OH NO THEY DIDN'T!

Yup... it's true. The Dodgers Tried to Kill Tradition By Getting Rid of Nancy Bea.

There was something of an uproar this week in Los Angeles when word spread via social media that the famed organ player for the Los Angeles Dodgers might not be coming back next season.

Nancy Bea Hefley, the longtime Dodgers organist, responded to a Facebook question Thursday morning asking if she was coming back for next year. Her reply? “No…I don’t fit in.” The exchange spread and Dodgers fans predictably lost their cool all over the Internet. Within three hours, the team had offered Hefley a position for life in exchange for her posting on her Facebook account that her job was safe.

The incident is just the latest PR snag for the Dodgers who frankly seem to be more in the business of pissing off their fans than baseball as of late. They’ve already alienated most of their fan base thanks to a terrible cable deal which has left 70 percent of the L.A. market unable to watch their games, and now comes word that they are messing with a beloved face of the franchise.

The reasoning behind diminishing Hefley’s role has to do with “progress.” In the good ole days, Nancy Bea hammered out nearly 50 songs each game—now she plays maybe one inning. The team has moved toward playing loud pop and EDM songs between innings in the hopes to draw in younger fans.

But is being a jerk to a longtime employee of your franchise really the best way to draw new people in? I get adding rules to speed up pace of the game, or adding huge ass fancy jumbo trons to run cool graphics, but there are some traditions that shouldn’t be messed with. Should the Red Sox get rid of the Green Monster?

Should the Yankees get rid of pinstripes? Should Cubs fans not throw it back? I know she’s not a franchise face like Clayton Kershaw, but Nancy Bea is one of the things that makes Dodger Stadium unique and weird and she should be celebrated, not treated like yesterday’s garbage. If the Dodgers are that concerned with drawing in younger fans, maybe they should figure out how to get their games on TV so people can actually watch.

At least this time the fans fought back...and won.

--Alexis Garcia, BYB's "Eye on MLB" Columnist
Twitter:  @heylexyg

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