The Trolley Dodger

Orel over at Sons of Steve Garvey posted a story yesterday showing the difference between Adrian Beltre in 2004, and Adrian Beltre in 2005-2006 with the Mariners.

Here’s some more info on his 2006 season:

And, from the Small Sample Size Department:

;)

The Dodgers released the 2007 minor league staff assignments for their various affiliates, including some intriguing names for 66ers staff.

Among the former Dodgers rejoining the organization is 25-year Major League veteran and former All-Star Charlie Hough, who will serve as the pitching coach at Single-A Inland Empire. Hough broke into the big leagues in 1970 with Los Angeles and pitched for the team until 1980. He appeared in three World Series with the Dodgers and will be returning for his second coaching stint with the organization, having served as the pitching coach for Single-A San Bernardino from 1996-98.

Joining Hough in the Inland Empire will be former Dodger catcher Steve Yeager, who enters his fourth season as a hitting coach in the organization while the 66ers will be managed by longtime Major League player and coach Dave Collins, who joins the club after four seasons as the Colorado Rockies’ first base coach. Collins enters his 29th season in professional baseball, having coached in the Major Leagues for the Rockies, Brewers, Reds and Cardinals while also managing Single-A Salem to the Carolina League championship in 2001. Collins played 16 seasons in the Major Leagues, compiling a .272 career average and 395 stolen bases with eight teams.

• Charlie Hough
• Steve Yeager
• Dave Collins

The IE 66ers site has a press release as well, describing the new folks in more detail. Yeager, for example, was also with the San Bernardino Stampede (the 66ers previous incarnation) before, as hitting coach in 1999.

This final paragraph summarizes the new relationship nicely:

The ’07 campaign will reunite the Dodgers with San Bernardino. They were San Bernardino’s major league affiliate from 1995-2000, during which time San Bernardino captured three league titles. The Dodgers had not been in the Cal League since pulling out of San Bernardino following the 2000 season. The 66ers were affiliated with the Seattle Mariners from 2001-2006. The defending California League Champion 66ers will open a new era with the Dodgers on April 5 with a road game against the High Desert Mavericks. The club’s home opener is scheduled for April 12 against the Lancaster Jethawks.

Hopefully, opening day this year won’t be rained out. :) But in any case, I’m still anxiously awaiting the new season, now with the added bonus of seeing Dodger prospects in person.

Long before Ebbets Field opened in 1913 at 55 Sullivan Place, the Brooklyn ballclub played over in the neighborhood known as Park Slope, at Washington Park. The trolley tracks running nearby were the inspiration for one of the club’s nicknames — The Trolley-Dodgers.

They left the first Washington Park in 1892, moving into Eastern Park until 1897, when they moved to another field, between First and Third Streets, and Third and Fourth Avenues, also named Washington Park. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, AKA Superbas, AKA Trolley-Dodgers played there from 1898-1912.

An article published a few days ago in the Columbia University Journal takes up the story:

Tucked away among ancient factories and garages is a massive relic of the Dodgers’ old ballpark. Not Ebbets Field but Washington Park, where the Brooklyn Nine played before moving to Flatbush. It’s the oldest standing piece of a major league ballpark in the country. And almost nobody knows it’s there.

At the foot of Park Slope, a block from the Gowanus Canal, is a Con Edison truck depot and storage facility, bounded by First and Third streets and Third and Fourth avenues. Running the length of Third Avenue is a 20-foot-high stone wall that now makes up part of a loading dock. Though the high, small windows have been bricked up, the contours suggest a ballpark long-since vanished.

The article — “A piece of forgotten Dodgers history still stands in Brooklyn” by Barry Petchesky — covers some of the history of the park and wonders why there isn’t any sort of plaque or other recognition.

“If there’s history there, it deserves some recognition,” said baseball historian Marc Okkonen, who has completed exhaustive studies of every ballpark that hosted a major league team. “But it’s in a pretty seedy area. Maybe no one wants to remember.”

The field was never beloved in its time. The nearby canal gave off a constant stench, and as late-season call-up Casey Stengel remembered, “the mosquitoes was something fierce.” From his purchase of the team in 1902, Charlie Ebbets planned the team’s eventual move to Ebbets Field in 1913.

The field fell out of any baseball use in the 20s, never to recover.

Some of that early Washington Park history includes the first battles against the Giants. The first game of 1912 and the last game played there were both against the despised ones.

Small and outdated, Washington Park inspired its first and last bout of nostalgia when the team announced it would leave after the 1912 season. On opening day that year, 30,000 fans rushed the gates, overwhelming the park’s official capacity of 18,000. Fans sat along the foul lines and in the outfield, no doubt contributing to the record 13 ground-rule doubles the Giants recorded en route to a 19-3 drubbing.

At its last game, also against the Giants, the park was sent off in style as “Shannon’s Twenty-third Regiment Band [blared] dolefully about Auld Lang Syne,” wrote the Eagle.

“When the robins nest again we shall be pastiming in Ebbets Field,” famed sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote in one of his earliest published articles. “The game with the New York Giants yesterday was also an old story, for the Giants won [over] Brooklyn.”

It is a shame that there isn’t more recognition at the site, but perhaps with the light recently shined on its history, there will be more to come. SABR, for example, has been struggling with Con Ed since 2002, trying to preserve the leftover wall and whatever else might be there. Let’s hope the preservationists are successful.

Larry Sherry (L) and Duke Snider after winning 1959 World Series.

Dodgers.com: 1959 World Series MVP Sherry Dies

Larry Sherry, Most Valuable Player of the Dodgers’ 1959 World Series championship, died Sunday from cancer. He was 71.

Sherry, a rookie reliever, was 2-0 with two saves and a 0.71 ERA in the Dodgers’ 1959 World Series win over the Chicago White Sox.

“Larry Sherry was a local product who became a household name in Los Angeles with his World Series heroics in 1959,” the Dodgers said in a statement. “He will always be associated with the Dodgers’ first championship in Los Angeles, and our deepest sympathies go out to his brother, Norm, and the entire Sherry family.”

In Ken Gurnick’s latest Mailbag on MLB.com, there is a nice bit of angst regarding Eric Gagne’s unceremonious departure from the Dodgers.

A former teammate of Gagne’s told me this week, “Gagne’s loyalty was to his teammates, not to the organization or the fans. And if you look at the Dodgers’ roster as it currently sits, those aren’t his teammates. He hasn’t played with most of them.”

Fans remember well Gagne’s 2003 Cy Young season. Guess how many current Dodgers were on that club? The answer is none. The owner, general manager, field manager and coaching staff? They’re all gone. When Paul DePodesta dismantled the 2004 division champs, in my opinion, it broke the spirit of those left behind.

Say it ain’t so, eh?

I’ve heard before that sports are soap operas for guys, and sometimes it sure seems that way. This, however, seems more like high school. “Did you hear what Eric said today?” “Oh my god!” Game over, indeed.

Of more interest to me was this other question and answer:

Is Betemit playing winter ball? — Roger S., Hidden Hills, Calif.

Yes, but not well. He is hitting .200 (12-for-60) with two homers, nine RBIs and a whopping 20 strikeouts for Escogido in the Dominican Republic.

This is rather worrisome, but I wonder (and this is sheer speculation on my part) if it isn’t just the distraction of the ongoing investigations. Also, it’s probably best not to pay too much mind to the off-season league results.

Speaking of soap operas, how about that JD Drew?

Both sides are doing their due diligence on the matter. A major league source told the Globe that Drew was scheduled to have a second opinion, but there’s been no word on whether he went through with it or if it’s simply now a matter of Boras believing the Red Sox’ findings.