The Trolley Dodger

Best part of today’s Brett Tomko online chat:

TKOtomko: My friend and I gave you the nickname ‘TKO Tomko’ when you moved to the bullpen and you’d sit them down 1-2-3. Do you have any other nicknames and maybe you can suggest TKO Tomko to Vin.

Tomko: I don’t really have any nicknames. A lot of people just call me BT for my initials. All my high school buddies called me KO (without the Tom part of my last name). I get a lot of Tommy, Tom — as long as it relates to me. Olmedo Saenz calls me “Mike” and I’m not sure what that means. He started laughing, so I guess I’ll go along with it.

I’m performing an upgrade on the trolleydodger.com server software, so apologies if you experience more weirdness than usual. :)

One of my favorite sites to appear recently is Shorpy, which bills itself as the “100-Year-Old Photo Blog”. With daily photos from the early part of last century, it’s an evocative look back at a very different time.

Today, I was pleased to find they had posted an image I was already familiar with. Entitled “Fresh Air Outing: 1913″ from an inscription on the photo, fans of Dodger history should get a smile, even if the riders didn’t have one. :) Shorpy’s commentary:

“Children and adults take a ‘fresh air outing’ on a trolley in June in Brooklyn, New York. Just look at the joy on their faces.”

Now, that inscription actually has a full date: 6/2/1913, which would have been a Monday.

The Brooklyn Superbas weren’t at their brand-new home, Ebbets Field, that day, instead playing the Phillies and unfortunately losing 6-2 despite getting six hits.

Pat Ragan was the Brooklyn pitcher, going up against Tom Seaton, who was in the middle of a career season — 27-12 in 52 games and 322.3 innings. He was 11th in the NL MVP voting that year.

Ragan’s year wouldn’t wind up as stellar — 15-18 by the end, in 36 games and 264.7 IP. He lasted several seasons longer in the bigs than did Seaton, however.

After the day, the Superbas were in second place in the National League, tied with the hated New York Giants.

(Thanks to Retrosheet for their info on 6/2/1913. and Baseball-Reference.com for data on Pat Ragan and Tom Seaton)

I stopped by the 66ers box office today and picked up tickets for Opening Night, which is next Thursday.

Good seats — front row almost directly behind homeplate, for $9 each. If only Dugout Club seats at Dodger Stadium were that cheap. ;)

Arrowhead Park is actually pretty nice. Both of the Cal League stadiums I’ve been to have been good-looking places with fine views of the mountains on clear days. ;) The Epicenter, where the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes play, is a beautiful spot too.

The diamond is looking good. The CSUSB Coyotes were preparing to play the Cal State LA Golden Eagles when I stopped by — the Coyotes have most of their home games here.

Can’t wait for the game! It’ll actually be my first attended baseball game of the year. I’d thought to try getting to a few local college games, but the accident sort of derailed that idea.

Season opener last night

The 66ers had a nice win last night in their season opener against the Mavericks, getting a big 4-run 6th inning and holding on to win 9-7 (box score).

Starting pitcher and awesomely named Alberto Bastardo surrendered 5 hits and 4 runs in 3.1 IP, so he gave way to Cory Wade, who wound up getting the win (Meque with the Hold, Leach with the Save).

Ivan De Jesus had a pretty good night: 2-5, with two doubles and one K. Jamie Hoffmann was even better: 4-5, 1 HR, 3 RBI, one SB, and one K.

Like the Dodgers, the Inland Empire 66ers are starting their season on the road, playing their first game today against the High Desert Mavericks. They’ll be opening at home on the 12th against the Lancaster JetHawks.

This marks a return of sorts for the Dodgers, as they resume their affiliation with the San Berdoo franchise. Everybody seems pleased about the renewed relationship (not least of which myself) as an article in today’s San Bernardino Sun shows, 66ers excited about Dodgers affiliation.

It’s unusual when a minor league team chooses to change affiliations after winning a league title, but it wasn’t a huge surprise when the 66ers, days after winning their second league title as a Seattle Mariners affiliate, did exactly that.

It’s hard to be surprised when you’re a Southern California team that has a chance to reel in the Dodgers.

A few of the most talented Dodger kids are going to be around:

The Sixers have four of the Dodgers’ top 30 prospects as rated by Baseball America to open the season: shortstop Ivan DeJesus Jr., third baseman Blake DeWitt, right-hander Ramon Troncoso and left-hander Brent Leach.

And the pitching should be interesting:

The Sixers’ pitching staff also has a good mix of lefties and righties. The starting rotation to open the season: Alberto Bastardo, Jesus Castillo, Marlon Arias, Javy Guerra and James McDonald, in that order, includes two lefties: Bastardo and Arias.

