The world according to Jim:
• When Los Angeles was approved by the International Olympic Committee in 2017 as the host for the 2028 Games, it seemed like such a good idea at the time. After all, L.A. had made so many attempts to get a third Games, and with its Olympic heritage and surfeit of existing facilities it was a natural destination, right?
Maybe we should have been a little more cautious. I suppose it’s too late to send this package back, just as it’s too late to return the 2026 World Cup to FIFA to find another site. …
• Besides so many other issues – war, divisive politics and an organizing committee chairman linked to the Epstein files, among other things – any enthusiasm for welcoming the world to our doorstep in two years took a hit with the revelation of Olympic ticket prices this week. By all indications, not already abundantly wealthy might as well resign themselves to watching on NBC – and hope that the network at least loosens its “taped for the West Coast” policy for the city in which the Olympics are actually held. …
• There are reports that L.A. city officials are fearful of massive additional costs, absent a signed deal between the organizing committee and the city. That may be where some of those crazy ticket prices are coming from. …
READ: Early access to LA28 Olympics tickets: How did my experience go?
• Then there are the bait-and-switch tactics apparently being used by FIFA toward its ticket buyers for the World Cup. According to The Athletic, after offering tickets for matches in “Category 1,” presumably the most expensive tier of seats, they’ve created an entirely new and more expensive tier of seats. Even garden variety scammers aren’t that shameless. …
• But this should have been a tipoff to the ripoff: FIFA offered that initial category of seats without specifying seat locations. People paid under the assumption they’d get the best seats in the house, only to find out that they’d be second best – or maybe worse. There’s still time for FIFA to add another higher-priced category or two before the matches begin in June. …
• So let’s be honest: How many of you who were initially excited about a third Olympic Games for Southern California, or the eight World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium, are now much less enthusiastic? …
• Even Dodgers tickets – this season averaging $503 for a family of four, according to a survey by The Action Network – aren’t as expensive as some of those Olympic or World Cup tickets.
If you’re curious, only the Cubs ($570.16) are higher on that MLB chart. The Angels ($229.62 for a family of four) are fifth lowest. …
• Cori Close, coach of women’s basketball’s national champions, noted during Wednesday’s Pauley Pavilion celebration of UCLA’s title that when she first took the job in 2011, she was told: “I don’t know if you could ever make L.A. care about women’s basketball.”
Guess she proved ’em wrong. …
• Close insisted from the start that women’s hoops was worth paying attention to and covering, and she has collaborated with USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb in recent years to pound that message home. Close’s unceasing gratitude for those who did pay attention hasn’t gone unnoticed; when the media still sat courtside at Pauley for women’s games, before being banished upstairs a couple of years ago, she would go down the line before a game saying hi and letting reporters know she welcomed their presence.
Putting together a team that was absolutely fun to watch has helped, too. …
• Today’s quiz: A Southern California university’s women’s basketball team won a national title even before those 1978 Bruins of Ann Meyers (now Ann Meyers Drysdale) and Denise Curry. Who was it? Answer below. …
• Our survey of changes readers would make in consuming sports in SoCal brought both responses we couldn’t get in at the time and additional emails after the fact. So, beginning this week, the Suggestion Box becomes a periodic feature. (I was going to call it “Gripe of the Week,” but that’s a little harsh.)
Today’s offering comes from Cindy Curti: “My suggestion to the Los Angeles Kings: Stop the flashing, rotating white spotlight. Especially at the beginning of the game when the lights are off. It’s very disorienting. I have to close my eyes and cover my eyes with my hands to block it out. I can imagine if a person has epilepsy, the lights could trigger a seizure.” …
• Quiz answer: Cal State Fullerton, in March of 1970, won the Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women tournament in Boston – the forerunner of the AIAW tournament – by beating Springfield (Mass.), Western Carolina, East Stroudsburg (Pa.) State and West Chester (Pa.). Fullerton, in its first season of women’s basketball, finished 17-1. …
• The head coach? The late Billie Moore, who would post a record of 140-15 in eight seasons at Fullerton followed by a 296-181 record in 16 seasons at UCLA, with two national titles and an Olympic silver medal in 1976 in Montreal. She’s enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, plus the Women’s Basketball and UCLA halls.
So why is she still not in Cal State Fullerton’s Hall of Fame? …
• Davey Lopes, who died this week at age 80, was the catalyst of those accomplished Dodgers teams of the ’70s – a leadoff hitter who stole bases (557 steals for his career, with an 83% success rate that was third in baseball history among players with 400 or more steals) and hit the ball out of the park (155 career home runs) in an era when a guy at the top of the order didn’t do both.
But the other thing I’ll remember about Lopes is that he may have been baseball’s most honest man. No artifice, no concern for his image. If you asked a dumb question, he might call you on it, but you knew he wasn’t hiding anything.
One sample, after longtime Dodgers general manager Al Campanis was fired early in the 1987 season for racially insensitive remarks on the ABC show “Nightline”: Lopes, by then retired as a player, acknowledged that Campanis said the wrong things but was dismayed that all of his positive achievements had been wiped out, then added: “[If] Al Campanis walked by them, not a single one of them would know who he was.” …
• Longtime baseball-writing/column-writing colleague Lyle Spencer noted on Facebook that Lopes all along had preferred being called David – or his full name, David Earl – to Davey, and wished he’d made that specific when he started his career. The least we can do is honor his wishes now.
Rest in peace, David Earl.
jalexander@scng.com