The Trolley Dodger

Congratulations to the Inland Empire 66ers, who last night clinched a California League playoff birth:

The Inland Empire 66ers took an important step toward their sixth California League title, clinching a spot in next week’s playoffs with a 2-1 win over the Stockton Ports. The Sixers, who entered the night with a magic number of two, also benefitted from the High Desert Mavericks’ 2-1 win over the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a loss that officially eliminated the Quakes from playoff contention. Inland Empire currently sits one game behind the Lake Elsinore Storm in the battle for the #2 seed in the South Division playoffs.

According to the Inland Empire 66ers radio broadcast earlier this evening, 2B Travis Denker has been sent to the San Francisco Giants organization as the Player To Be Named Later in the Mark Sweeney deal.

According to the official Dodgers blog, Brett Tomko has been Designated for Assignment.

This is, to put it in the form of an ironic pun, a relief.

Despite his struggles, I expect him to be picked up by some team desperate enough for pitching that they’ll hope the Change of Scenery strategy actually works.

You know, kind of like us.

Want to lay odds on the Padres or Mets picking up Brett?

ESPN and FOXSports are both reporting that the Dodgers have reached a tentative agreement with David Wells, the (in)famous lefty pitcher who holds the distinction of weighing the same number of stones as he is years old.

The preparations for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are continuing apace, and while there are pollution worries, China is definitely in a celebratory mood.

Murray Cook, blogger and groundskeeping consultant/expert, has been overseeing some of the preparations at the Olympic baseball complex, including a “test” tournament that started yesterday:

Teams from China, France, Czech and Japan will be playing in the 5 day tournament which is being staged for training volunteers on all of the logistics in operating the venue, transportation hotels etc…

Despite language difficulties and other wrinkles, everything came together at the last minute.

Tournament wise China has started off with 2 wins …and shares the lead with Japan. This sets up a game tonight where china plays japan for the first time in the tournament. Jim Lefebre (Coach of the Nationals Chinese Team) told me that China has never beat Japan in baseball. Not knowing the culture very well I was unaware of china’s dis like of the Japanese. Kind of a Yankee /Red Sox thing…

Well, that’s one way of putting it. ;)

Here’s the official Wukesong Baseball Field webpage, with accompanying news items and photos. One particular story — “Olympic Baseball Field delivered” — from earlier this week has more details on the stadium:

Located in west Beijing and adjacent to the Olympic Basketball Field, the venue has three fields - a practice field in the north, and two competition field in the center and south with 3,000 seats and 12,000 seats respectively.

[...] Major League Ballpark infield and stadium designer assigned to this project by the IBAF, Murray Cook has been working closely with BOCOG on the layout of the new Olympic stadium and is very pleased with the new facility.

[...] Cook and his crew adopted Bermuda grass, commonly used in other competition fields. The grass can be easily planted and needs only a moderate amount of lawn grass care, maintenance and mowing. The workers took the stems of the plant directly from a farm in Shanghai, saving money and time to sow and maintain.

The red soil laid on the skirts of the grass and on the infield is blended with additives that are permeable and do not raise dust.

You know, I was wondering if MLB.com could add multimedia in such a way that even fewer people could access it. Well done, guys!

Mutter, mutter.

[Silverlight] has also received criticism for ignoring existing international standards. According to Ryan Paul of Ars Technica, Microsoft could have chosen SVG to implement the vector graphics subset instead of a “limited and incompatible facsimile”, to show their commitment to open standards and also fix the standards problems that plague Internet Explorer. He thinks this is consistent with Microsoft’s ignoring of open standards in other products as well….

Back a couple of years ago, while still playing MVP Baseball 2005 on the PlayStation 2, I constructed “Daeley’s Dodgers” and took the team to the World Series. We wound up winning that year.

Recently, I got a hold of MLB 07: The Show (after enjoying 06 last year) at a good price and have been enjoying playing it off and on. It occurred to me to construct an updated version of Daeley’s Dodgers, this time with just a bit of revisionist history. ;)

Daeley’s Dodgers 2007

• C Russell Martin
• 1B James Loney
• 2B Nomar Garciaparra
• SS Rafael Furcal
• 3B Adrian Beltre
• LF Andre Ethier
• CF Matt Kemp
• RF Vladimir Guerrero

Rotation:

• SP Jason Schmidt
• SP Brad Penny
• SP Derek Lowe
• SP Chad Billingsley
• SP Randy Wolf

Relievers:

• RP Hong-Chi Kuo
• RP Yhency Brazoban
• RP Scott Proctor
• RP Joe Beimel
• RP Jonathan Broxton
• RP Takashi Saito
• CP Eric Gagne