The first big evidence of the new arrangement appeared a few weeks ago when a giant, glowing Tommy Lasorda appeared alongside the 215:

I don’t know if the sign was planned prior to the Dodgers’ return, but in any case it seems like a good way to both advertise the teams (both 66ers and Dodgers), as well as finding new revenue streams to offset some of the refurbishing costs. If I recall correctly from stories published when the deal was announced, the Dodgers wanted to make some significant improvements to the facilities.

Anyhow, I’m definitely looking forward to the opportunity to see some future Dodger stars in person and, who knows, maybe some current stars on rehab. :)

As you’ll find from the old topic on Celsius1414 (where I was doing my baseball writing before Trolley Dodger came online), I’ve been reading up on and teaching myself baseball scorekeeping since before last season. I figure from now on, scorekeeping-related posts will likely be showing up here rather than there.

Near the end of the regular season last year, I tried out a somewhat simplified version of the Plain Paper Scorekeeping method created by Alex Reisner and wound up using it throughout the playoffs.

I didn’t bother practicing during spring training, as it’s a pain with all the substitutions in a typical preseason game. So naturally I forgot about it until sitting down to watch my first Dodger game of the season. Just before first pitch, I did a hurried crash course that I pretty well had down by the end of the game, taking some of the less common occurrences into account.

Here’s some links gleaned from the older material in case you’re interested in reading more.

• MLB.com, Baseball Basics: Keeping Score
• Alex Reisner: Baseball Scorekeeping
• Baseball Almanac: Free Baseball Score Cards
• Wikipedia: Baseball scorekeeping
• Wikipedia: Baseball statistics
• Retrosheet scoring system history
• Retrosheet example scoresheet
• Christopher Swingley Guide to Scoring Baseball
• baseballscorecard.com

Not a great way to start the season, but it’s nothing new for opening day the last few years. Only the first of 162, right?

The Dodgers picked up Tomas Perez from the Cubs late last week for shortstop depth, in response to the continuing injury issue with Rafael Furcal.

I wonder if the Dodgers might take a flier on another shortstop with a familiar last name, DFA’d today by the Mariners: Nomar’s brother Michael Garciaparra.

Garciaparra was Seattle’s first pick in the draft in 2001. He progressed slowly at first, but seemed to re-establish himself last season by hitting .306 at Double-A San Antonio in 28 games, and then .316 in 42 games at Tacoma.

He hit .333 in 12 at-bats early in spring training, but it was clear he wasn’t in the Mariners’ immediate plans when they moved him to their minor league camp in mid-March.

It’s unclear what his future is with Seattle. The Mariners have 10 days to release him, to trade him or to send him to Tacoma if he clears waivers.

Yesterday marked eight weeks since my bike accident. I celebrated the occasion with my first ride since then and wrote it up at my outdoors site, End Pavement.

Part I: “Eight weeks: back in the saddle”

Part II: “Eight weeks: uphill”

That I’m posting here means either I didn’t get run over by another car, or this is an elaborate, posthumous April Fools joke in really, really bad taste. ;)

As a side note, I highly recommend the beer and Ibuprofen painkilling method.

Today is also Opening Day, our unofficial National Holy Day. I’ve already had some peanuts, and will be tracking down some Cracker Jack when I hit the grocery story later. ;)

PLAY BALL!!!

And of course, as the Big League roster gets set, so do the others in the hierarchy. Here are links to the roster info on the minor league teams, although not all have been updated completely yet — probably after the weekend.

AAA: Las Vegas 51s roster

AA: Jacksonville Suns roster

A (High): Inland Empire 66ers (not posted yet)

A (Low): Great Lake Loons press release

Rookie: Ogden Raptors roster (not updated)

Rookie: GCL Dodgers (not updated)

Rosters were due to be set today, Opening Day, and the Dodgers followed suit last night. Loney reportedly didn’t take the demotion well, and I don’t blame him.

Just for the heck of it, let’s roughly compare the roster for 2007 with that of 2006, taking injuries into account (which is why they don’t add up to 25).

Bench

2006

• Sandy Alomar Jr.
• Ricky Ledee
• Jason Repko
• Cody Ross
• Olmedo Saenz

2007

• Marlon Anderson
• Brady Clark
• Matt Kemp
• Mike Lieberthal
• Ramon Martinez
• Olmedo Saenz
• Wilson Valdez

Bullpen

2006

• Danys Baez
• Yhency Brazoban
• Lance Carter
• Eric Gagne
• Tim Hamulack
• Hong-Chih Kuo
• Franquelis Osoria

2007

• Joe Beimel
• Chad Billingsley
• Jonathan Broxton
• Mark Hendrickson
• Takashi Saito
• Rudy Seanez