The Trolley Dodger

From today’s Dodger Gameday Press Pass, a nifty bit of historical info with a spiffy connection to this site.

On this date in 1891, the Dodgers played their first home game at Eastern Park, the second of seven ballparks they would call home in franchise history. It was here that the team earned the nickname “Trolley Dodgers,” which eventually stuck.

And rightly so. ;)

The club has played in Washington Park (1890), Eastern Park (1891-97), Washington Park (across the street from the original) (1898-1912), Ebbets Field (1913-1957), Roosevelt Stadium (1956-57), Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1958-61) and Dodger Stadium (1962-present).

Here’s Project Ballpark’s Eastern Park page, and here it is at Wikipedia.

Check out today’s stat line from Baseball America for Lucas May, currently catching for the 66ers:

ORG LVL PLAYER             AB  R  H  BI
LAD HiA May, Lucas C  .... 4   1  1  1  .378 - HR (7);
22-year-old former SS now C tied for minors HR lead

Nice! And here’s Jonathan Meloan, pitching for the Suns:

ORG LVL PITCHER                IP  H  R  ER  BB  SO  ERA  
LAD AA  Meloan, Jonathan  .... 2.0  1  0   0   0   4  0.79 - W (3-1)

Looking forward to seeing these guys working their way onward and upward.

Yeah, I wouldn’t lay bets on this particular device being precisely environmentally friendly, but there is a certain coolness factor to a bicycle-powered “Manually Calibrated Pesticide Application System”.

After touring some of the local athletic venues choosing products and equipment to build the new baseball fields for the Olympics, we stopped by the Fentai Softball complex because our Chinese contractor Chai Yong, told me they had a boom spray rig for applying fungicides and liquid products. Lets just say I was not ready for this beauty when they literally rolled it out for our inspection!

The post linked above is actually from the first of March, but it’s one of several covering baseball field preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The blog is Murray Cook’s Field Blog, the latest being from a couple of days ago:

“Slow Road to China’s Baseball Fields”

To the trained eye, the Baseball Fields are beginning to take shape in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Slowly but surely wheel barrow by wheel barrow material is being placed on the fields. Proving to many that moving 1500 tons of pea gravel over the sub base of the field without a bulldozer or grader can be done.

Here’s more about Murray, who has a very cool job.

I came across a great story earlier at the Chattanoogan.com website — “Chattanooga’s source for breaking local news” — about Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers playing an exhibition game there in 1952.

“Jackie Robinson Starred At Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium”

Jackie Robinson, who 60 years ago last Sunday became the first African-American to play major league baseball, was also involved in the first baseball game in Chattanooga in which blacks and whites competed against each other.

On Sunday, April 6, 1952, his Brooklyn Dodgers played an exhibition at Engel Stadium against the Boston Braves while both teams were heading back home following spring training in Florida.

What a difference 55 years — and people like Jackie — make, as evidenced by the seating arrangements.

For whites, the tickets were $2 for a box seat and $1.50 for general admission in the grandstand. For the African-American fans, the cost was $1.75 for reserved seats in the black section of the grandstand and $1.50 for the bleachers and overflow.

Robinson was actually one of several Africian-Americans playing in the game. Dodger catcher Roy Campanella – who would tragically be paralyzed in an automobile accident after the 1957 season – was playing, as were Sam Jethroe, George Crow and Bill Bruton for the Braves.

There’s much more to the article by John Shearer, including appearances from the same period by Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and lots of other Dodgers.

Congrats to Jason and Bethany Schmidt on the birth of son Maddon!

“According to Jason, they have the same hair.”

Everybody’s a comedian. ;)

No relation, but with a name like Hugh “One Arm” Daily (mentioned during the Dan Patrick Radio Show today with Keith Olbermann and Peter Gammons) I had to see who he was.

According to baseball-reference.com, Hugh Ignatius Daily was a righty pitcher playing in the 1880s. He had a 73-87 record over 165 games and 1415.0 innings pitched. A career 2.92 ERA and 1.246 WHIP.

Looks like he got to the bigs late, too, coming in at age 34 with the Buffalo Bisons and leaving at age 39.

• 1882 - Buffalo Bisons (NL)
• 1883 - Cleveland Blues (NL)
• 1884 - Chicago/Pittsburgh (United Association) and Washington Nationals (United Association)
• 1885 - St. Louis Maroons (NL)
• 1886 - Washington Nationals (NL)
• 1887 - Cleveland Blues (American Association)

Wikipedia has more about the origin of his nickname:

[Hugh] was a 19th Century Major League Baseball player who was nicknamed, and is known much of the time today as “One Arm” Daily due to the fact that he lost his left hand to a gun accident. To compensate for this injury, he fixed a special pad over the affected area and caught the baseball by trapping it between the pad and his right hand.

He came up in the radio discussion today in a conversation about no hitters (after Mark Buehrle’s near-perfect game yesterday).

On September 13, 1883, while pitching for the Cleveland Blues of the National League, he pitched a no-hitter against the Philadelphia Quakers, a 1-0 victory.

In the press guide for today’s Dodgers game vs the Rockies, there was a note that the boys in blue will be featured on “This Week in Baseball” this weekend.

TWIB was in Los Angeles filming the episode during last weekend’s series with the San Diego Padres and they will spotlight the events surrounding Jackie Robinson Day on April 15. In addition, the show will take a look back at last Sept. 18, when Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson slugged four consecutive homers to beat the Padres in a critical late-season contest.

Locally, it’ll be on at noon Saturday on KTTV.

Good game tonight at the 66ers home opener, with a win against the Lancaster JetHawks. Inland Empire pitchers and 3B Blake Dewitt tried to make it interesting, though: the former letting baserunners on, and the latter with a pair of ill-timed errors.

          R  H  E
-----------------
JetHawks  3  7  0
66ers     4  8  2

(Official box score here.)

We were worried earlier in the day with rain and crazy winds around the valley, but it cleared up and calmed down nicely in time for the game. Considering last year’s opener was called just before starting, we were happy it actually went off. :)

1B Russell Mitchell had a great game, going 3-4 with 2 doubles and two 2-out RBIs.

There was an interesting top of the 7th, where P Cory Wade pitching in relief (and who wound up getting the win after starter Marlon Arias was chased in the 5th) got the first batter to popup, then loaded the bases with a sequence of HBP, walk, and one of Dewitt’s errors. Wade threw a couple of nice fat strikeouts, however, and wriggled out of danger.

The 66ers kept a 4-2 lead going from the 3rd inning, despite loading the bases a couple of times, until the top of the 9th when they gave up a last run.

It was a blast being at my first baseball game of the year — nothing like it, despite the temperature dropping into the 50s by the end. :)

On our way out, a familiar gentleman was talking on his cellphone in the concorse and was good enough to sign an autograph in my scoring book:

Ned Colletti, a very nice guy in person. Hopefully his phone conversation had something to do with obtaining a power hitter. ;)

Looks like my pondering about the Dodgers picking up Nomar’s brother Michael was merely that, as Diamond Leung at the Press-Enterprise points out in the latest Dodgers Notebook:

Michael Garciaparra, Nomar’s younger brother, attended the game. The former Inland Empire 66er was claimed off waivers by the Phillies after being designated for assignment by Seattle. He was assigned to Class AA.

That means the Reading Phillies, and he has shown up on their roster.

In the Baseball America Prospect Report that came in email this morning was this amusing statline for a promising Dodger youngster:

LAD HiA Furcal, Rafael DH .......... 4 0 0 0 .000 - Faced Bartolo Colon

We have big hopes for Furcal. ;)