Happy New Year and New Decade to all the Trolley Dodger readers out there! Thanks for your continuing attention and support this last 12 months. And even if the Dodger outlook for 2010 is a bit murky at the moment, I can tell you one thing for sure: it will be an exciting ride.
Especial thanks to all my fellow Dodger bloggers, as enumerated in Jon Weisman’s recent “A history of Dodger blogging, 2000-2009 – the rough draft”. You guys rock! :)
As we did on December 31st last year, here are some blog highlights for 2009. See you in 2010!
1/12/09: “1969 Dodgers”
As I’m observing my 40th birthday this week, I thought I’d have a look see at the 1969 Dodgers season.
1/16/09: “Very first pitch at Ebbets Field”
From 1913, here’s the first pitch ever at Ebbets Field, thrown out by Miss Genevieve Ebbets, daughter of Charley Ebbets.
1/28/09: “Would you bring Gagne back to the Dodgers?”
If you’re Ned Colletti, do you bring Gagne back as a middle reliever?
2/6/09: “Blogosphere shifting”
You blink in the world of blogging, and everything changes. :)
3/4/09: “Vote for Pedro!”
Still, you can never have too much pitching depth. With that in mind, I’d like to echo others’ suggestion for one more Dodger pre-season move — let us undo the great wrong perpetrated upon us and sign Pedro Martinez.
3/23/09: “Dodging Trolleys”
Friday in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was this article by Phoebe Neidl, “The Trolleys We Didn’t Dodge”, covering some of the dangerous history of those famous trolleys.
4/12/09: “66ers Opening Night 2009″
Made it out for the Inland Empire 66ers opening night this past Thursday. The park and food improvements made since the team re-affiliated with the Dodgers a few years back continue, and despite a small increase in various prices ($4 parking, versus $3; $10 for best seats, versus $9) still represents a fairly good value if you’re looking for cheap entertainment. Food prices are steep, but that’s true of anywhere sports or movie related, I suppose.
4/13/09: “Spot the lead”
Opening Day versus the Giants at Dodger Stadium. Spot the lead story.
4/17/09: “Separation Anxiety”
Having been on the receiving end of a separated shoulder myself, I can definitely sympathize with Doug Mientkiewicz’s injury last night. It’s painful as hell.
4/19/09: “At the Bluetopia Premiere”
It’s tough sometimes to describe to those who aren’t sports fans why grown men playing a game generates such passions. Aren’t there more important things in life?
As a baseball fan, though, the game becomes so ingrained with those important things that it becomes inseparable from them. Bluetopia, the new Dodgers DVD, puts a spotlight on that relationship by following a range of fans throughout the 2008 season.
The team was good enough to invite a few Dodger bloggers to the premiere in Hollywood last night, so I got the chance to rub elbows with a big crowd of folks either directly or indirectly related to the team. As Jon Weisman terms it, “While you’ll find all these people at different parts of Dodger Stadium at any given game, you’ll rarely find them assimilated as one cohesive group.”
4/29/09: “Classless Yankees”
There is a certain myth perpetrated about how “classy” the Yankee organization is. Derek Jeter is the poster child for this.
Of course, the organization tends to behave in the “Chandelier Galaxy” sense of the word…
5/1/09: “Daily Blues”
Awful news about Tony Jackson, Dodgers beat writer, getting laid off by the Daily News. It’s difficult to comprehend there only being two beat writers covering the team now.
Like Diamond Leung, also let go recently, Tony is too talented not to get a gig somewhere. He did some TV work on ESPN last year, so maybe he can parlay that somehow.
5/7/09: “Oy gevalt”
A couple of years ago, when there was speculation that the Dodgers might look at free agent Barry Bonds to solve their anemic outfield power production, I wrote something to the effect that, “The day the Dodgers sign Barry Bonds is the day I stop being a Dodger fan.”
Fast forward to this morning, when I was anticipating a pleasurable write up of last night’s blogger get-together at Dodger Stadium, and here’s a news story out of left field: Manny Ramirez suspended 50 games.
5/7/09: “It could be worse. Way worse.”
At least we’re not Angels fans.
Yes, that’s Bill MacDonald and Rex Hudler. It’s apparently GAHH!!! Night at Angel Stadium of Anaheim this evening.
5/9/09: “Bill Plaschke has gone off the deep end”
Eric Stults pitches a beauty of a complete game today, a mere four hits away from a perfect game. Juan Pierre steps in and offers some hope for left field. Matt Kemp continues to show the faith in his future abilities is both well founded and no longer in the future.
All that, and what does Bill Plaschke carriage-return about today?
He uses his page-one pulpit to complain about Dodgers fan getting on with life sans Manny.
He berates them for being supportive of a beloved player who made a stupid mistake, one for which he is paying both a literal and figurative price.
He insults an entire fanbase, millions of people, for choosing sanity not insanity.
I mean, there aren’t very many worse insults than to say Los Angeles citizens are sullen San Francisco denizens, that supporting Manny is the moral equivalent of cheering Barry Bonds. Or kicking puppies.
5/13/09: “Trolley Dodger in USA Today” and 5/17/09: “Trolley Dodger on KABC Dodger Talk”
5/19/09: “Are PEDs really not that big of a deal?”
Thank goodness Bill Plaschke has been distracted by the Lakers playoffs this past week. Let’s hope the Lakers go all the way, if for no other reason than to keep him preoccupied and away from Dodger Stadium.
