Wake us up when the season is over

Cold cash seems to be no object for L.A.; there is no apparent limit on the Dodgers’ available expenditures on personnel. This season, they are reportedly going to spend a whopping $321 million on their Major League players and there are great gobs of big bucks, literally hundreds of millions, deferred far into the future.

No team in the National or American leagues spends more than L.A.; franchise payrolls in the National League West, where the Dodgers dominate, are not even close to what L.A. spends. There is no hard limit on what a MLB club can pay its players, unlike other professional sports leagues that try to achieve a semblance of budgetary balance among their teams.

The Dodgers, who have captured 11 of the last 12 National League West crowns and the 2024 World Series, have essentially taken most of the regular season suspense out of the equation. Everyone else is essentially playing for second place.

L.A. has left us without much reason to pay attention as the long 162-game slog (a total of 2,430 games are scheduled to be played between 30 teams overall) proceeds to the postseason, where, perhaps, things might get interesting. We can only hope.

Baseball executives from coast to coast, not to mention the sportswriters who cover the MLB daily, are predicting a Dodgers’ cakewalk into the playoffs again. A boring snoozefest is fully expected along the way.

The situation here has been made even more stark by the departure of the Oakland Athletics, an American League franchise. They have fled the East Bay for new, temporary digs in Sacramento as they await a new facility for them in Las Vegas.

The good news for baseball fans, however, is that there are still plenty of opportunities (some of them free of charge) to view entertaining and competitive amateur baseball at the high school and college levels throughout the region.

SMILE, YOU’RE NOT ON CAMERA: As of noon Tuesday, local law enforcement officials were reportedly still seeking a prime suspect in the Feb. 23 shooting of a Hillsborough police officer.

The afternoon incident occurred in a parking area at the town’s municipal complex on Floribunda Avenue near El Camino Real. A sketch of a suspicious man spotted running south along El Camino after the shooting was released by police this past weekend.

Potentially helpful video footage, if any, was also being sought from the public. Which brings up a question: Is there such video available from a security camera at the town center where the attack took place? Apparently not.

However, a police spokeswoman said Monday that security at the center has been beefed up since the brazen attack. A new closed-circuit TV camera now overlooks the property’s front parking lot.

Hillsborough Mayor Dr. Sophie Cole added that more cameras are being installed and some protective fencing is being increased in height as well. She noted that security improvements were already in the works even before the shooting took place.

The police have emphasized that the public’s assistance was still being requested in this case. The injured officer is said to be recovering.

WILL FEDERAL SPIGOT SHUT DOWN?: Make no mistake. An important reason for the recent decision by Stanford University officials to kill a looming deal to purchase much of Notre Dame de Namur University’s Belmont property was financial uncertainty stemming from the federal government’s ongoing threat to deny funding for key projects. Halting that spigot would spell big trouble for Stanford’s budget process. Hence the belt-tightening.

FORMER CROSBY MANSE FOR SALE: Looking for a place to live with a celebrity aura about it? The 5-acre former Hillsborough estate of singer/actor Bing Crosby is for sale. The 14,000-square-foot mansion on Jackling Drive includes 11 bedrooms and 10 full bathrooms. The asking price is a cool $40 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Whew.

Email: johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.