Step into the Dodgers’ team store, turn to the right, and you’ll be staring at Shohei Ohtani.
Not in person, of course. But amid all the jerseys and caps and T-shirts, there is a commercial playing on a loop, with Ohtani waving his fingers through his hair and winking as he displays the product he is endorsing: the top-selling skin serum in Japan.
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“Take care of your skin,” the narrator says. “Live life to the fullest.”
Life is good at Dodger Stadium. In the store at the top of the park, you can buy a bottle of skin serum that retails for $118, or World Series championship gear including T-shirts and caps for $54 and up, hoodies for $110 and up, and cool jackets for as much as $382.
If you’re a fan of any team besides the Dodgers, you might despise all the money they spend on players. On Friday after the Dodgers introduced their latest All-Star, closer Edwin Díaz, I asked general manager Brandon Gomes if they really could buy whatever player they wanted.
Read more: How the Dodgers landed Edwin Díaz — and finally found a bona fide closer
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“Our ownership group has been incredibly supportive, so if we feel like it’s something that meaningfully impacts our World Series chances, we’ve had that support all the time,” he said. “We’re fortunate to be in that position.”
The Dodgers’ owners spend money to make money, and they wisely hired Andrew Friedman a decade ago to tell them where to spend their money. Sounds simple, but some owners do not spend money wisely, and some do not spend money, period.
And sometimes you do both, and it just does not work out.
In the last decade the Dodgers have made the playoffs every year. Take a guess: What other Los Angeles pro team has made the playoffs the most during the last decade?
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It’s the Clippers — eight playoff appearances, no championships and now a disaster.
The Dodgers have won three championships over the last decade. You might not remember that the Dodgers’ owners were ridiculed within the industry for spending $2 billion to buy the team in 2012.
At the time I asked co-owner Todd Boehly how he would define successful ownership of the Dodgers.
“You’re not really asking me that, are you?” he said then. “The more World Series we win, the more valuable a franchise it is, right?”
The Dodgers were valued at $8 billion last year by Sportico.
They signed Díaz for three years and $69 million. I asked Gomes what winter signing he recalled as the biggest during the five years he pitched for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, left, and Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes welcome star closer Edwin Díaz during his introductory news conference Friday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In 2014, he said, the Rays signed closer Grant Balfour: two years and $12 million — after the Baltimore Orioles withdrew a two-year, $15-million deal following a physical examination.
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It’s not just the Rays, or even the small markets. The New York Mets’ spending rivaled the Dodgers last season, but the Mets missed the playoffs and lost free agents Díaz, Pete Alonso and Tyler Rogers this week alone. The New York Yankees sound oddly supportive of a salary cap. The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs talk like big-market teams but do not spend like them.
At the Angels’ team store Friday morning, five customers looked around the team store, where all jerseys sold for 50% off. The attraction at the store Saturday: photos with Santa.
The Angels have not made a postseason appearance since 2014, and their acquisitions so far this offseason: a formerly touted infield prospect once traded for Chris Sale, a talented young pitcher who missed this past season because of injury and another pitcher who finished third in Cy Young voting in 2022 but has not pitched in the majors in more than 18 months. They’ll likely pay those three players less than $4 million combined.
In March, Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken invited Angels owner Arte Moreno to join her in “an open and honest conversation about the future of baseball in Anaheim.”
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This week when the future of the Angel Stadium site came up during an Anaheim City Council meeting, Aitken mused about asking city residents “how much of a priority is it to have the land tied up with a baseball franchise,” Voice of OC reported. (The Angels’ stadium lease extends through 2032, and the Angels have the right to extend it through 2038.)
So consider this a timely holiday reminder for Dodgers fans to give thanks for this ownership group, for what the Dodgers are doing now is exceptional and extremely rare.
Read more: Free tickets vs. 34% raise: Dodger Stadium tour guides contentious divide colors union vote
It would be nice if the Dodgers made more of a commitment to family affordability — and also if the Dodgers did not charge $102.25 for “an iconic photo op with the 2024 and 2025 World Series trophies” — but their attendance nonetheless hit 4 million for the first time.
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This is a Dodger town, and the team is the toast of the town. The Dodgers are the biggest winner in American pro sports right now.
The owners are winners too. On Thursday, Boehly’s company staged its holiday party, and the musicians included Eddie Vedder, Bruno Mars, Anthony Kiedis, Brandi Carlile and Slash. Live life to the fullest, indeed.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.