(CNS) Posted Sunday July 10, 2011 – 11:25am
A crowd estimated by its organizer at 150 people gathered near Dodger Stadium on Saturday for a rally seeking to persuade Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to sell the team and fans not to attend the game against the San Diego Padres.
"For a protest, it is a very good number, but I was hoping for more," rally organizer Roger Arrieta told City News Service, saying that more that more than 300 people had said via Facebook they would attend the rally. "I feel we made an impact and people took notice."
The participants gathered at Elysian Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, near an entrance to Dodger Stadium's parking lots, and chanted "Frank must go" and "Don't go in" and held signs which included the phrase, "This is our town," Arrieta said, a play on the team's 2010 marketing slogan, "This is my town."
The Los Angeles Police Department did not provide a crowd estimate. The Los Angeles Times estimated the crowd at 75.
The team declined comment on the rally.
The game was selected for a boycott because it is being televised by Fox Sports, Arrieta said, which would increase the impact of a small crowd.
However, unbeknown to Arrieta, the game was only shown to about 10 percent of the nation, a Fox Sports official said.
The attendance for the Dodgers 1-0 victory was announced at 29,744, the sixth-lowest among the 49 games at Dodger Stadium this season, but like many games this season, it appeared smaller.
Under Major League Baseball rules, the announced attendance is the number of tickets sold and does not reflect the amount of people in the stadium.
It is impossible to determine the effect of the call for a boycott on attendance.
The Dodgers attendance of 1,795,230 is down 18.6 percent from last year's 2,205,498 through this point last season.
The average attendance is 36,637 compared with 45,010 last season.
McCourt has repeatedly said that he does not plan to sell the team and hopes to pass it along to his sons.
Arrieta acknowledged that "It's going to take a lot to change his mind."
McCourt has drawn the enmity of many Dodger fans since it was revealed in legal filings in his divorce from his former wife Jamie that he used millions of dollars of team profits to fund their extravagant lifestyle, which includes two homes in Holmby Hills and two in Malibu.
McCourt has blamed Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's rejection of a media rights deal with Fox as the reason for the team's financial troubles.
The team filed for bankruptcy protection June 27.
After making the playoffs four times in McCourt's first six years as owner, the Dodgers were 80-82 last season, finishing fourth in the five-team National League West Division, and are 40-51 this season, tied for fourth with San Diego.
Arrieta, a website designer from West Covina, used the Internet to try to boost the number of people at the rally, publicizing it on his website, markcubansavethedodgers.com, along with the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.
The name of Arrieta's website is a reference to the billionaire owner of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks he hopes will buy the team.
Copyright © 2011 City News Service
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