Letters to Sports: Readers again side with Freddie Freeman

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman slides into home plate to score a run.

July 15, 2022 4:36 PM PT

The Monday column by Dylan Hernández, ostensibly about Kershaw making the All-Star team, disgraces the L.A. Times. Plainly continuing his vendetta against Freddie Freeman, Hernández whines about Freeman feeling snubbed on not chosen. But Hernández goes beyond that. Simply because Freeman told Hernández his question whether he was “ticked off” by not being selected was allegedly “a terrible question,” Hernández goes ballistic and writes, “And this is the guy the Dodgers will be counting on in October.” Freeman is one of the best players in baseball. This is not journalism. It is a childish grudge. Hernández should be fired.

Craig A. Horowitz
Santa Monica

What does Dylan Hernández have against Freddie Freeman? First he writes that total hack job, classless column about how Freeman shouldn’t be showing all these conflicting emotions over the ending of his tenure with the Braves, and then he feels the need to throw in another jab (or three) at Freddie in an article about Clayton Kershaw’s All-Star selection?

Hernández is like one of those people who does something hurtful to someone and then gets mad at that person for taking it badly. Freeman has every right to call out this guy for what was a really tone-deaf article and to shun him if he wants. Hernández has obviously never lost something important to him, never been dumped by a girlfriend or never been fired from a job he loves, though the L.A. Times could do something about that.

Danny Balber Jr.
Pasadena

With all the vitriol being leveled by Dylan Hernández on Freddie Freeman, I thought I was reading a T.J. Simers piece from the old days. Give it a rest, Dylan! You spent the first half of your column on Kershaw bashing Freddie Freeman once again, and then stoop so low as to question his emotional stability? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Freddie might be reacting negatively to your questions.

Ted Shirley
Rancho Palos Verdes

You have got to stop Dylan Hernández’s hatchet attacks on Freddie Freeman. I have subscribed to this paper for over 50 years and never seen such vitriol.

Jeanne Miller
Ventura

Maybe Hernández is the emotionally unstable one.

Mike Schaller
Temple City

Freddie Freeman is incorrect calling Dylan Hernández the “worst reporter he’s dealt with in his 13 years in the major leagues.” Dylan Hernández is the worst columnist.

Peter Maradudin
Seattle

Sho must go on

If the Angels trade Shohei Ohtani then the ownership and management will have admitted that they are inept in putting together a winning team. They have arguably the two best baseball players in Ohtani and Mike Trout. If they can’t build a team around them, then maybe it’s time to further admit their failures this year and in years past and actually sell the team to someone who can do the job.

Steve Shaevel
Woodland Hills

I’m sure the “experts” representing other teams would love for the Angels to trade Ohtani , which would of course be the stupidest decision since the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth. How’d that turn out?

William Morgan
Pacific Palisades

Is this a joke? Perry Minasian thinks the Angels can win? He may be a moron for getting rid of Joe Maddon, but he’s not the problem. They had a future Hall of Fame manager and two of the five leading superstars in baseball and they couldn’t win. They can sign Aaron Judge and Trea Turner in the offseason and they’re not going to win. Joe McCarthy can rise from the dead and manage the team and they’re not going to win. And what’s been consistent through all these years of failure? Arte Moreno. He’s the worst owner in the history of sports. He has to go. Rita Moreno would do a better job.

Dennis Connor
Burbank

Note to Angels’ GM Perry Minasian. It’s not the manager.

Bob Kargenian
Yorba Linda

Baseball blues

Your two articles on Dodger Stadium — the maddening experience of attending a game at the cathedral of baseball — both hit their mark like a Kershaw slider. The stadium is as magnificent as ever, but attending a weeknight game these days is an ordeal — leave home at 5 p.m., get back at midnight.

The parking, the food choices, the bathrooms, the stress of entering and exiting the stadium in cars and on foot — none show improvement over the past 60 years. The new centerfield pavilion, nice as it is, does not address the deeper problems. Dodger Stadium should function as a modern ballpark, not a museum. Ownership has done a stunning job with the ballclub but next to nothing with the stadium. Time to get serious about the fan experience.

Don Gould
Claremont

Reading Bill Plaschke’s article about the torture that is getting in to and out of Dodger Stadium reminds me why I became an Angels fan. Reading the Angels game recap every day that Ohtani doesn’t pitch makes me wish someone would make it easier to get in to and out of Dodger Stadium.

Michael Coyle
Long Beach

‘Student-athlete’ means nil

Thanks to Ryan Kartje for the well-written and detailed account of new USC incoming QB Caleb Williams. It’s a good view of what it means to be a “student-athlete” these days. Of interest, there was no mention of what this young man wants to study, what classes he might take, or any reflection on what attending a very top academic institution like USC might mean to him. Unfortunately, it is all the reality of big time “college” sports.

Mark Haendel
Santa Monica

Many years ago the remarkable singer Carmen McRae had a wonderful song called “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” Having read the extensive piece on Caleb Williams and his journey into NIL I was struck by the prominence of his coaches and family and sponsors and agents “sparing no expense in helping his potential as a quarterback” and “helping Caleb as a college football player and an endorsement leader” and acknowledging that he is here in L.A., at USC, “to be a better football player.”

Sadly, to my sense of the concept of “student athlete,” there was no reference to education or scholarship.

Perhaps I just wasn’t made for these times.

Joe Hilberman
Los Angeles

The story of USC quarterback Caleb Williams’ football and commercial successes bring two words to mind. Todd Marinovich. Todd’s grooming for quarterback greatness was arguably the prototype for the grooming of Caleb Williams.

One can only hope that his powerful stable of PR and financial advisers include someone with the ability to keep him from following Todd’s tragic path.

Noel Park
Rancho Palos Verdes

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