Author: Jon Weisman (Page 237 of 379)
Dodgers at Cardinals, 5:15 p.m.
Kershaw CXXXVII: Kershuwnger Games
Jerry Hairston Jr., 3B
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Andre Ethier, RF
James Loney, 1B
Juan Rivera, LF
Luis Cruz, SS
Matt Treanor, C
Clayton Kershaw, P
For all their woes at different times this season, the Dodgers and Angels are tied for the seventh-best record in baseball as play opens tonight …
- With Luis Cruz’s HR last night, the Dodgers have matched Babe Ruth’s 1927 season with 60 HR, notes Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And it’s only July!
- James Loney nearly made his pitching debut Sunday, writes Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.
- Mike Petriello of Mike Scioscia’s Tragic Illness delves into the rising costs of deadline acquisitions.
- Ross Stripling, the Dodgers’ fifth-round draft pick this year, earns praise from John Sickels of Minor League Ball. “I would not be surprised if Stripling rises rapidly through the Dodgers farm system in the next year or two,” Sickels writes. “He could be an inning-eating strike machine at the major league level.
- On this date in 1947, writes Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times, the Dodgers ended a 38-year period of being below .500 all-time as a franchise. A 6-1 victory over Cincinnati made them 4,650-4,650.
Dodgers at Cardinals, 5:15 p.m.
Bobby Abreu, LF
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Andre Ethier, RF
Juan Rivera, 1B
Adam Kennedy, 3B
Luis Cruz, SS
A.J. Ellis, C
Chad Billingsley, P
Chad Billingsley isn’t the only righthander of note coming back from the disabled list. Plagued with a calf problem this year, 42-year-old former Dodger reliever Takashi Saito finally made his 2012 debut Saturday, pitching one inning for Arizona and allowing an unearned run.
It happened again this morning. I spent nearly 15 minutes looking for my wallet, and when my wife joined the challenge, she found it in 15 seconds. It’s one of the less original tropes in my household: I can take forever to look for something that my wife will then find in an instant.
My question is, why can’t I laugh at this? Instead of stewing at my inadequacies, why can’t I find the cheap humor in it, you know, like it’s Drabble or something? As my wife handed me the wallet, explained where it was and moved on with her day, I stood there, shaking my head, wanting to laugh but not being able to.
Somehow, this explains a lot about me, I think.
Dodgers at Mets, 10:10 a.m.
Jerry Hairston Jr., LF
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Andre Ethier, RF
Juan Rivera, 1B
Luis Cruz, SS
Juan Uribe, 3B
A.J. Ellis, C
Nathan Eovaldi, P
Cool Mountain Root Beer frontloads its bite with a carbonated sizzle that has a slight echo of Pop Rocks, followed by a rather slim aftertaste. It’s not bad and certainly inoffensive, but there isn’t an abundance of joy in it.
Sampling date: July 18, 2012
Ingredients: Filtered water, pure cane sugar, natural and artificial flavor, caramel color, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate as a preservative
Nutritional information: 12-ounce serving, 160 calories, 0 grams fat, 40 grams sugar, 15 milligrams sodium, 1 gram protein
Bottling location: Des Plaines, Illinois
Rankings to date:
1) Route 66 Root Beer
2) Bulldog Root Beer
3) Cool Mountain Root Beer
“Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind – listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.”
– Eubie Blake
“Walk, two-run double, walk, groundout, two-run home run.”
This is where I will vent, and, if I can ever feel so comfortable, exult about the Dodgers and baseball in general.
* * *
Ten years, three kids, one puppy, 855 wins and 782 losses later (including 9-14 in the playoffs), I realize I might better have described my mission just as inhaling and exhaling – catching my breath – about the Dodgers and baseball in general, and life.
The landscape has certainly changed. This website began to fill a void in my writing life – “bad scooter searching for his groove” – now I don’t have enough time to write all I want. Life in general has only become more challenging. At the same time, when this site began there was virtually nothing like it covering the Dodgers; now there are more than I can keep track of, doing excellent work, providing a level of insight unprecedented in the history of Dodger reporting.
But overwhelmingly, I want to express that I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the invention of blogs, for the invention of the Internet, that enabled this platform for all my thoughts, baseball and otherwise. It has really helped sustain me. And I’m grateful to anyone who stopped by over the past 10 years and gave something I wrote a glance of consideration. I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, even through posts as self-serving as this one, and for the friends I’ve made through this site.
Sometimes, I wish I had channeled the past 10 years into something more majestic – a book or script that would stand the test of time. Sometimes, I wish I had just gotten away from the computer more altogether. The rest of the time, I can’t think of anything better than writing right in this spot and hanging out online with you.
Dodgers at Mets, 10:10 a.m.
Bobby Abreu, LF
Adam Kennedy, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Andre Ethier, RF
James Loney, 1B
Juan Uribe, 3B
Luis Cruz, SS
Matt Treanor, C
Chris Capuano, P
Dodgers at Mets, 4:10 p.m.
