Highlights:
- Lots to choose from on a day the Dodgers had 16 hits while shutting out the opposition.
- Matt Kemp singled and homered.
- Alex Castellanos singled and homered.
- Andre Ethier singled and tripled.
- Griff Erickson singled and doubled.
- A.J. Ellis walked and doubled.
- Dee Gordon walked, singled and stole a base.
- Justin Sellers walked and singled.
- Juan Rivera homered for his first spring hit in 10 at-bats.
- Dodger relievers Angel Guzman, Scott Rice, Fernando Nieve and Ryan Tucker combined for six shutout innings.
- And oh yeah, Clayton Kershaw pitched three shutout innings against the American League champs, though he struck out none.
Jack Dawkins
One of the common themes I find between my love of the Dodgers and international cricket is the quality of the commentators attached to each. Vin Scully and Jon always enchant me and engage my mind.
Here is an example of the writing international cricket inspires as comparason. Rahul Dravid just retired from First Class cricket for India. He had the nickname “The wall” as he was so difficult to get out.
Here are some comments on him from the BBC:
“Dravid has a simple game founded upon straight lines. Reasoning that runs
cannot be scored in the pavilion, he sets out to protect his wicket. Curiously,
this thought does not seem to occur to many batsmen, a point many a
long-suffering coach could confirm,”
“He defends his stumps with skill and strength of mind. Australia’s fast
bowlers tried to upset him and might as well have been attacking a tank with a
slingshot. Attempts to test his patience were no more effective. Dravid reads
long books and does not expect a man to be shot upon every page.”
and this:
It’s the epochal 2004 India tour of Pakistan, Dravid is walking to the crease
in Karachi, and writer Rahul Bhattacharya is in the press box.
“The innings was entrusted now to Dravid, who had emerged as the one man in
the world who could be trusted with any situation,” wrote Bhattacharya. “He
accepted with customary poise; urgent, but still mindful of the fate befalling
Tolstoy’s peasant, who ran all day for land but died at sundown.”
Dravid departed one short of a hundred in the 48th over. He had scored 99 of
India’s 349 runs. India won the match by five runs.
Jon, I find your musings on my Dodgers to be of the same standard, and I will be here as long as you care to share them.
Anonymous
I have respect for cricket, which requires some of the same skills as baseball, but its jargon is so impenetrable as to seem a foreign language.
Jack Dawkins
I chose these selections just to illustrate the quality of the writing. Even if you know nothign of the game, there is poetry in the words like the best of Jim Murray for example. I see that in Jon more and more as time goes by.
Anonymous
Not intending to contradict you, but I do find a sport in which you run with the bat a little confusing at times.
Anonymous
See Marichal, Juan.
Anonymous
Who sought to make John Roseboro the Brian Stow of his day. Juan Marichal will never be an “old friend.”
Anonymous
Here is an extended passage from a 60th-birthday tribute a few days ago to Viv Richards, the West Indian cricketer who was voted one of the 5 greatest batsmen to ever play the game, from the (London) Guardian’s Mike Selvey, himself a former England international cricketer. He is recounting a conversation he had with Richards a year or so ago. I think even those who have never seen a minute of cricket can appreciate something of the Richards’ mastery, and Selvey’s writing, Please forgive the length:
“Now tell me, I asked him, since it’s a long time over, how do you
think that bowlers – or specifically, me – should have approached the
task of bowling to you. I had successes, but generally they would have
been early on in an innings as he sought the upper hand and took
calculated risks. Hard graft after that. You had to be aggressive, he
said with some passion, aggressive. It mattered not if fast, slow or
medium, spin, swing or seam, you had to demonstrate positive intent or
you were shot from the start.
When, after he took guard, he
wandered down the pitch, tilted his head back and, looking down his
aquiline nose to eyeball the bowler, it was almost as if he was sniffing
the air through his flared nostrils for the scent of fear. He wanted to
feel the ball “sweet” off the bat from the off, and then he knew it was
his day. Yeah aggressive, he repeated, he respected that.
But
this was always easier said than done because of the way he set it up.
There is an analogy with the buzz in a theatre before the curtain goes
up on a great thespian. The wicket falls, but he allowed things to
settle, waiting for the arena to clear, the celebrations (more muted in
those days) to die down. The theatre lights dimmed and expectation
became electricity. Everyone knew who was coming. And when he finally
made his entrance, swaggering down the steps, cudding his gum, and
windmilling his bat gently, first one arm then the other, it was a
personification of grace and menace combined, the walk as unmistakable
as had been that of Garry Sobers, to my mind his only rival as the
finest postwar batsman of them all.
I put on a performance, he
told me, it was part of my act. He wanted to dominate and the genesis of
that process happened even before he closed the dressing-room door
behind him. His reputation preceded him like an advance guard. It
continued with the languid wicketwards saunter, the slow precision with
which he took guard, the way he ambled down the pitch to tap down an
imaginary mark, all the while looking for, and not always finding, eye
contact with his adversary. Then he would smack the end of his bat
handle with the palm of his right hand, a final intimidatory gesture.
There
have been giants of the game contemporary and since, batsmen of vast
pedigree and achievement: Greg Chappell, Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting,
Dravid, Kallis, Sangakkara, Hayden and others. Each on his day could
reduce an attack to rubble. But Richards had an aura given to no other.
Truly he was scary. Happy birthday, Viv.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/mar/07/sir-viv-richards-grace-menace
Anonymous
Farewell, Lt. Bradshaw…er, Peter Bergman.
Jon Weisman
NPUT