The Trolley Dodger

Came across this press release on oursportscentral.com,

The Inland Empire 66ers announced today that Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda will speak at the team’s annual “Meet the Team Dinner” which will be held at the Hilton Hotel in San Bernardino on April 4. The festivities will start at 6:00 p.m. with a great Italian buffet served followed by an introduction of the 2007 Inland Empire 66ers team and coaches. Lasorda will deliver the keynote speech welcoming the 66ers back to the Dodgers family and promoting the upcoming season.

Hasn’t shown up on Dodgers.com nor ie66ers.com, but probably will soon. We went to the event last year, though of course they were still the Mariners affiliate then.

Another new thing is an Arrowhead Credit Union Park digital screen next to the 215 freeway, under construction last week.

Looks like any dreams I might have had of walking on to the Dodgers roster for spring training are officially dashed. I did this on my bicycle yesterday:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separated_shoulder

Well technically off the bike. Well technically on the street, hard. Ouch.

Update

The hospital called me — I’ve got a type 3 separated shoulder, and I also have a couple of broken ribs. Seeing my main doc in next day or so.

The official Inside the Dodgers blog posted just now, announcing a couple of moves.

Just a quick update before the weekend. Earlier today, we sold the contract of Oscar Robles to the Mexico City Reds and we signed outfielder Larry Bigbie to a minor league contract with an invite to big league Spring Training.

At the end of the day, this is probably a good thing Oscar, as his opportunities here would probably be limited with Ramon Martinez, Wilson Valdez, Chin-lung Hu and others competing for a spot on the big league club.

OF Larry Bigbie was most recently with the Cardinals.

Take care, Oscar, and thanks for the help!

If you, like me, were wondering what was up with Dodger lefty reliever Kelly Wunsch — he of the injuring himself walking out of the bullpen a couple of years back — apparently he isn’t a Dodger lefty reliever any more. According to MLB.com,

Continuing their quest to build depth in their pitching department, the Astros invited two Texas natives, right-hander Ben Weber and left-hander Kelly Wunsch, to work out at Minute Maid Park on Thursday afternoon.

The article mentioned that Wunschy is still recovering from shoulder surgery last August. His recovery is going well, according to team doctors, and he is staying positive.

“I’m pretty happy with how I threw. I had good movement, good command. I didn’t see any radar guns out there and that’s probably a good thing. At this going in my career, I’m not going to light up radar guns. I’m just here to make people uncomfortable in the left-handed batter’s box and try to minimize damage.”

Especially the accidental kind. However, I don’t really blame Kelly — he was just another victim of the bad 2005 karma.

Update

Hey, it’s old home week. Former Dodger OF Ricky Ledee signed a minor league contract with the Athletics, according to Rotoworld.

Update 2

And to continue the theme, reliever (and brief Dodger) Paul Shuey — who hasn’t pitched in the bigs since 2003 — has signed a minor league deal with a non-roster invite with the Orioles.