On New Year’s Day, Stan Kasten, the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers, was walking into the Mattamy
Athletic Centre in Toronto to attend the opening game of a new women’s professional hockey league when he heard
an angry shout. “Hey, you’re the [freaking] guy who stole Ohtani from us,” the guy yelled out. When Kasten shows up
in Boston two days later for their season opener versus Minnesota, he’s walking quickly in the hopes of avoiding
being seen. Kasten remarked, “I was praying not to get any Mookie Betts’ [crap],” understanding that Red Sox supporters are still upset with the trade of Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in 2020.
Following his oversight of the Dodgers’ franchise-record $1.35 billion in December expenditures for Yoshinobu
Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani, Kasten visited five of the six cities in the newly formed Professional
Women’s Hockey League during the first week of January. Kasten is a member of the league’s advisory board. He
was present on January 1st when the opening game was viewed by a record 2.9 million Canadian viewers. The next
day, he was present in Ottawa with the record-breaking 8,318 spectators for a women’s professional hockey game.
And four days later, he was in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Excel Center, when 13,317 spectators broke the record to
watch Minnesota and Montreal play.
“We thought we had everything set up,” Kasten remarked, “but it’s taken off far better than we had anticipated.” It’s
simply incredible.
So, just six months after Dodgers chairman Mark Walter decided to launch the league, what exactly was going through Kasten’s mind as he reveled in the PWHL’s fantastic inaugural week? “I went to all five games in Toronto, Ottawa, Boston, New York and Minnesota,”
Kasten stated to USA TODAY Sports, “and Ottawa was
the only city in which I did not lose a World Series.”
Funny as hell. True as well.
Atlanta lost the 1991 World Series in Minnesota during
Kasten’s presidency. Next year in Toronto, they were
defeated in the World Series. and lost the 1996 World
Series in New York after winning the 1995 World Series.
Additionally, the Dodgers lost the 2018 World Series to
Boston under Kasten’s leadership.
“The hardest was the first,” Kasten remarked. “The
World Series of 1991 was the best ever. In my
professional life, it was also the most agonizing loss.”
Game 7 at the former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
ended in a 1-0 loss for the Atlanta Braves versus the Minnesota Twins after the team moved from being last in 1990
to winning the NL West in 1991. Since 1924, this was the first time a club had lost a Game 7 in extra innings. “So
when people I hear people say they suffered the most painful loss of their career,” Kasten said, “I tell them, “More
painful loss than a Game 7 in extra innings?’ I don’t think so. ”
It might be the final World Series loss he will ever have as the Dodgers president given how dominant the team has
been this offseason, spending a record $1.1 billion this winter with an anticipated player salary of $310 million this
year. “People have to understand, we are still in the Dodgers,” Kasten stated. “We aimed to have a historic season
because the Dodger franchise is special and historic. Big salaries don’t always translate into success. Everyone is
aware of that. Like many clubs, we’ve had large payrolls in the past and failed to win. “High payrolls bring high
expectations.”
On December 9, only one minute before Ohtani revealed the news to the world on his Instagram account, Ohtani’s
agent, Nez Balelo, called Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, raising the anticipation to a fever pitch.
However, the Dodgers were clueless of Ohtani’s whereabouts just a day before. They were duped into believing that
Ohtani, rather than the best player in the league, was on that plane, N616RH, which was flying from Orange County
to Toronto and carrying Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec. “We had no freaking idea that day on the airplane,”
Kasten remarked. “We kept an eye on the airline reports. Along with everything else, I’m watching the tweets. We’re
being reassured by the agent that no choice has been made. However, this is not the first time I have heard false
information from an agent. But all of this was absolutely true in this instance. Nez [Balelo] gave us the truth right
away.
