More violence at Dodger Stadium

A little over a year ago, following a game between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, a Giants fan named Bryan Stow was beaten into a coma by two Dodgers fans that attacked him because of the team he supported. While we will probably never know all of the details about the confrontation, the result of it is all that really mattered. Stow was in a coma for several months following the attack, and is still today not fully recovered. Lawsuits and court cases have ensued, with accusations flying in all directions, and the entire event was a black eye for a Dodgers organization that, at the time, was already a mess for more than a few reasons.
What did come from the attack was a pledge from the Dodgers organization that security would be increased at all games, and nothing like that would ever happen again. And when it finally seemed like the event was in the past, we all got a reminder that it surely was not this past weekend when the Dodgers played the St. Louis Cardinals. What was categorized as a "minor fender bender" in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, turned into an attack on one man by another four. Thankfully, this time, the victim was not as seriously injured as Stow was, but that isn't the real point. The point is that Dodgers fans have obviously not learned much from the attack on Stow last March.
Whether or not players and/or executives like it, the fans of a team are just as much a part of an organization as anyone with a suit or a jersey on. I actually believe that fans have the right to claim that they are the most important part of an organization. Players, coaches, general managers, and other people that sit in an owner's box or put on a jersey come and go.
Of course, this isn't true in all cases, but in many cases it is. The Mara family is, and always will be, more a part of the New York Giants organization than any living fan or player can be. From Wellington Mara, one of the men at the forefront of the creation of not only the Giants, but the entire National Football League, down to John Mara, and into the future, the Mara family is literally, the New York Giants. The same can be said for the Rooney family and the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, the Dodgers are not one of these rare cases.
The attack on Stow occurred when the team was owned by the McCourt family. Following the recent sale of the organization to a group including Los Angeles legend Magic Johnson, it seemed as though the Dodgers were on an upward trajectory. Major League Baseball had finally seen one of its most storied franchises come out from under the black cloud that the McCourt family had cast upon the Dodgers. Johnson's group had seemingly injected a new life into a team that had been floundering in mediocrity lately. Despite the presence of reigning National League Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw, and one of the best players in the game, Matt Kemp, Dodger Stadium was full of a lot of empty seats over the past years.
However, this year Kemp got off to a blazing hot start, Kershaw has been just as great as last year, and the team has the best record in all of baseball. It seemed like an entirely different organization was on the rise in Los Angeles. Yet despite all of this success, another event like we saw this weekend still managed to occur and seriously damage what seemed like it could have been a milestone year for the team. Even after the Dodgers organization said we would never see an attack like the one on Stow last year happen again, it happened. And like I said before, even though this attack had nothing to do with Matt Kemp or Clayton Kershaw or Magic Johnson, it is still a very poor reflection upon the Dodgers entire organization.
Events like these do not happen often. Every team in every sport has fans that get unruly, some more so than others, but we have now had similar incidents occur within 14 months of one another in the same place, with the same fans, and that is impossible to ignore. Dodgers fans will be around longer than any of the players or executives, and until the organization can prevent these things from occurring, the team will walk around with a black eye no matter how well the team on the field might be performing.

Daily Rangers Update: The puck drops in Newark for Game 4 against the Devils tonight in about 90 minutes. Henrik Lundqvist is coming off his second shutout in the three games that have been played in this series, and is playing like a brick wall protecting the net. However, he had to face a ton of shots in Game 3, so it would be nice to take some pressure off him by controlling the puck a little bit more and not trying to play defense for two and a half periods while we wait to score a goal. It would also be nice to win this game and possibly be able to prevent this series from going the distance, because the Kings seem like they will be able to rest for a long time if they close out the Coyotes in Game 5 out west. A 3-1 series lead sounds a heck of a lot better than a 2-2 series, so a win tonight would be awesome. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Well it took a trip to Kansas City, the team with the worst home record in baseball, to finally get the ship righted somewhat and at least moving towards the right direction, but the results are all that matter. Now it's back home to take on the (as mentioned before) first place Dodgers. It's far too early to start looking at the standings, but I don't care, I'll do it anyway. 9.5 games is a big deficit. The best way to cut down that number is to beat the team you're chasing though, so hopefully that starts tonight. Patrick Corbin has been very good since being called up from the minor leagues, Chris Young is back, and hopefully Daniel Hudson won't be far behind. Taking this series could be very big, so let's hope it starts well tonight.
Daily Giants Update: Continuing the trend of reaping the rewards of a Super Bowl championship, a few members of the team got to ring the closing NASDAQ bell last week. More importantly though, the team got their Super Bowl rings as well, and as would be expected, they were much nicer than any piece of jewelry I could ever hope to own. Lawrence Taylor also, sadly, announced that he would be auctioning off one of his Super Bowl rings, but that's another story for another day. On the field though, some teams have opened their full squad minicamps. The Giants will begin soon, and the quest to repeat will be officially underway.