On the West Coast, fans in Los Angeles are ecstatic and excited. On the East Coast, fans in Boston are dumbfounded and devastated.

Some Red Sox supporters say the trade of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett to the Dodgers is a smart one because it rids the Red Sox of huge contracts. Let’s be honest and call it what it really is – a salary dump, exactly the same as the Marlins have perfected and what the Pirates and other losing teams have used.

The only difference between this salary dump and those that preceded it is the amount of money being dumped – $275 million. Such records aren’t kept, but it’s safe to say that no team has ever lopped off that much money from its payroll, and in one simple trade yet.

But this is what desperate teams do. Can’t win this year? Get rid of your high-price players and plan for next season.

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How bad have the Red Sox been this season? One night provides the stunning answer. On Tuesday night, the Seattle Mariners passed the Red Sox in the American League wild-card standings.

This would be funny if it weren’t so sad for a team that could afford to fire a manager who led them to two World Series championships and replace him with one of the all-time greats – great frauds, that is – and a team that will miss the playoffs for the third successive season – its most extended post-season drought in 10 years – and a team with the third highest payroll in the majors (more than twice the Mariners’ payroll) and that has squandered $518 million in payroll in its three failed seasons.

It’s time for John Henry, the principal owner, to write another e-mail and issue another statement. Acting more and more like a refined George Steinbrenner with each act, Henry sent e-mail statements to Red Sox reporters twice in 10 days in the first half of this month supporting, defending, explaining the Red Sox ills. How does he defend and explain this development?

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You can hold on to your esteemed rankings, US News & World Report, and along with them the average SAT scores, student-to-staff ratios and arbitrarily-assigned campus beauty scores you so love to cite. And you, stereotypical college brochures, can keep your financial aid information and enthusiastic reviews of campus dining to yourself. No, what swayed me when deciding on a college to attend was a question of much greater importance: which local team would provide a better baseball atmosphere?

The nationwide date for high school seniors to declare their college choice was May 1, and by late April, I had narrowed my choices to two, one in Boston and one in St. Louis. First and foremost, both cities have a professional baseball team, so some in-depth comparison and analysis was in order to help me make a decision.

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