Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: baseball games are fun, and watching the Dodgers play at home in their (stolen) stadium in Chavez Ravine is one of the great outdoor pleasures in Los Angeles. The crowd is always interesting and generally good-spirited, and that’s what counts, right?

But after the game, as the darkness envelops the ballpark and people clamber down the millions of exceedingly precarious steps leading to the parking lot, a madness takes over. Getting out of the stadium at night is a colossal mess. We know traffic jams in LA, and this is a jam to rival the 405 at 6 pm on a Friday.

Of course, it’s no picnic getting to the game either, mostly because the stadium is located at the top of a hill in the middle of the surrounding Elysian Park (kinda). Try walking (or biking) up Elysian Park Avenue at the tail end of a sunny day here in Los Angeles. Go ahead, it’s only about three quarters of a mile. Oh, and it’s a 30 degree upwards slope. Have fun, and hopefully you don’t have a heart condition.

This could all be amended by a simple solution: public transportation. Now, the city tried to team up with the Dodgers last summer to offer the Dodger Trolley, a half-hearted attempt to bring people to the stadium with ease. But it was free, and went from Union Station to the ballpark. That’s a pretty good start.

Too bad the City of Los Angeles is currently going through a $500 million deficit. That means the Dodger Trolley is no more. Last year, the city was footing the bill, supposedly around $400,000, according to Eric Richardson at BlogDowntown.com, and this year, that’s just not going to happen, quoting LADOT’s Jim Lefton at the Council’s Transportation Committee.

“In June, when the council approved the two month demo, the Dodgers had committed that … they would go out and the end of the season and talk to their sponsors,” Lefton told the committee. “When we met with them in December, they indicated that they did not want to talk to the existing sponsors and that they did not want to mess with their existing sponsorship arrangements.”

Richardson writes that, “Dodgers have been emphatic that the cost for any public transportation option should be borne by the city.” So without city bailout then, the Dodgers are telling all their fans they can go back to driving, and shouting, “Screw you, Environment” to the whole town. Because it’s not like making it easier for fans to come to the games would increase ticket sales. That’s an absurd notion.

People love nostalgia, and in baseball it’s no different. But without any reasonable option for public transportation, the Dodgers organization is so stuck in the car-centric past.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers organization just doesn’t get that its stadium is practically unreachable by anyone who doesn’t want to fork over $15 for parking, and then sit steaming in a traffic jam for 45 minutes after the game. There’s an increasing number of Angelenos to whom that’s simply not an acceptable option. And you know what they’re going to decide? They just won’t be fans anymore.

Here’s my no-bones feeling on the matter. The Dodgers should offer a trolley, and they should foot the tab for it. If the Dodgers are willing to fork over $45 million for Manny Ramirez, they can afford a basic trolley system. They can afford to sponsor the trolley themselves, and not rely on the city to try to fix their problems. They chose the ridiculously unreachable location for Dodger Stadium, and if they care even one iota for their fans, the organization should help them get there.

If you agree, call 323-224-1507 or email FanFeedback@ladodgers.com and demand the Dodgers organization get their act in order. Bloody savages.