The Trolley Dodger

The Sports Illustrated Vault has a gallery feature up right now: Aces High: Best Pitching Seasons with some cool pictures. As you might imagine, the Dodgers have a couple of guys in the spotlighted 15 pitchers.

Sandy Koufax, 1965:

Perhaps no pitcher has been better over a four-year stretch than Sandy Koufax from 1963 until his premature retirement due to arm trouble at age 30 in 1966. Over that span, Koufax won three Cy Young awards, but his best season came in 1965, when he went 26-8 with a 2.04 ERA, pitched a perfect game and struck out an NL-record 382 batters.

Orel Hershiser, 1988:

For most of the 1988 season, Orel Hershiser was merely very good. When he took the mound on Aug. 30, he was 17-8 with a 2.88 ERA. But beginning with a shutout of the Expos that day, Hershiser’s season went from very good to historic. By the time it was over, he had pitched a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings, including five straight shutouts. He finished 23-8 and steamrolled through the playoffs by winning all five of his starts and even notching a key save, leading the Dodgers to the World Series title.

Oh, and there’s this guy who shall remain nameless, for this post anyhow. ;)

Landon Heying, a Los Feliz tattoo artist and gargantuan Dodger fan, is featured in this LA Times article, “True Blue tattoo parlor owner is a Dodger fan on and under his skin”:

For Heying, representing is all about the ink, and the ink is all about the Dodgers. He’s the owner of True Blue tattoo studio in Los Feliz, where for $8, a discounted rate down from around $50 (he charges $100 an hour), he’s offering Dodger tattoos. Of course not everyone is ready for the Lasorda treatment, so the simple Dodger script may have to do. Still too hard-core? There’s also a selection of studs and rings for piercings emblazoned with the club’s logo.

Not sure about the Tommy Lasorda tatt, but I could definitely see a script logo. :) The coolest to me, though, is Heying and the TRUE and BLUE across his fingers. That is sweet.

UPDATE: Veronique de Turenne (now that’s a name!) over at L.A. Now posted a video with Landon, showing off his shop.

Appropriately on Mother’s Day, today’s lineup is mostly a bunch of kids. :)

1. Pierre, LF (Age 30)
2. Ethier, RF (Age 26)
3. Kemp, CF (Age 23)
4. Loney, 1B (Age 24)
5. Martin, C (Age 25)
6. DeWitt, 3B (Age 22)
7. Young, 2B (Age 25)
8. Hu, SS (Age 24)
9. Kuroda, P (Age 33)

And speaking of kids, how about the 66ers destroying the JetHawks last night to the tune of 25-1, 10 of which were in the 9th inning? Yikes!

“These are the times,” as Vin Scully might quote, “that try men’s souls.” It’s the first line of Thomas Paine’s essay “The Crisis.” An appropriate title for Dodger fans at the moment.

Here’s most of the famous first paragraph:

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.[...]

Now, I’m not going to go too far drawing parallels; after all, Paine was writing about important topics like tyranny, freedom, and American independence. Baseball, while of vast importance, has its limits. Yet even still, there is something to be said for standing by one’s team, to be not a sunshine patriot (or fair-weather fan), but rather keep on rooting for the team no matter the score.

Which is not to say the score doesn’t matter. And here we come to the soul-trying part of the evening.

Baseball is all about patience. “It’s a long season,” you know. “It’s still early.” Whatever the hand-wringing, wincing, and neck pain being generated by our starting pitching and what I hesitate to call our “hitters,” it is only May, and we are only 3.5 games back from the Diamondbacks. We had a nice winning streak going there for a while, and we will get to play the Rockies again at some point.

But it’s depressing to watch the Dodgers right now.

It feels like it did before that win streak. Like you don’t want to watch because you just know what’s going to happen. There really isn’t any point in watching sports (or any entertainment for that matter) if you know what’s going to happen beforehand. You might as well just read the box score.

Ooof, never mind.

If it weren’t for the dulcet tones of Mr. Scully, I don’t think I’d watch at all. The way things are going at the moment, I feel sorry that he has to watch every game.

Another old baseball saying is that you have to have a short memory. Put the bad games out of your mind and get on to the next one.

That’s one I’d like to challenge. If you remember how bad it feels to nearly get shutout by Brian Moehler, maybe you’ll work harder to keep that from happening again.

The last month or so last season, I had to take a break from baseball. It was too depressing. Sports are supposed to take you away from your troubles for a few hours, not add to them with a lot of bad news every day. (Unless your Cubs fans, but that’s another post. ;)

I do, however, believe the Dodgers can turn things around again. It’s a long season.

It’s still early.

Maybe 1958 wasn’t the best 50-year anniversary to be celebrating. Maybe we should have waited until 2009 and celebrated the golden anniversary of the first world series win in Los Angeles.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. Wait ’til next year.

Congratulations to #24 on his well-deserved award.