the end of the season (or, like this year, fourth). Not even the fact that Jeff Kent is the coolest mutherfucker ever can make up for the apathy the Dodgers have forced on their fans. But, for the record, Jeff Kent is definitely the coolest mutherfucker ever.

So there you have it. No one cares because it won't matter. The only thing the Dodgers aren't mediocre at is mediocrity, at which they excel. No fancy-pants New York manager is gonna change that.

FUN FACT TO TIE THIS WHOLE THING TOGETHER: You know who was hired as the baseball trainer for Bull Durham, the tremendous Hollywood film about baseball? Grady Little. Boo-yah fuckers. That's called dove-tailing.