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

• “Live blogging from press row”
• “Photos from the press box night”
• “Talking to Joe Torre”

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.

More details and pics.

Here are a few blogging highlights from 2008. Here’s hoping there’s a bunch more to come in 2009!

2008 02 22: Manny and Scott Boras?

I think the word that best describes my reaction: eewwwwwww!

2008 03 09: Video: Clayton Kershaw’s Curveball

“Vin Scully gets his first chance to broadcast Clayton Kershaw’s curveball.”

2008 03 18: Video: The Final Dodgertown National Anthem

Carl Erskine, who pitched the very first game at Holman Stadium, plays the National Anthem for the very last time at Dodgertown.

2008 03 20: A new Weisman afoot

Congrats to Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, who picked up a new member of the team this morning: a baby boy, 21 inches, 8 pounds, 1 ounce. Rumor has it he’ll be a power-hitting third baseman, which would be awesome for the Dodgers in 2027 or so. ;)

2008 04 12: Dodger bloggers are made to feel like they belong

They’ve been pooh-poohed by columnists and brutalized by reporters, but their new-media writing will benefit the team as they become complements and not the cornerstones of fandom.

2008 05 11: A Paine in the neck

“These are the times,” as Vin Scully might quote, “that try men’s souls.” It’s the first line of Thomas Paine’s essay “The Crisis.” An appropriate title for Dodger fans at the moment.

2008 05 17: Jason Schmidt rehab at 66ers

We had the opportunity to see Jason Schmidt pitch his rehab start tonight at San Bernardino. It was also Armed Forces Night, so there was a Dodger Camo Hat giveaway and several flybys from a Blackhawk helicopter. It also hovered over the outfield during “God Bless America” and the National Anthem, sending the warning track up in great boiling dust clouds and rendering the music, well, moot with the noise.

2008 06 23: Nomar’s Carne Asada Sunday

When we missed Nomar’s Carne Asada Sunday last season, I was determined to buy tickets this year before they vanished. Luckily, it worked out, and today was the day.

2008 06 23: “…the object is to go home and to be safe.”

RIP George.

2008 06 26: George Carlin talks about his Dodger memories

Carlin grew up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and he talks baseball memories on Kiner’s Korner in 1989.

2008 07 18: The Trolley Dodger… er, Dodger Trolley

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.

2008 07 26: Manny to Dodgers!

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?

2008 07 26: Casey Blake to Dodgers

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

2008 08 14: Stark raving mad

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.

2008 08 19: Baseball at Manzanar Internment Camp

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.

2008 09 01: More Red Sox propaganda

Let me give you another example of the Red Sox propaganda machine hard at work. Peter Gammons (I know, big surprise) posted an ESPN Insider article on Friday in which he discusses the Pedro Alvarez situation and includes some more shots at Manny.

2008 10 16: Wait ’til next year

No more Dodger baseball this season. I’ve been steeling myself for this moment since the playoffs began — not because I didn’t hope we could win, but because I knew we might not. The odds were against us.

2008 10 30: The good old days

It’s easy to glorify the past, the proverbial good old days, the golden years. Baseball, for instance — it’s easy to set aside the bad stuff whilst remembering all the good. When you’re confronted with a picture like this one from 1940, however, you start to think maybe today’s game isn’t so bad after all.

2008 10 31: Too late

“I’ve got one more year in my contract,” said Jones, now playing with the L.A. Dodgers. “Hopefully, I can come back to Atlanta. I would love to finish my career here.”

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?”

In other words, pitchers and catchers. ;D

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

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

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. :)

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

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.