Dodger Fans

It had to be the saddest Siete de Mayo in Chavez Ravine in many a year. Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers have been placed on the 50-day disgusted list. They will be eligible to come off it in July. Man-of-many-surprises Manny Ramirez has been given the heave-ho. He just got busted by baseball's version of a narc.

Wednesday night's game between the Dodgers and the Padres wasn't held at Dodger Stadium, as scheduled. It took place at Yasiel Puig World. Disney might try to buy the place and raise ticket prices some more. Hours before the Cuban overnight sensation had to face curves and fastballs from San Diego right-hander Jason Marquis, he had to face the media music. The microphones and notepads swooped in like vultures. This is Hollywood and a star had been born. No long labor here.

Carlos Perez says "people are going to be scared" when they see him pitch. He's right. As a Dodger fan, nothing could scare me more than to see him headed to the mound. DAVE PARKER Venice

It's hard to believe that Matt Kemp has made the Dodgers' $160-million investment disappear quicker than Bernie Madoff ever could have. Herb Schoenberg Tarzana :: I have never heard of a team being worse off if a guy that's hitting .251 with two home runs and 17 RBIs goes on the disabled list. I'm pretty sure that a minor leaguer could equal or exceed those numbers in half the time. How does Matt Kemp injure his hamstring when he hardly, if ever, goes full speed? Geno Apicella Placentia :: Lest we forget, Matt Kemp is a paid performer and he's not earning his keep.

What do Fred Claire and Ross Perot have in common? Neither one can answer a direct question. SUSAN CECILE, Long Beach

$50-million stadium renovation adds three new field box sections, plus luxury suites and other great amenities. Upscale fans get great seats. Team gets more revenue.

We recently asked you to list your choices for the 10 greatest Dodgers of all time, and vote you did, as we received an amazing 12,231 ballots. So many people voted that we have decided to expand the list from the top 10 to the top 20. Each weekday at 11 a.m. PDT, a new person will be listed as we count down all 20. Remember, any Dodger, Brooklyn or L.A., was eligible, including managers, owners, announcers, etc. Points were assigned based on where you listed the person on the ballot.

He had just made the final out in a city where his name is booed, his jersey is reviled, and his team had been swept. His power had disappeared, his swing was spotty, and his season was a wreck. Matt Kemp would have been excused for quickly disappearing through the dugout at San Francisco's AT&T Park on Sunday night and forgetting all about an earlier promise to third base coach Tim Wallach. “But that was the neat deal about it,” Wallach said. “He was standing there waiting for me.” PHOTOS: Greatest moments in Dodger Stadium history Kemp was waiting to cross the diamond to sign an autograph for a terminally ill Dodgers fan, waiting to summon the passion necessary to pass along the hope that he now found so precious.

Out at the old ballyard exploring the status of that 1st Amendment staple, the baseball heckler, because it's a cool ambivalence that will do us in, not the screamy passions of the borderline insane. The issue came to mind after hearing that Broadway types are developing a musical about perhaps the greatest heckler of all time, Hilda Chester, who famously shook a cowbell as she snarled at players at Ebbets Field. For you kids, that's where the Dodgers once toiled under the watchful eye of Howling Hilda, her booming Brooklynese bouncing off the walls.

What happened at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night was entirely scripted. But scripts are rarely followed in sports, especially in baseball, which why the Dodgers' 6-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies was perhaps more significant for the marketing department than it was for the players. The Dodgers handed out bobblehead dolls of Hanley Ramirez, who not only made his first start of the season but was two for four with a home run and a double. BOX SCORE: Dodgers 6, Colorado 2 Pop star Psy visited the ballpark to promote his music, and fellow South Korean Hyun-Jin Ryu struck out a season-high 12 batters in six innings.

Dodger blue is going green this season by offering free bus rides to the games from Union Station in downtown L.A. For the fourth year in a row, Dodger Stadium Express bus service will shuttle fans to and from the stadium starting at 90 minutes before the game to 45 minutes after it ends. The buses run on natural gas and will shuttle visitors every 10 minutes until the start of the game, then slow the service to once every 30 minutes. The bus is free for riders with a ticket to the game or $1.50 without one. Funding for the $1.1-million service - which will last through the 2014 season - was provided by the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee.

PHOENIX - Having won two of the last three World Series, the San Francisco Giants would be clear-cut favorites in the National League West in almost any other season. This isn't any other season. The Dodgers have transformed baseball's landscape, with their new owners investing a projected $230 million, which would be a record opening-day payroll. "It's gone from where the Dodgers were dominant to where the Giants have won two of the last three," Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully said.

Mike Piazza would never exist today. He would have to be created by the Hollywood machine that once embraced him. He was taken in the 62nd round of the 1988 baseball draft. There are no longer 62 rounds in the draft. He was given a private tryout at a locked Dodger Stadium as a favor to his family friend and quasi uncle, Tom Lasorda. There are few managers remaining with the longevity and power to make such arrangements. After two minor league seasons, he was no better than an average Class-A catcher, yet he was promoted to a higher Class A the following spring.

Mike Piazza has not set foot in Dodger Stadium since his retirement. When the Dodgers offered to honor him with a bobblehead night last season, Piazza declined. "He doesn't want to come back because he thinks the fans will boo," former Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda, the godfather to Piazza's brother, told The Times last month. Piazza did himself no favors on that score in his new book, "Long Shot. " In the book, he blames iconic Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully for turning fans against him during the contract stalemate that preceded his trade to the Florida Marlins in 1998.