“A simple mistake,” current team owner Mark Attanasio told confused reporters following up on the AP story. “Bud just happened to be standing in front of the park and was mistaken for a lifeless, brassy statue.”

Ballpark staff reportedly wheeled Mr. Selig’s motionless figure into a U-Haul truck, last seen heading north on Miller Parkway.

NL WEST STANDINGS Through 8/15/10

    W   L    PCT  GB  RS  RA  DIFF
----------------------------------
SD  69  47  .595    - 508 395 +113
SF  67  52  .563  3.5 518 440  +78
COL 61  56  .521  8.5 558 517  +41
LAD 60  58  .508 10.0 516 517   -1
ARI 47  72  .395 23.5 540 648 -108

Colorado and Arizona have been scoring (RS) like crazy compared to the other teams — in the Rockies’ case, they’re keeping their opponents from scoring (RA) too many in return, while the Dbacks have a woeful -108 run deficit (DIFF).

Meanwhile on the top of the division, San Diego and San Francisco aren’t scoring very many runs, but their pitching and defense are keeping the opposition down — the Padres with a phenomenal +113 to the positive.

And then there’s the Dodgers. They have kept their opponents to a tepid 517 runs…and have scored one less than that themselves. This is a recipe for malaise.

Whether viewed from an NL (8th out of 16 teams) or overall NL+AL perspective (15th out of 30 teams), the Dodgers are in the middle of the pack. They are 6.5 games out of the wild card, 10 games away from the NL West pennant.

What can they do to save the 2010 season?

Score more runs. It’s not too complicated.

“She might have been glad to confide all these things to someone. But how to speak about so elusive a malaise, one that keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction like the wind? She could find no words; and hence neither occasion nor courage came to hand.” — Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary.

Jon Weisman celebrates the 9th birthday of Dodger Thoughts with a thorough and thought-provoking post this morning, Trade Deadline Inception, covering some of the possibilities and pitfalls of the impending July 31st deadline. Jon isn’t alone, either, with various media and bloggy outlets speculating on the potentiality of disassembling one of the lineups with the best potential in the majors.

Whatever the whys and wherefores of their lackluster 2010 season, the Dodgers are currently six games back of the NL West-leading Padres. Coincidentally, they just (surreally) lost their sixth game in a row.

Trolley Dodger has been pretty silent so far this season, relative to previous years. Most of that had to do with “real-life” events and the all-powerful to-do list (not to mention a month-long World Cup distraction; more on this later), but it is also wrapped up in the malaise of 2010.

From the ill-timed divorce announcement on the eve of the NLCS last October, and subsequent series loss, it has been a struggle to keep up the enthusiasm. And while I have watched a number of games, I haven’t gone to any this year (except for the Kershaw game at Angel Stadium: oof), including missing the recent Blogger Night.

Again, real life has been a big culprit, but it has been a tough sell for my fragmented attention to invest in the Dodger labors. When an activity that is normally an escape from the depressing parts of existence becomes itself depressing…well, what is there to write about? Especially if you’re not one to tear down your favorite team for the sake of talking about something. There’s a surfeit of commenters online, not to mention talk show hosts and callers, who like nothing more than to kvetch 24/7 about the smallest Dodger problems, never mind the major issues — they don’t need any help from me.

So, going outside for a walk has been a great coping mechanism I’ve latched onto this year, and despite the crazy heat here in Inland SoCal I’m trying to keep it up. And oxygen+endorphins certainly help your day more than worrying about a bunch of sports stuff every waking moment. Besides, the old baseball attitude of “don’t get too high, and don’t get too low” certainly applies to fandom as well.

That said, I’m looking forward to what happens between now and the deadline, as well as seeing if the Dodgers can stage an improbable comeback in 2010.

History is merely a list of surprises. … It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick.

A most excellent win.

