It’s easy to throw down the newspaper, shake your head and grumble about the commercialization of sports. When you complain about the salaries of an Alex Rodriguez or a Kevin Brown, you probably don’t find too many people looking to disagree. And tell me you know somebody who thinks the money TV networks are willing to pay for the Olympics or an NFL season makes sense. This is all easy stuff to complain about and so very far away. But now Time Warner and Fox have really done it. They’ve gone and created a money-taints-sports story that includes you: They’ve taken your Dodgers away! All right, maybe they’re not your Dodgers. Maybe you’re not a Time Warner Cable subscriber who lives in the West Valley and has been shut out of a fair number of baseball games on Fox Sports Net 2. But the rest of you, you know who you are. And if you live or work in the Valley, you’ve suddenly in these last few hot, mind-numbing days of summer got a business-slash-sports controversy that hits close to home. Face it, the big business stories designed to hit the nerve of the general public rarely manage to do so. Despite the best intentions of the newsmagazines and the Sunday morning talk shows, not that many people have a good idea of what’s involved with, for instance, the Microsoft breakup case. And of those who can figure out what’s going on, even fewer have the energy to conjure up an opinion. I’d bet most of you couldn’t tell me you really understand the issues surrounding land use in Ahmanson Ranch. And at least until this hot spell breaks, I defy most of you to really be able to work that hard to defend one position or the other too strongly. At least not with the intensity some of us can bring to the latest version of the big league strike zone or Barry Bonds’ home run count or, yes, the question of whether or not the Dodgers can make the playoffs. Never mind Microsoft or stem cell research or your daughter’s choice of spouses, Chan Ho Park’s choice of catchers is something to get riled up about. And so is this latest imbroglio involving Time Warner, Fox and the Dodgers. It’s got it all: the desecration of a national pastime, business executives talking out of both sides of their mouths, a new technology seeking to take advantage, and frustrated baseball fans who, summer after summer, win or lose, have counted on an evening under the air conditioner zoning out to the sound of Vin Scully’s voice. It started out so casually it seemed like a routine. Systematically, one high-priced Dodger pitcher after another succumbed to injury. Eric Karros struggled at the plate and Shawn Green hid his gifts under a basket. We kept watching. Then somewhere in June, the message scrolled across the bottom of the Fox Sports Net 2 TV screen: “You’re about to lose your Dodgers.” Using all the advertising dollars they could prudently employ, Time Warner and Fox competed to tell baseball fans and TV viewers to call the other guy and complain. As you can read elsewhere in this issue, it all has to do with how much cable companies should have to pay Fox for sports programming. Depending on who you talk to, it’s either a matter of a few cents a month or tens of millions of dollars. None of the principals are willing to be too specific about the details, which puts it into the realm of the Microsofts and Ahmanson Ranches of the world when it comes to stirring business conflicts. Nevertheless, the July 31 trading deadline arrives. The Dodgers get James Baldwin from the White Sox, he strikes some guys out in his first game; the Arizona Diamondbacks have Curt Shilling, who does not keep them from a losing streak; the Dodgers, for the first time in years this late in the season, are slipping in and out of first place; and night after night after night, West Valley fans affected by the blackout can’t see the games even when they’re played in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, towns viewers swore they’d never return to in person. Next, Time Warner cable households are strung with doorknob hangers announcing the great deal DirecTV has for anybody who wants to see a pennant race with the help of their very own satellite TV dish. Time Warner is running commercials with “testimonials” of everyday people taken in by the so-called “free” offers of satellite TV. The Dodgers lose five games in a row and go into the past weekend trailing the Diamondbacks by three and a half games. Will Time Warner collapse under the pressure of angry fans hungry for one single chance to see Shawn Green hit a home run and pay the either one-cent or multi-million-dollar surcharge (depending on who you talk to)? Will Fox realize nobody really cares about the baseball team they own and give Time Warner back its remaining games, hoping to cut its losses? Can Paul LoDuca get enough at bats to save the season? Can Kevin Brown return to the mound for the last all-important set of games against the Giants and the Diamondbacks? Will pennant fever drive DirecTV to the top of the TV viewing heap? Is Jim Tracy the reincarnation of Opie Taylor? It ain’t over ’til it’s over. Michael Hart is editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal He can be reached at [email protected].