The Trolley Dodger

As the Dodgers wrap up Spring Training with a lovely shutout of the Red Sox this afternoon, not to mention an amazing event yesterday, I thought I’d look back in the Trolley Dodger archives to March 2007 to see what was in the news one year ago. Always an interesting exercise.

On 3/25/07, old friend Brett Tomko had won the fifth starter’s spot: “Tomko on tap-ko”. I compared the 2007 rotation to 2006’s as of opening day. Here’s this year as well:

2008

1. Brad Penny
2. Derek Lowe
3. Chad Billingsley
4. Hiroki Kuroda
5. Esteban Loaiza

2007

1. Jason Schmidt
2. Derek Lowe
3. Brad Penny
4. Randy Wolf
5. Brett Tomko

2006

1. Derek Lowe
2. Brad Penny
3. Odalis Perez
4. Brett Tomko
5. Jae Seo

We’ve come a long way.

Happy news and sad news. 3/28/07 — Nomar and Mia’s twins were born (happy belated one-year birthday!). “Captain, there be twins here!”. 3/29/07 Charley Steiner lost his mother, Gertrude.

Last, but not least, was an investigative report on how the Great Lakes Loons were standing up for all that is holy and good, in “Are the Loons fighting evil from Indiana?”

The Press-Enterprise has an article on Inland SoCal preparations for the eminent California League baseball season: “Workers scramble to ready Inland area’s minor league ballparks for play”, including various tidbits from the 66ers staff.

“It’s like a beehive here,” said Loren Foxx, general manager of the San Bernardino-based Inland Empire 66ers.

Opening night is Thursday, when his team will take the field against the Visalia Oaks.

“In order to get the field ready, our groundskeeper has been seeding it and treating it,” Foxx said. “We had some high school games out here the other night. During one of the games, we had hail.

“We’re standing on the pitcher’s mound, my assistant general manager and I, putting down sandbags to hold the tarp down. … If you play in the rain, you get brown footprints on the grass from the mud,” he said.

There’s a New York Times op-ed this morning from a couple of guys at Cornell who decided to figure out just how impossible Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak was by running simulations of every at-bat of every year from 1871 to 2005. Oh, and they did it 10,000 times.

In essence, we programmed the computer to construct an enormous set of parallel baseball universes, all with the same players but subject to the vagaries of chance in each one.

They wanted to see how likely it was for any player to match that streak. The results? Surprising!

In each of these simulated histories, somebody holds the record for the longest hitting streak. We tabulated who that player was, when he did it, and how long his streak was.

And suddenly the unlikely becomes likely: we get a very long streak each time we run baseball history. [...] The streaks ranged from 39 games at the shortest, to a freakish baseball universe where the record was a remarkable (and remarkably rare) 109 games.

Check out the entire article at “A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe”, by Samuel Arbesman and Steven Strogatz.

(via Slashdot)

Anybody notice this?

“Roaming Center with Andruw”

Excerpt from the last entry:

Fun is over, time for work

Andruw_1 It was fun, but it’s over now. Time to really get ready for the season. We got in our two games, got the chance to see a country I never thought I would ever see. We didn’t have a lot of time, but it’s something I’ll never forget. I didn’t do as much as a lot of other guys. Last night, I didn’t leave the hotel. I went to the lobby and bought a drink for everybody and shut it down. I don’t miss on getting my sleep. I was out of the hotel at 7:30 this morning, got to the clubhouse early and started stretching.

There are big changes afoot for the Las Vegas 51s, according to this AP story “New Las Vegas 51s owner outlines plans, wants new name”.

Apart from the name change, there are some new additions to Cashman Field, including a spiffy new video scoreboard and a party deck.

Longer term, there may be a replacement field, not to mention a new big league affiliation.

A new ballpark isn’t a top priority, [new owner Derek] Stevens said, even though Las Vegas’ affiliation with the Los Angeles Dodgers expires after this season and a renewal could hinge on plans for a new stadium.

“The Dodgers were very clear with us,” Stevens said. “The status of the stadium will be the most significant factor in their willingness to extend our affiliation.”

Stevens said a new ballpark will be needed “at some point” and talked about building a dome.

I’d vote for a pyramid, myself. ;)

In Peter Gammons’s “Players keep the game great” column today (ESPN.com $):

Nomar Garciaparra insists he will be physically ready to open the regular season, but even if he is not, Dodgers GM Ned Colletti is not going to rush into a trade for a third baseman.

“We’re not going to make a long-term move because we believe [Andy] LaRoche and [Blake] DeWitt are going to be here for a long time at that position,” says Colletti.

As far as the outfield goes:

Andre Ethier has had what appears to be a breakout spring, but with Juan Pierre’s contract untradeable, the Dodgers will open the season with Ethier, Matt Kemp, Pierre and Andruw Jones in the outfield mix and let manager Joe Torre deal with one daily unhappy camper.

And the lefty phenom with the atomic fastball and nasty curve:

As for Clayton Kershaw, it sure sounds as if the Dodgers believe he will be a factor this season; the issue will be limiting his innings early in the season so that he is fresh come August, which means 150-160 innings for the whole season.

The Marlins have put infielder Jose Castillo on waivers. He’s got stellar defense and is cheap, having signed a $650,000 contract with the Marlins to compete with Jorge Cantu for Miguel Cabrera’s old 3B position. He wouldn’t need to step in and drive the entire offense, just keep things together until Andy LaRoche gets healthy. Plus he could spell Jeff Kent at 2B.

Ignoring last year when the Pirates futzed with him, his stats seem decent enough for the price.

Do the Dodgers wait out the 72-hour waiver to see if the Marlins drop him, or do they work out a trade to make sure they get him? Do they even want him?

Update: So much for that: “Giants Claim Jose Castillo”

Congrats to Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, who picked up a new member of the team this morning: a baby boy, 21 inches, 8 pounds, 1 ounce. Rumor has it he’ll be a power-hitting third baseman, which would be awesome for the Dodgers in 2027 or so. ;)

So again, congrats to Jon and his wife!

Carl Erskine, who pitched the very first game at Holman Stadium, plays the National Anthem for the very last time at Dodgertown.

ESPN.com has a cool video feature with Mariners pitcher R.A. Dickey explaining the knuckleball.

“Jim Caple Catches Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey”

And check out the followup article: “Why didn’t Mama teach me the knuckleball?”

By the eighth or ninth time — or perhaps the 12th or 13th — I ran to the backstop to chase after a pitch from Seattle’s R.A. Dickey, I should have asked myself, “Why don’t more pitchers learn to throw the knuckleball? And why don’t more teams teach it to their borderline pitchers?

“And most importantly, given how much money Tim Wakefield has made throwing it, why didn’t someone ever teach me how to throw the knuckleball?”