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Dodgers make unappealing offer to fans who attended smelly spring finale

Mark Townsend
Yahoo Sports Contributor

Haven’t fans who attended the Los Angeles Dodgers smelly spring finale on Tuesday suffered enough already?

[Still not too late to join a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league]

Apparently not, according to the Dodgers themselves. That’s because less than 24 hours after a pipe break at Dodger Stadium brought their final exhibition game against the Los Angeles Angels to end in the middle of the fifth inning, the team ultimately decided it wouldn’t offer refunds to attending fans.

Instead, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports those fans were offered discounted tickets to a future game.

That’s right, a future game against a rebuilding Miami Marlins team that just traded every single one of its marketable players.

The Marlins will be in Los Angeles for three games from April 23-25. The series finale will be a Wednesday afternoon game with a 4:35 start locally, and it turns out prices for that series are already pretty cheap.

Talk about a raw deal.

We don’t need to rehash the full details of Tuesday’s mess. If you haven’t heard or read about it by now, Yahoo Sports’ Sam Cooper will catch you up.

Considering the circumstances, it’s easy to understand why fans would expect a little more than discounted tickets to watch Don Mattingly manage a mostly Triple A squad. Granted, they were attending an exhibition game that also featured plenty of minor leaguers. And yes, they did see what amounts to an official game during the regular season. But a lot of those fans were really close to the situation. Close enough that some images will stick with them for a long time.

In the Dodgers defense, it’s a scenario you don’t typically prepare a gameplan for. Yeah, we’ve seen similar situations at the Coliseum in Oakland, but that usually impacts the players more than the fans. This one packed quite a punch for everyone within 200 feet.

Workers sweep the water away after a broken pipe near third base at Dodger Stadium forced Tuesday’s exhibition game to be called off. (AP)
Workers sweep the water away after a broken pipe near third base at Dodger Stadium forced Tuesday’s exhibition game to be called off. (AP)

While the fans who attended Tuesday’s game didn’t get great news on Wednesday, at least fans preparing to attend Thursday’s season opener against the San Francisco Giants did.

According to a Dodgers press release, the issue has been fixed, the drainage system has been examined, and the field will be ready for play.

For the sake of fans attending Thursday’s upcoming game, we hope the Dodgers are right on all accounts.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Yahoo Sports Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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