Bobby Abreu, LF
Mark Ellis, 2B
Matt Kemp, CF
Andre Ethier, RF
Juan Rivera, 1B
Jerry Hairston, 3B
Luis Cruz, SS
Matt Treanor, C
Aaron Harang, P
Ryan Dempster is scheduled to pitch for the Cubs at 5:15 tonight.
If you haven’t read the 1964 Robert Creamer feature on Vin Scully, don’t put it off any longer.
Meanwhile, Scully told Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News that he was approached to be the original play-by-play man for ABC’s Monday Night Football.
… Scully stands by the Red Barber philosophy of having one voice in the booth narrate for radio or TV. He says he saw the trend of analysts taking over came back in the 1970s, when he was asked by ABC producer Chuck Howard if he’d be interested in becoming the first play-by-play man on “Monday Night Football.”
“He said it was going to be the hottest thing on TV — and he was right,” said Scully.
Scully declined, in part, because “the more I thought about it, I realized it would conflict with the Dodgers’ schedule.” But another reason he passed, he said, had to do with how he saw the play-by-play man’s role being diluted.
Keith Jackson ended up with the job for the first year of “MNF” in the debut year of 1970, with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith as the analysts. Frank Gifford replaced Jackson in 1971 and stayed on play-by-play until 1985, when Al Michaels came in, and Gifford moved to an analyst until 1997.
“Because of how football was going to be televised, you’d have one or two analysts now in the booth,” Scully said. “I had been doing games with Jim Brown on one side and George Allen on the other, and there were times I wasn’t sure, ‘Do I turn to him first for an opinion?'”
Scully said the emergence of John Madden, who he had as a partner at CBS, “really put the analyst front and center. And baseball picked up on that. The whole business changed in my opinion because of the way ‘Monday Night Football’ did it.”
Change, maybe not for the better, as far as how local baseball broadcasts were influenced by the national presentation. …
* * *
- Mike Sandlock, at 96 the oldest living former Dodger, will have a meet-and-greet with the team today, writes Jack Cavanaugh for the Times.
- J.P Hoornstra of the Daily News checks in with Javy Guerra, who just returned from caring for his ailing father.
- In May 1960, a 24-year-old Sandy Koufax threw 785 pitches in a 22-day stretch, capped by a 193-pitch, 13-inning outing. Geoff Young discusses at Baseball Prospectus.
- Via a conversation with Dodger president Stan Kasten, Dylan Hernandez of the Times analyzes the Dodger trade-deadline prospects.
- De Jon Watson talked about Dodger minor-leaguers with Christopher Jackson of Albuquerque Baseball Examiner.
- Believe it or not, the Dodgers have been the fourth-most clutch team in baseball in 2012, according to a study by Ari Berkowitz of Beyond the Box Score.
- Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods offers The Bad News Bears in Breaking Bad.
- Happy birthday to Rachel Robinson, who turned 90 on Thursday.
The last thing I did this morning before walking out the door for work was hug and kiss goodbye my 4-year-old, who was singing and playing with our electric keyboard. I walked out to the car, my iPhone in hand, preparing to try out a new podcast for the 15-minute drive to work.
Got in the car, hooked in my iPhone, belted, turned on the car ignition and looked over my shoulder.
I looked. I did look.
But it was a quick look, a glance, a blurry glance. It was a look without any intention of seeing, and in fact, I had already shifted the car into reverse and begun to lift my foot off the brake pedal when the image registered in my consciousness of my 4-year-old running over to finish saying goodbye to me.
I looked. I did look.
And he wasn’t behind the car. He was to the side of the rear of the vehicle. I wouldn’t have hit him. But it was just way, way too close. And a different image rests in my brain.
Put the car in park, unbelted, got out, picked him up and hugged him tight in that way where you’re scolding him, yourself, and everyone and everything in the world for allowing tragedy to lurk around every corner, at any moment.
Now I’m at work.
My thoughts are with the victims in Colorado and their family and friends.
Bulldog Root Beer hits your tongue thin but slick, with a nice sweetness and a nifty bite at the end. It’s quenching and gone in a hurry.
Sampling date: July 17, 2012
Ingredients: Carbonated water, cane sugar, honey, maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate, real vanilla, phosphoric acid, salt
Nutritional information: 12-ounce serving, 160 calories, 0 grams fat, 41 grams of sugar, 45 milligrams sodium
Bottling location: Mukilteo, Washington
Current rankings:
1) Route 66 Root Beer
2) Bulldog Root Beer
Robert Creamer’s “Babe,” I believe, was the first grown-up baseball biography I ever read. Creamer passed away at the age of 90 this week. Alex Belth offers an appreciation of Creamer at Bronx Banter, including a link to a 1964 Sports Illustrated time capsule of a piece on Vin Scully.
Before dawn is even a gleam in its mother’s eye (no, don’t try to parse that), I’ll be heading over to Variety to help cover the 5:35 a.m. primetime Emmys nomination announcement.
At 8 a.m., the rest of the TV staff and I will be participating in a live chat to discuss the nominations. Please join us!
