The Trolley Dodger

A post on MetaFilter today — “Baseball in the Japanese internment camps” — reminded me that I hadn’t posted about my visit last year to the euphemistically named Manzanar War Relocation Center, now known as the Manzanar National Historic Site.

While the many impressions I took away from that visit could fill several blog posts, I’ll focus this one on a few photographs. (Click on them to enlarge.)

The Japanese-American prisoners made the best of their internment at this and other camps, often playing baseball (among other activities) to pass the time when they weren’t working.

The caption next to this display read, “Home Plate, c. 1943. Pieces of home plate from a baseball field located in the North Firebreak between Blocks 19 and 25.”

You can take a driving tour of the entire camp — there aren’t many buildings left, though some are being restored — and see signs like this one, giving you a sense of what used to be there. If you’re like me, though, you get out and start exploring. Luckily, this was encouraged by the docents.

There is a small baseball diamond here, with a home plate and pitcher’s rubber embedded in the sand. As a lover of the desert environment, I was conflicted by the beauty of my surroundings juxtaposed with the ghosts of prisoners and buildings.

Looking back at home plate. Baseball can distract you from a lot of ills, even the worst of them. It can’t solve them, it can’t bust you out of a camp in the middle of a deadly desert, but it can help a little to ease the isolation.

I just wish baseball hadn’t had to do it here, in this place, for these Americans.

A Rockies series at Dodger Stadium starting tomorrow night. Colorado is eight games back of the D-Backs and Dodgers in the NL West, but are coming off a three-game sweep of the Nats. The Dodgers are 7-3 in their last 10 games, with a four-game sweep of the Phillies, as well as winning two out of three from the Brewers — both pennant contenders in their respective divisions.

Probable pitchers:

19th: Jimenez vs Kuroda
20th: Francis vs Billingsley
21st: De La Rosa vs Lowe (day game)

Should be a good series.

ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark has a bee in his bonnet. I use that cliché purposefully, as his latest column chastising Dodger fans for cheering Manny Ramirez sounds nothing so much as an old biddy waggling her finger at the children playing stickball too loud in the street.

“Paying Manny $100M would set a dangerous precedent”

Hey, we couldn’t be happier for those Los Angeles Dodgers, who are selling about 30,000 tickets a day now that they’ve moved their home games to Planet Manny. But we’d like to ask one little question of all those people in L.A. who are showering their man Manny Ramirez with so much love:

What the heck are you cheering for?

Mostly the balls flying over the outfield walls. Also the scoring more runs than the other teams. I like that part especially.

Just like the old biddy stereotype, Stark has a gaggle of gossips feeding him column-ready one liners — GMs and other league sources, all anonymous of course.

“It really bothers me,” one GM said this week of the Manny-mania lovefest that has unfolded in L.A….

(And here I’m seeing the GM throwing himself on a Victorian settee, casting an arm over his eyes and attempting not to faint in despair.)

…”What he did in Boston was criminal. Now he goes there, and everything’s OK? No, sir. It doesn’t change the fact that how he got there was criminal.”

Criminal? Really? Go read up on Darryl Strawberry or Michael Vick and get back to me on “criminal.”

Here’s the crime that Manny perpetuated on the Red Sox in July: .347/.473/.587/1.060. The nerve!

Look, everyone knows how much ESPN functions as the propaganda wing of the Boston sports establishment. Listening recently to the normally sedate Peter “Older Biddy” Gammons splutter anti-Manny invectives in between Red Sox talking points, it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where his allegiances lie.

But even Gammons has moved on now. It’s been forever in ESPN Attention Span Time, and it’s only a little surreal seeing Manny in Dodger Blue. I know you’re feeling antsy what with the Angels and Devil Rays (insert Paradise Lost joke here) owning your Boston overlords’ butts this season, but let it go already. Don’t you have any Brett Favre dead horse residue to nudge fitfully with your toe?

Quoth Matt Kemp, “Having him on our team is crazy.” Yes, yes it is.

Some rank dreaming here, but just imagine if the Dodgers re-signed Manny in the off-season, somehow fixed Andruw Jones, and then had Matt Kemp in right. Now, I love Andre Ethier and hope he sticks around, but think what it would be like to have those three power beasts roaming the outfield! Yikes!

