The Trolley Dodger

Chris Jaffe at the Hardball Times has an article up tracing the worst endings to postseason games “10 worst endings to postseason games” — and there have been some doozies, including a couple of Brooklyn Dodger-related items in 1941* and 1947, one good, one not good at all. (Passed ball on the final strikeout, anybody?) As Vin Scully says from time to time about the old days, that’s Dodgers baseball.

* – there’s a “1971″ typo, but it’s ’41.

Happy New Year!

With winter’s wrathful vengeance plummeting our local temperatures to the low 60s today, melancholy hearts turn to baseball and the return of Spring. And a young man’s thoughts naturally turn to 19th Century Baseball.

The Old Time Family Baseball blog got around to reading the massive, Tolstoyan Baseball Chronology tome and, as the blogger puts it, “Let me tell you, the 1800s were a weird and bizarre time.”

My personal favorite of the 1845-1875 factoid-vignettes he mentions:

August 16, 1870 – “Fred Goldsmith, an 18-year-old pitcher invited by Henry Chadwick to demonstrate his curveball at the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn, succeeds before a large crowd. Chadwick observes: ‘That wich had up to this point been considered an optical illusion and against all rules of philosophy was now an established fact.’”

Police arrested a man yesterday responsible for stealing, amongst other items, a Dodgers 1988 championship ring at a charity golf event in La Verne. The ring belonged to Jimmy Campanis, son of former Dodgers manager Al Campanis.

San Bernardino Sun: “Stolen Los Angeles Dodgers championship ring recovered”

A 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers championship ring that was stolen from a golf bag Monday in Chino Hills has been found.

La Verne police officers recovered the ring during a search warrant at an Azusa house. Detectives were investigating several thefts that occurred in the past two months at area golf courses.

On Wednesday, La Verne police arrested Frank Carrillo, 44, of Azusa. Carrillo is suspected of multiple thefts at the Sierra La Verne Country Club during September and October, according to a La Verne police news release.

John Lennon, whose 70th birthday would have been this past Saturday, would have been the same age as Joe Torre — Lennon born 10/9/40, and Torre 7/18/40.

Another strange thought: when Lennon died in 1980, he was actually younger than I am now.

10/10/10 thoughts.

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.