Anyone who has ever been to Chase Field to watch a game between the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers has undoubtedly noticed two things – One: Chase Field is a really nice ballpark complete with a TGI Fridays and a Fatburger, in addition to many other great food choices (not to mention their wonderful “community” swimming pool); and Two: There are always more Dodger fans there than Dbacks fans (a clue).

That said, anyone who has also been following the ridiculous antics of Dbacks owner Ken Kendrick, general manager Kevin Towers, and more recently former Dodger legend and current Dbacks manager Kirk Gibson has witnessed a complete meltdown of what was once considered one of the classiest franchises in all of baseball.

Ken Kendrick, Kevin Towers and Kirk Gibson have become baseball’s Three Stooges.

The Dbacks rise to the top began when Kendrick became the controlling owner after a lengthy disagreement with founding owner Jerry Colangelo in 2004. As most smart franchise owners do, Kendrick surrounded himself with some of the best (and smartest) baseball minds in the business, including former Dodgers Senior Vice President of Communications Derrick Hall to serve in a similar capacity.

In a little over a year, Hall quickly (and not surprisingly) promoted through the ranks of the Dbacks front office serving as Senior Vice President of Communications, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Executive Vice President and became the team’s president and CEO on September 6, 2006, officially taking over the day-to-day operations of the organization.

One of the very first things that Hall did upon his promotion was to lure Josh Rawitch away from the Dodgers to fill his vacancy as Senior Vice President of Communications. Ironically (and again not surprisingly) it was Rawitch who filled Hall’s spot when he left the Dodgers. Keep in mind that all of this occurred while former Dodger owner Frank McCourt was dragging the Dodger franchise through bankruptcy and a nasty divorce and you certainly can’t fault Hall or Rawitch for abandoning McCourt’s sinking ship.

Just when it seemed that everything was going well for the Dbacks, including trips to the postseason in 2007 and 2011, the winds changed, and there is little doubt that it had a lot to do with Kendrick hiring Kevin Towers as his new general manager on September 22, 2010. Towers, if you recall, had just been fired at the general manager of the San Diego Padres.

During the 2012 season, several ‘purpose pitches’ were thrown by the Dbacks’ Ian Kennedy and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw – usually as a result of issues involving Dbacks hotheads Gerardo Parra and Miguel Montero. Although most Dodger fans held their disdain for Kennedy, Parra and Montero, it was thought that (for the most part) the bad blood between the two teams had settled down. Au contraire – but more on that in a minute.

And then came 2013 when Ken Kendrick absolutely lost his mind. And though this may sound like a flippant remark, it actually has merit to it. Allow me to elaborate.

The fireworks began on April 12, 2013, not even two weeks into the new season, when Kendrick directed several of his security officers to force a group of Dodger fans seated in the $3,500 seats directly behind home plate to change out of their Dodger clothing and put on complementary Diamondbacks T-shirts because the were constantly on camera during the televised game. Within days this moment of insanity by Kendrick created a firestorm for Rawitch and the entire Dbacks PR staff, who responded to the outrage by claiming that there was fine print on the tickets to these very expensive seats saying that clothing and/or hats from teams other than the Dbacks cannot be worn while occupying these seats.

Who does that?

Dbacks owner Ken Kendrick gave these Dodger fans behind home plate a choice – either change out of their Dodger clothing or be physically removed from the stadium by security. (Photos courtesy of Deadspin.com)

And then there was the brawl… oh ya the brawl. It was June 11, 2013 at Dodger Stadium.

After Ian Kennedy (remember him?) hit Yasiel Puig in the nose with a fastball, Dodger co-ace Zack Greinke retaliated by hitting Montero (go figure) in the back and both benches and bullpens cleared. When things finally settled down, both benches and managers were issued warnings by home plate umpire Clint Fagan and the incident was thought to be over. After all, Kennedy hit Puig and Greinke hit Montero – end of story, right?

Wrong. Although nobody knew it at the time, this was only round one.

In the bottom of the inning, Kennedy (who clearly has anger management issues) intentionally hit Zack Greinke – not in the back or “in the wallet” (as Vin Scully likes to say), but in the shoulder. Had Greinke not reacted as quickly as he did, the ball would have hit him in the head. There was no question that this was intentional as Kennedy, knowing that he was going to be ejected, began walking towards the dugout while as soon as the pitch left his hand.

The brawl that ensued, round two, is one that will go into baseball lore as one of the best ever. Not only did the players brawl, but most of the coaches and even the managers got into it. It was epic and many believe that this was the actual turning point of the Dodgers’ season – for just 11 short days later, June 22, 2013, the Dodgers went on their historic 42-8 run that led them to winning the NL West by 11 games over (you guessed it) the Dbacks.

While many cite June 22 as the turning point of the Dodgers 2013 season. I believe that it happened 11 days earlier with this brawl. Could it be that the Dbacks are intentionally stoking the fire hoping to put more fannies in the seats in 2014? (Ron Cervenka – ThinkBlueLA.com)

This is where things go bananas – literally, and where Dbacks general manager Kevin Towers joins the ‘lost mind’ parade.

