Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

In case you missed it: Sandy Koufax applies for regular job presenting awards to Clayton Kershaw

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By Jon Weisman

We’re all in awe of Sandy Koufax, but Koufax seemed in awe of Clayton Kershaw while presenting him with his National League Cy Young Award over the weekend (in the video above):

“Clayton Kershaw is not my protege,” Koufax said. “Clayton Kershaw is his own person, his own man, and he’s done it all himself. … He’s a very special pitcher. He’s a very special teammate. He’s a very special person.”

“As a player, Clayton has never been satisfied. He has tried to get better every year. And if he gets better after the year he had this year, I’d like to apply for next year’s job of presenting this to him again.”

  • What’s the all-time Dodger team of single-season performances? Matt Snyder of CBSSports.com makes his picks.
  • Keith Law of ESPN.com ranks the Dodgers’ farm system 11th in baseball.

    “A very top-heavy system like Baltimore’s, with two elite guys at the top and three solid guys after, followed by a lot of reliever/fifth starter depth. They did have some intriguing arms in short-season ball who could push this system’s overall value up a lot by next year, especially since none of their top eight prospects are likely to lose eligibility in 2014.”

  • In this post about the superb hitting by Dodger pitchers last season, Daniel Brim of Dodgers Digest notes that it was the fourth-best performance since 1990. Though Zack Greinke figures to regress after his phenomenal season at the plate, Dan Haren (career .240 on-base percentage) might help the cause.
  • Charlie Osgood, who pitched in one game for the Dodgers in 1944 during World War II at age 17, has passed away, notes Baseball Happenings (via Blue Heaven). He was a nephew of famous Dodger coach Clyde Sukeforth.
  • A type of protective cap for pitchers to use on the mound has been approved by MLB, reports William Weinbaum for ESPN.com. “We’re excited to have a product that meets our safety criteria,” Halem told “Outside the Lines,” adding that baseball will continue its efforts to come up with more options.
  • Historic Dodgertown in Vero Beach will host a game between the Brevard County Manatees and Lakeland Flying Tigers on April 15 in celebration of Jackie Robinson Day.
  • Recent Dodger signee Chone Figgins is among the baseball veterans attempting to make comebacks that Cliff Corcoran writes about at SI.com, but the most interesting tidbit might be about Mark Mulder, who is trying things out with the Angels.

    “By 2011, Mulder had settled into retirement as an analyst for ESPN, but while watching Dodgers lefty Paco Rodriguez pitch in last year’s playoffs Mulder was inspired to imitate his delivery and discovered that doing so restored the life on his pitches.

  • Peter Gammons wrote at Gammons Daily that the Dodgers are the team to beat in the National League West, but that the division will be interesting this year.
  • The inimitable Pete Seeger, who passed away Monday, can be heard discussing baseball — including the integration effort — on these videos shared by Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk.
  • Following up on the first day of the Dodgers’ Pitching in the Community Caravan, Courtney Jones and MLB.com bring some great stuff in this video.[mlbvideo id=”31325787″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]

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9 Comments

  1. Was glad to see Law’s comments on Dodger system. I’d been hopeful but I have great respect for his thoughts. (Not that he’s always right of course.) There are a few more intriguing guys who could move up indeed, as he notes, whom I’m just learning about. And with a guy like Urias in the mix in the top 5, it sure is a good group. Hope they keep ’em all.

  2. berkowit28

    Meta comment about this website (let me know if I should be writing this elsewhere):

    This site has an annoying habit of playing its embedded videos at full volume for about 10 seconds, quite frequently, with no way that I can find for a setting of “:Don’t play!” or “Sound off!” At first I frantically had to look through all my open browser tabs to try to track down thew culprit. At least now I know that it *always* Dodger Insider, but it could be any one of about 6 videos. I can search for the culprit and turn the sound off, but that doesn’t hold for the next intrusion, which can be as soon as one minute later.

    If I can’t find a way to turn this off, I’m going to have to close the Dodger Insider page. That will mean that I’m here much less often. I’ll be sorry for that, but I just can’t have these rude interruptions over and over again during the day and night. You may be losing other readers for the same reason. I hope something can be done about it.

  3. Jon Weisman

    I’m passing along your comment, but I’m not having that issue on my home or work computers.

  4. Jon Weisman

    From the technicians:

    “I’m not finding anyone else (including myself) who can replicate the issue.

    Is he pressing the play button on a video and then leaving it on? If you press play on multiple videos they will all play over each other. We don’t have autoplay for these.

    I just checked on Chrome, Firefox & IE. What device and OS is he using?

    • berkowit28

      iMac 27-inch Late 2012, Mac OS 10.9.1, Firefox 26.0.

    • berkowit28

      And, no, I’m not pressing play on any video at all, let alone leaving it on. It just comes to life on its own, stays on for 10-15 seconds, and then turns itself off if I don’t get to it by then.

    • berkowit28

      My sincere apologies. It wasn’t Dodger Insider, it was another site. (The previous time, it must have stopped on its own just as I quit DI. This time it didn’t, and I tracked it down to another site.)

  5. The above link for the article by Daniel Brim goes to the wrong place. It should point to http://dodgersdigest.com/2014/01/28/pitcher-hitting-dodgers-secret-weapon

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