ESPN’s Buster Olney sits down with Jake Peavy and Andre Ethier as they go over an at-bat between the two in 2009

Ethier comes in near the end of the game to pinch-hit.

Took a while, but I finally tracked down this picture of Mrs. Trolley Dodger (aka my wife, Denyse) and Jose Lima, taken at Dodger Stadium in 2004. Jose would park himself on top of the dugout to sign autographs and take pictures with fans before games. A great guy whose energy and personality was such an entertaining feature of the Dodgers at the time. I’ve missed him for years, and I miss him even more now.

Normally I would say something to the effect of resting in peace, but if there is an afterlife, Jose Lima has the place rocking and rolling, dancing, and anything but stodgily resting or peaceful. Thank goodness. :)

Mexican Wave by wonker, on Flickr

A short article in the science section of The Guardian, “Nature’s own Mexican wave”, makes connections between The Wave (as often performed in Dodger Stadium) and giant Asian honeybees, then continues with studies looking at the minimum number of people you need to start a Wave, its speed, and whether clockwise or counterclockwise movement was more prevalent.

No word on how to stop one once it’s gotten started, however. ;)

Put Metro’s Dodger Stadium Express in your Line-Up

Take advantage of a winning combination to reach Dodger Stadium this season. Just Go Metro to Union Station and connect with the Dodger Stadium Express. You won’t have to fight traffic and you’ll help reduce air pollution. Best of all, your Dodger ticket is good for the fare!

Union Station is served by Metrolink, Amtrak and many Metro and municipal bus lines, plus Metro Rail’s Red, Purple and Gold lines. So it’s easy to leave your car at home and connect with the Dodger Stadium Express.

Read more…

(Via Streetsblog LA.)

On the BBC website, “Audio slideshow: ‘Swinging Away’”

The MCC Museum at Lord’s is trying to dispel a few myths, and reveal some surprising connections, in a new exhibition that looks at the shared history of cricket and baseball.

The Curator of Collections, Adam Chadwick, took reporter Andrew Hosken on a trip back in time.

Click to enlarge

The other gentleman is the father of the original poster, who uploaded it in a “favorite sports team thread” on city-data.com back in 2008.

This pretty map displays the Die Hard Index, one take on rating just how ardent the fans of baseball teams are. By design graduate student Russ Maschmeyer, who explains,

The Die Hard Index determines the quality of a sport team’s fans, or more specifically, the degree to which fans will continue to buy tickets, even when the economy is poor, ticket prices are sky high, and they have a losing team.

The formula used to arrive at the map’s conclusions is at the top right of the large image.

Via Information Is Beautiful.

“With the opportunities he’s had and as many times as he’s done it, I don’t remember anybody being as heroic as him of all the guys I managed,” said Joe Torre, who held a team meeting after back-to-back blowout losses.

I’ll give you one guess which former Torre player popped into my mind first. ;)

“D.A. honors three Good Samaritans for courageous acts”

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley honored two Good Samaritans on Wednesday for intervening during a 2007 assault on a woman in front of the Pasadena police station and a young boy for assisting authorities in a separate gang murder case.

Quoleshna Elbert, 31, and Larry Harnisch, 58, a Los Angeles Times copy editor, were given Courageous Citizen Awards during a ceremony at the Pasadena Hilton. The award honors those who act at “considerable personal risk to help a victim, capture a suspect or who have testified in court.” [...]

Elbert was on her way to church when she saw a woman being beaten by her ex-husband as her children looked on from the father’s car. She tried to stop the attack by hitting him with her purse and a Bible.

Harnisch was driving to church when he saw the attack, stopped his car and intervened, putting himself between the attacker and the victim, who had been beaten unconscious. The woman survived but suffered permanent injuries.

The actions of the pair — and their court testimony — helped prosecutors convict the man of attempted voluntary manslaughter, aggravated mayhem and torture. He was sentenced to six years to life in prison.

Click for larger

Appropriate for the 5/5 date, too. ;)