For those just tuning in, Plaschke submitted a diatribe 10 days ago, in which he lambasted Dodger fans for getting on with their lives without Manny Ramirez, calling them no better than San Francisco Giants followers. Them’s fightin’ words.
6/1/09: “Well, that explains a lot. ;)”
6/4/09: Trolley Dodger and the Dodger Stadium press pass
6/11/09: “66ers lineup, 2007/07/25″
On July 25, 2007, I attended an Inland Empire 66ers game versus the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, in San Bernardino. It was a rehab start for Randy Wolf, who was attempting to recover from shoulder issues at the time.
I came across a picture I took of the lineup board from that day (click to embiggen):
Out of curiosity, I decided to find out what has become of these players, not quite two years later, as a cross-section of Dodger minor-leaguers.
6/12/09: “Dodgers and Rangers”
While I’m not a big fan of interleague play, I am excited to see the Dodgers play the Rangers this weekend. And it’s not just because they share the -gers suffix. ;)
My early post “Back in the day” talks about my love for baseball over the years, stretching back into early childhood. I am told we were Athletics fans when I was a baby, but as a military brat who moved around a bit before alighting in Texas, I wound up a childhood fan of the Rangers.
6/25/09: “I’m on the 15-day blogger DL”
I’m on the 15-day blogger DL: right knee has small tear in the medial meniscus, MCL sprain, and femoral bone bruise.
6/29/09: “At the Manny 66ers game”
Yesterday, we headed out to the Inland Empire 66ers ballpark for Manny Ramirez’s San Bernardino debut. It wound up being an awesomely surreal party atmosphere.
7/20/09: “Manny didn’t acknowledge his crowd?”
Hey, Plaschke — remember when you were saying that Manny didn’t deign to acknowledge his fans on his first game back in Dodger Stadium? You wrote a big article about it, “Manny Ramirez shows little gratitude to his fans”, on July 17th.
7/27/09: “We already have two aces”
Let’s say you’re the GM of the non-existent MLB franchise Poughkeepsie Pachyderms. In this alternate universe, you have a 24-year-old Roy Halladay and a 21-year-old Cliff Lee at the top of your pitching rotation, with three serviceable pitchers in the other spots. The Pachyderms have these two aces under contract for five years at cheap prices. They are already good, and they will only improve. Virtually everyone who has scouted the pair raves about where they are at for their ages, not to mention their amazing potential.
Why in the name of all that is holy would you trade either of these young guns to get a 31-year-old pitcher who will cost you over $10 million a year? Oh, and he’s only yours for one full season and part of another, with no guarantees he’ll stick around after that.
8/5/09: “The Bigs, too”
If you find the pitch-protection tradition infantile, I’m afraid you’re too grownup for baseball itself.
Trying to intimidate the other team by charging their locker room after the game, on the other hand, is pretty bush league.
8/20/09: “In a Pinch Running”
It is often said that the 162-game baseball season is a marathon. By most measures, it would appear that the formerly fleet-footed Dodgers have hit the proverbial runner’s Wall. After their 121st game last night, another loss in the recent 4-6 slide, the metaphorical glycogen has been depleted something fierce.
8/31/09: “Ebbets Field Trolley”
Found browsing though my pictures directory recently — a great Ebbets Field shot with trolley in foreground. And there are even some Brooklynites dodging it! ;)
8/31/09: “Wait wait don’t Thome*”
* Bad NPR pun best I could do on short notice. ;)
10/2/09: “The Patients of Jobe”
As readers might recall from earlier in the summer, I injured my right knee in a fall on our back steps, spraining my MCL, getting a bone bruise on my femur, and partially tearing my medial meniscus. The first two items have healed in the interim, but I’ve been awaiting surgery for some months to repair the last item. Finally had that surgery yesterday, and it all went well — a partial meniscectomy removed the errant bits, and now I’m into the process of healing. It was all done arthroscopically, so that’ll make it much quicker to heal.
The doctor who performed the surgery was Dr. Christopher Jobe, a renown orthopedic surgeon in his own right, working at Loma Linda University Medical Center. But it turns out he is also the son of Dr. Frank Jobe, known to all Dodger and baseball fans as the inventor of Tommy John surgery!
10/6/09: “How to generate hits in these troubled times” and 10/14/09: “With crocodile tears and a pocketful of tissues”
I would expect more out of Steve Lopez. Unfortunately, he decided to take the easy way out. Loafing his way across the outfield, as it were.
10/17/09: “Trolley Dodger at Philippe’s”
Thanks to Larry Harnisch of the LA Times and The Daily Mirror blog for hosting lunch this afternoon at the always-tasty Philippe’s restaurant. We had a great time talking Los Angeles history, including our various theories on the true origins of the French Dip sandwich.
10/19/09: “Vey iz mir”
No offense to the Phillies, but they didn’t beat us. We beat ourselves.
10/20/09: “Feeling Blue”
After last night’s ninth-inning derailment, I was just about ready to give up on baseball.
Well, not really, but it felt like it for a few minutes. That was a gut punch if ever there was one, or indeed a heartbreak. Funny how dealing with such big emotional swings requires being described by things visceral.
10/22/09: “Wait til next year!”
Until 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers had gone through a long series of near-misses at World Series glory, coming close but not close enough. It became a running theme and spawned a team slogan: “Wait ’til next year!” Next year finally did show up, but it was a long wait.
12/15/09: “Beast Mode to South Side”
One of the most polarizing Dodgers since Gary Sheffield has been traded to the Chicago White Sox for a couple of Players to Be Named Later (reportedly two minor league pitchers). The Juan Pierre Era in LA has come to a close.