Bench:

• C Mike Lieberthal
• IF Olmedo Saenz
• IF Ramon Martinez
• OF Marlon Anderson
• OF Luis Gonzalez

And as far as the revisionist thing goes, here are the anachronisms:

1. Jeff Kent was not resigned by Ned Colletti, and Nomar agreed to move from 1B to 2B since James Loney was ready to start.
2. Adrian Beltre did not leave after the 2004 season, signing a deal with the Dodgers rather than the Mariners.
3. The Dodgers were able to sign Vladimir Guerrero in 2004 despite being in the middle of the ownership change.
4. Scott Proctor was not traded in 2003, and instead came up to the bigs in 2004.
5. Eric Gagne agreed to resign with the Dodgers for a one-year deal for 2007, thus moving Takashi Saito down to setup duty, at least to start the season.
6. Luis Gonzalez was brought in as a 4th/5th outfielder and pinch-hitter.
7. Juan Pierre was never signed, with Matt Kemp proving his worth well enough to take the starting CF job last season.
8. Yhency Brazoban stayed healthy to start the season.

So, nothing too awfully improbable — no Alex Rodriguez trades from Texas or anything like that. ;)

Assumptions, “pretend” and otherwise:

• There is no connection between the previous Daeley’s Dodgers and this edition — i.e. different “universe.” ;)
• Andy LaRoche is in AAA (I’m playing a Season rather than Franchise, so he’s technically on the Inactive list) to be able to play full time. If Beltre is hurt, traded, or otherwise disappears, Andy will be called up.
• Hong-Chi Kuo is acting as a long reliever, taking the role of Mark Hendrickson — however, Mark is still available on the Inactive list.
• Brett Tomko is no longer with the organization.

The 2007 season begins…

After cruising through Spring Training, the Dodgers headed out on the road for their first regular season games, beginning in Milwaukee. (MLB 07: The Show has the real schedule for 2007.) Just like in real life, the Dodgers took one of three from the Brewers, so are taking a 1-2 record to San Francisco for April 6th.

More to come, including more details on stats and whatnot, as the season progresses.

MLBplayers.com posted a Q&A with Matt Kemp yesterday.

One of several young and talented players on the Dodgers’ roster, Matt Kemp is hitting .317 with six home runs and 23 RBIs over 54 games and 145 at-bats. Kemp went 6-for-14 with Los Angeles in April. He then batted .329 with four home runs, 20 RBIs and a 14-game hitting streak at Triple-A Las Vegas before being recalled by the Dodgers again on June 8. Last season, Kemp became the first Dodgers player to hit four homers in his first 10 games with the team since Jimmy Wynn in 1974. Kemp recently answered some questions from MLBPLAYERS.com.

I guess Lowe wants run support for once:

Thanks to Alex for the head’s up.

I read something in a Press-Enterprise story today — “Dodgers pitchers still recovering” — that got me thinking. Chad Billingsley, who is from Ohio, mentions that he…

…actually grew up an Atlanta Braves fan.

“TBS,” he explained.

TBS of course being the Turner Broadcasting System “superstation,” now part of Time Warner. It is a cable channel available nationwide, which has among its programming Braves games. (This is changing next season, as TBS is expanding its MLB coverage in a new agreement with the league.)

Another superstation is WGN out of Chicago, also a national cable channel, which carries the Cubs and White Sox. I would imagine those teams have fans across the country thanks at least in part to that media arrangement.

So what about Los Angeles? More to the point, what about the Dodgers on an LA-based superstation?

There’s some history to that idea, actually, surrounding FSN West/Prime Ticket and the Fox ownership of the team. In fact, Fox maintains television rights for the Dodgers, despite having sold the team to the McCourts. According to this Fred Claire article from 2004,

A very good source has told me that FOX will retain the local television rights to Dodger games for the next 15 years. I’m told the figure is in the area of $29 million per year and there isn’t much escalation for the Dodger ownership in this arrangement.

The $29 million figure for local TV rights is about half of what the New York Yankees receive.

The Yankees have the YES Network, introduced in 2002. While I’m not that familiar with YES, from what I’ve read it would be as if the Dodgers and Lakers business offices banded together to control (and thus financially leverage) their broadcast rights.

The McCourts’ hands are tied by comparison. A SoCal-regional equivalent of YES would bring in a lot of money.

Still, I have to wonder what, say, a KCAL superstation would look like broadcasting Dodgers games in Defiance, Ohio, where Chad Billingsley grew up. Or indeed, in the Far East and Latin America.