All L.A. Fans Want Is to Beat the Traffic

I hear many L.A. fans complaining that they get a bad rap--that they are blase and don’t support their teams. After attending a recent Dodger game, I believe L.A. fans, as a whole, deserve that bad rap.

It was the seventh inning, the Dodgers leading, 5-3. After the third Dodger out, it seemed that a third of the stadium got up and headed for the parking lot. After each successive half inning, more people flocked to their cars.

The game went 11 innings that night, one of the most exciting I have attended, yet by the end probably less than half of the 46,000 originally in attendance were left at the stadium.

How can people who say they support a team leave early from a close game without even bothering to see how the game ends? In baseball, a game isn’t over until it’s over, yet L.A. baseball fans (and fans of most other sports in this city) seem more concerned with beating the traffic out of the parking lot than supporting their team until the end of the game.

I was born in L.A., and have been a fan most of my life, but after constantly witnessing the blase attitude of many of my fellow “rooters,” I am sometimes ashamed to admit I am an L.A. fan.

JEFF REITZES

Santa Monica