Update: Manny doesn’t just hit the ball a long way, he also has the power to save you money.

Because Ramirez hit a home run in the fifth inning, children under 15 can get into Universal Studios at no charge with a ticket stub from Sunday’s game and the purchase of an adult ticket. (LA Times)

With Andy LaRoche on his way to Pittsburgh, and with the rental Casey Blake likely only here this season, all eyes will turn to Blake DeWitt next spring.

From the Dodgers minor league report today, seems like DeWitt is doing pretty well so far in his first AAA experience:

BLAKE CAN RAKE: INF Blake DeWitt is 6-for-14 (.429) with a double, a triple, two homers, and seven RBI in three games since being optioned to Las Vegas on Saturday…the 22-year-old was selected by the Dodgers in the first round (28th overall) of the 2004 draft.

And now with one Manny Ramirez patrolling left field in the middle of a pennant race, this series should get even better ratings. :D

Update: Well, I guess I need to change that question mark to an exclamation point: Manny to Dodgers! As usual, the important thing isn’t the money, the other trade pieces, the offensive upgrade, or anything else — with both 24 and the obvious 42 reverse taken what number will he wear?

–

Naw, probably not, but it’s time for the annual “Where’s Manny getting traded?” roulette wheel. To listen to the Boston Media, they’re super serious this time about Manny Being Manny elsewhere. Just like every year.

Buster Olney seems to think the Dodgers (among several other teams) might match up:

They could make a deal with the Dodgers, who are overloaded with outfielders but have a manager in Joe Torre who is accustomed to dealing with star players with diva issues. The offer from L.A. would start with third baseman Andy LaRoche, conceivably.

While I’m sure the Dodgers would love to have that power in left field, I don’t see it happening at all before the deadline, for the simple fact of how much we would certainly have to give up. Besides, if the Red Sox are serious about getting rid of him this time, we can wait till they test the waiver waters in August, or even wait till the off season.

And how much you want to bet the Andruw Jones Effect* has the Dodgers front office a bit leery of taking on big contracts?

* AJE — rhymes with “age”

UPDATE: it’s official

And the countdown begins to Vin’s first mention of “Casey at the bat“. :)

ESPN.com: “Source: Indians, Dodgers close to deal sending Blake to L.A.”

The Cleveland Indians are closing in on a trade that would send third baseman/outfielder Casey Blake and cash to the Los Angeles Dodgers for two minor leaguers, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

The teams were in the process of finalizing the deal early Saturday and it appeared the trade could be completed by the end of the day.

While Blake won’t make that much of an impact — it’s not as if we’re getting A-Rod — he will likely stabilize the 3B position for the rest of the year. As a rental, he could also net us a draft pick or two if we let him walk at the end of the season.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see DeWitt sent down where he should have been the last month or so, with LaRoche on the bench as 2B/3B backup. Unless Andy winds up in some other trade.

The two minor leaguers heading the other direction for Blake are said to be Carlos Santana and Jon Meloan.

My head is spinning. ;)

As mentioned recently, the City of LA and the Dodgers are making arrangements to provide shuttle service from Union Station to the Stadium. More details are now available.

We’re excited to announce a new Dodger Trolley to make getting to the stadium even more convenient! The service is provided on Game Days, starting 2 hours before game time and concluding 1 hour after the game ends.

When: Shuttle service begins Friday, July 25 and will operate for the 32 remaining home games in the 2008 season.

read more…

The Times has a write-up on the Carne Asada Sunday event (covered on Trolley Dodger last month), providing a few details I was wondering about.

The mariachi band was from Baldwin Park’s Guadalajara Grill.

That was his family there:

Garciaparra was joined by his grandmother, parents Ramon and Sylvia, and sisters Yvette and Monique. (Garciaparra’s wife, former soccer star Mia Hamm, usually comes too, but she’d kept the couple’s year-old twin daughters at home during the heat wave.)

Hey, and LA Times video, too.

Lots of good details on how to make your own, including a full recipe to serve 16:

At the stadium, the carne asada is served with corn tortillas, pico de gallo, tomatillo sauce, chopped onions, chopped cilantro, grilled whole serrano chiles and slices of lime.

If I hadn’t just gotten back from the dentist this afternoon, I would be all over that right about now. :)