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?”

As I mentioned last year at this time, it’s a good time to take a step back and remember what’s really important.

In other words, pitchers and catchers. ;D

Happy new year everybody! Here’s to a good 2008 for the Dodgers and all their fans!

Congrats and many happy returns on the day to the Sons of Steve Garvey, who turned 1 year old today. I think that’s 22 in blog years.

Collectively, the seven Sons have been one of the brightest spots on the Dodger blogging scene for the last 12 months — I’ve consistently appreciated their writing and wit, and even if I haven’t always agreed with them, I’ve always enjoyed myself. To put it succinctly, they rock.

And I’m not just saying that because they gave me a T-shirt.

The Trolley Dodger’s own 1-year anniversary is coming up next month, so perhaps we can put our feet up en masse this next 30 days or so and look back fondly on the year. Lord knows it’s hard to find any enjoyment in Dodger land these dark days of, uh, Autumn. ;)

So, again, congrats to the Sons. Long may you rave.

Rob over at 6-4-2 was good enough to link to the reasons to breathe post (via SoSG, thanks guys) and takes some offense to at least the first 5 items.

That’s a preemptive blockade of front office criticism, and quite frankly, wrongheaded. Do we flinch recognizing that Luis Gonzalez was a late-career wonder, that his regression will be just as fast and hard, and that Matt Kemp would be a better choice over the duration of Gonzo’s contract? Was there any justification whatsoever for the Juan Pierre signing?

All of these are answered by #6, which he left off his post:

If our outfield on opening day was, say, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and Jason Repko, we’d be one injury or slump away from the 2005 season. You remember 2005, right?

Of course Gonzo will most likely regress over the course of this season, and might very well do so at really inopportune times as the season wears on. As will Juan Pierre[1], whom I referred to obliquely as being dependably mediocre. This is not necessarily the worst possible thing to happen.

From the perspective of the front office, having that insurance policy at the beginning of the season was worth whatever fall off there will be due to regression, injury, or bad juju later in the season.

What I didn’t add into the Top 9 reasons was that the insurance policy works in reverse as well — those kids are available to step in when all the crap goes down. That is the key: it’s all about depth.

Do I personally think Gonzo and Juan Pierre were the best choices for those roles? Probably not, but they were the best the front office could or felt they could get.

Finally, as far as this being a “blockade,” my post wasn’t called the “Top 9 Reasons To STFU”: breathing, relaxation, and quietude was the goal, not stifling of dissent, criticism, or other folderol.

Anyhow, thanks for the link, Rob! I enjoy your blog on a daily basis.

[1] The hysteria about the Pierre signing presumes that he will be on the Dodgers for the length of his contract. This is not necessarily the case, particularly since the front office has shown a willingness to both turn over personnel and correct its mistakes in the past.

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

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!!!

As mentioned in my “Back in the day…” post from the beginnings of this website, I lived and died with the Dallas Cowboys when I was a kid. There’s nothing like Your Team when you’re young, and there never will be again if you lose touch.

One of my iconic memories of Texas Stadium of that era, along with the cheerleaders and Tom Landry’s fedora, was a crazy guy on the sidelines or in the stands, exhorting Cowboy fans. I remember it being rare for the television camera not to find him several times a game, celebrating a good play or making a face at a bad call from the refs (where bad meant any that went against the Cowboys). He never failed to put a smile on my face and made my already heavily invested involvement that much more meaningful.

His name was Wilford Jones, but everybody knew him as Crazy Ray. Even after moving away, both literally and figuratively, I never forgot him.

While I’m sure the guy who plays the new “Official Mascot” Rowdy is a fine, upstanding citizen in real life, he will never compare to an energetic mad man whom I loved just about as much as the guys on the field. Crazy Ray was the physical embodiment of all the emotional waves I was feeling as a fanatic kid. (And don’t tell a kid his emotions aren’t real or important. They’re just as real and momentous, maybe moreso, as any he’ll deal with in later life. :)

Mr Jones passed away yesterday after a long battle with various illnesses. His family had set up a website last year — “savecrazyray.com” — where fans could make donations to he and his wife, Mattie, in order to offset their mounting medical and other bills. I would expect that help will still be of great use, even now.

Good bye, Crazy Ray, and thank you for cheering for all of us. I know you’ll be watching the games through the hole in the roof, just like everybody else up there, and cheering on generations of Cowboys (and their fans) for years to come.

I have a post up at Celsius1414 this morning — “Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!” — about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with my first beer since before my bike accident and watching the first Dodger telecast of the year. Doesn’t get much better than that.

The Dodgers are wearing their traditional green uniforms and caps to commemorate the day, and have added green bases as well. There’s a long history of celebrating March 17th at Dodgertown, which you can read about on Walter O’Malley’s official website, in the feature “St. Patrick’s Day Parties A Legend At Dodgertown”

We’ll see how the Vicodin does with the Guinness later on. This may be a particularly hallucinatory afternoon. :)

And here I was commiserating with Vladimir Radmonovic about having a separated shoulder. Turns out old Vlad pulled a Beimel and lied about how he got the injury.

You’d think Vlad wouldn’t be so stupid, especially after Joe’s well-publicized truthiness meltdown last year, but:

“Being young and sometimes immature, I initially panicked and made up a false story about how I hurt myself,” the 26-year-old forward said. “However, over the past few days my conscience has been bothering me terribly. I am not a dishonest person and could no longer live with this deception.”

Seems like an honest person wouldn’t have lied in the first place, but never mind that now.

And just for the record, I owned up to my stupidity from the get-go. ;D

Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic and I share a few things in common.

1. Both of us are over 6 feet tall.
2. Neither of us have posted to this blog for a week and a half.
3. Neither of us will be playing for the Lakers the next few weeks.
4. We both have separated shoulders. Vlad did his in by falling on a patch of ice, while mine was on the bicycle. Or rather, off the bicycle.

Considering how my shoulder and ribs are feeling still, I can’t imagine trying to shoot baskets, much less type much more than what you see here. I feel better than I did two weeks ago, but I have to make myself take it easy. Overdoing = hurting.

However, everything pales in comparison to the wonderful news that spring training has sprung, a fact that will warm the coldest winter nights in Southern California. Not to mention raising the excitement levels another notch, anticipating the sights and sounds to come.

If you listen close, you can hear the flight of a bag of peanuts, feel the solid weight as it hits your hand. Sunlight soaking into every last part of you as your favorite team takes the field. The umpire yelling “Play ball!” and suddenly all is right with the world.