Dodgers need big reality check

So it wasn't exactly a free turkey.

To enjoy it, you had to buy a newspaper or own a computer.

But as Thanksgiving gifts go, this season the Dodgers owners were downright philanthropic.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jamie McCourt gave every fan something so awkward and ill-conceived, it bobbed its head and gobbled.

The turkey was dressed in quote marks and stuffed with outrageousness. While Dodgers fans will certainly have fun chewing on it, they will never, ever swallow.

In speaking to The Times' Dylan Hernandez at a news conference to announce the Dodgers' charitable building of youth fields, McCourt wondered if fans would rather see their money used for these projects than for free agents.

"If you bring somebody in to play and pay them, pick a number, $30 million, does that seem a little weird to you?" she said. "That's what we're trying to figure out. We're really trying to see it through the eyes of our fans. We're really trying to understand, would they rather have the 50 fields?"

Then, later in the conversation, she acted as if the Dodgers couldn't afford to pay the big free-agent contracts that are always guaranteed.

"I think, oddly enough, if things weren't guaranteed, then maybe we could pay for it," she said.

Finally, she finished her Leno-worthy monologue by implying that high salaries were bad for the neighborhood.

"Whatever money they are guaranteed could be money that we could otherwise have given to the community," she said.

Reaction? Where do I start?

No, No, No, No.

No, $30 million is not weird, it's the price of competitive baseball.

No, fans should never be forced to choose between a charity and a championship, that's absurd, is this a baseball team or a telethon? The fans want their money to go to one field only, the one occupied by the Dodgers, anything else is unethical and even immoral.

No, guaranteed contracts are not the deal of the devil, they are common baseball business.

No, fans should not have to worry that signing CC Sabathia means some poor child doesn't eat that night, that's beyond belief. Who runs this team, Charles Dickens?

(Should a columnist in a town that has had major league baseball for more than 50 years even have to write those last four paragraphs?)

There is only one affirmative in this mess.

Yes, these quotes now place the Dodgers in an even more impossibly hotter and tighter spot this winter.