On September 9, 2013, Juan Uribe singlehandedly destroyed the Dbacks when he hit three home runs and drove in four runs in an 8-1 shellacking of the Dbacks at Dodger Stadium. Sitting behind home plate (where he could have worn his Dbacks shirt if he wanted to) Towers watched in horror as the soon-to-be NL West Champion Dodgers playfully kidded with Uribe in the Dodger dugout on the greatest night of his professional career. Unbeknownst to Towers (or perhaps he simply didn’t care), Uribe had affectionately been given the nickname ‘King Kong’ by his teammates and whenever he did something good (like… say… hitting three home runs in a game) his teammates would feed ‘King Kong’ a banana in the dugout.

Towers went absolutely ballistic over this.

“I was sitting behind right home plate that game and when it showed up on the Diamondvision of stuffing bananas down their throats, I felt like we were a punching bag… Literally,” said Towers while being interviewed live on KTAR-AM Radio in Phoenix almost a month to the day later. “If I would have had a carton of baseballs I would have fired them into the dugout from where I was sitting behind home plate. That’s not who we are as Diamondbacks, that’s not how… I mean, it’s a reflection on (manager Kirk Gibson), on myself, on our entire organization. They slapped us around and we took it, you know?”

“If I would have had a carton of baseballs I would have fired them into the dugout from where I was sitting behind home plate.” – Kevin Towers (Ron Cervenka – ThinkBlueLA.com)

Really? Start drilling guys because they celebrate in the dugout with a banana?

Who does that?

And Towers wasn’t finished with his rant on public radio yet. In fact, he flat out declared war on the Dodgers.

“You’d think the GM comes down and makes it a point to talk to the staff about it and that we need to start protecting our own and doing things differently,” added Towers. “Probably a week later, (Paul Goldschmidt) gets dinged and no retaliation. It’s like ‘Wait a minute.’ Not that I don’t take any of our guys from a lesser standpoint, but if Goldy’s getting hit, it’s an eye for an eye. Somebody’s going down or somebody’s going to get jackknifed.”

Apparently Towers had forgotten that his own Ian Kennedy had tilted the score when he drilled Greinke – bananas notwithstanding.

And then, of course, there’s ‘Poolgate,’ which is probably the real source of the pent-up anger and hostility towards the Dodgers. I mean, not only did the Dodgers pound the crap out of the Dbacks in the NL West, but they allegedly pee’d in their pool (as if they were the first to do so). Don’t want other teams celebrating in your sacred pool? Don’t lose the Division-clenching game at home.

Talk about making a big deal over nothing. Sheesh!
(Photo credit – Norm Hall)

And last but not least comes the guy who is falling from grace as one of the Dodger most beloved heroes in franchise history faster than a Clayton Kershaw fastball – Kirk Gibson, who recently attacked the Dodger organization for not sending someone to Australia on a promotional tour for the upcoming 2014 season opener between the Dodgers and Dbacks at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground.

“We had Goldy go down there, along with Patrick Corbin and Derrick Hall, our president and CEO,” said Gibson. “Who’s the other team got down there? Are they too (expletive) good? Honestly?”

Who does that?

Umm… Kirk – you might want to expand your horizons a little and look at a newspaper or check out SportsCenter or MLB Network occasionally (or spend 30 seconds talking with Josh Rawitch). Dodger catcher A.J. Ellis is one of the most beloved Dodgers on the team – by his teammates and by Dodger fans. The Dodgers couldn’t have picked a better ambassador to promote the season opener in Sydney on March 22 and 23, 2014. And if “Goldy” and Derrick Hall were there, they never showed up in any photos or on video. Get a clue, Gibby.

Apparently Gibson didn’t get the memo that A.J. Ellis and several members from the Dodgers front office accompanied his own Patrick Corbin on the promotional tour to Australia. (AP photo)

When you add all of these things up it seems that the entire Diamondback front office is having a serious identity crisis and might want to seek some professional help or enrolling in anger management classes, because they’ve all gone off the deep end – pun intended.

Either that or the Dbacks are pulling off the scam of the century on Dodger (and Diamondback) fans trying to entice (or provoke) them into attending more games at Chase Field next season to improve upon their weak 2013 average attendance of 26,355 fans per game – 22nd lowest in all of baseball. Even the Padres drew better than that – and they only have a sandbox in centerfield.

…but hey, Dodgers fans will undoubtedly continue to make the six-hour drive over to Phoenix to support their team, and to enjoy TGI Fridays, and Fatburger, and to help bolster the Dbacks sagging attendance numbers. But here’s a clue – if you allow Dodger fans to wear their team colors, even in those expensive seats behind home plate, maybe you would draw even more of them.

Put that in your “Beat L.A.” pipe and smoke it.