The Trolley Dodger

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.

I won’t lie, it was hard to see. Doubly so. But I want to congratulate the San Francisco Giants on being the 2010 World Series Champions. Thanks for doing California proud.

I grew up a few miles from where the Texas Rangers play, used to go to games at the old Arlington Stadium. Last year, I wrote the post “Dodgers and Rangers” talking about the feelings seeing the two teams playing each other during interleague play.

The team was never that good during my fan years of the mid-70s to mid-80s, though they turned in a few close calls in the AL West. The Rangers didn’t make the playoffs until the 90s. Luckily for my childhood sports fan ego, I had the Cowboys to cheer for in the 70s.

But despite it all, if it was summer time (and the heat + humidity outside wasn’t fatal ;) I was running around the “bases” in my back yard, throwing and batting a tennis ball off a brick wall, playing as a Ranger.

Tonight, the Texas Rangers have been crowned American League Champions, beating the Yankees (which makes it even sweeter), and getting ready to play whoever winds up winning the Phillies/Giants series.

Tonight, I’m more misty-eyed than I expected I’d be.

Congrats to the Rangers, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues

While it’s seemed more and more inevitable since the All-Star Break, the optimistic fan keeps hope till the bitter end. That end has now achieved full bitterness with the mathematical elimination of the Dodgers from possible playoff contention. Now we begin Phase 2: rooting against the Giants from making the playoffs either.

Accompanying Phase 2 is a certain sense of relief that the suffering is almost over. Not many depressing Dodger displays to go this season, say a dozen left — and then the pain will ease, and we can look forward to the vagaries of Hot Stove season and then Pitchers & Catchers.

Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Dodger Divorce (which sounds like a comedy from the 50s with, maybe, Doris Day and Danny Thomas [1]) proceeds with all the speed and amusement of a difficult appointment at the dentist. There is reportedly a “mediation” session scheduled for tomorrow, though what that means for the interminable process is unclear. I can’t say my optimism extends to this portion of the 2010 Dodger Follies [2], and rather expect the legal equivalent of chimp tribes throwing poop at each other.

And of course I am anxious (as I am every year) to see what signings and trades the team can accomplish this off-season. There is seemingly so much wrong with the team, that the penny-pinching of recent years would be a recipe for a repeat performance in 2011 — and how hard would that be to watch?

Not to be too melodramatic (hey, why stop now?), but I can’t really bring myself to look beyond the end of the season with any real thought or projection. I’m exhausted by the slog of the last few months, the “safe” leads lost, the inevitable 3-run homers given up, the snarky comments around me when some once-reliable reliever comes out of the bullpen or yet another strike 3 goes by.

Working hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin’ anything to roll the dice just one more time

These are the times that try a fan’s soul, but I can’t even begin to imagine how spent the players are. Making it through a baseball season is a physical feat when things are going well, never mind when they have been, as Casey Blake put it the other day, “swimming upstream” — an apt description.

Still, these are autumnal thoughts, appropriate to the equinox just now marked, and written with the tired eyes at the end of a long 2010 campaign. As much as I love Fall as a season (the impending hellish temperatures notwithstanding), there’s nothing like the optimism-inducing Spring and its “hope” and “confidence” and new “manager.” ;)

There have been some wonderful moments this year, and some awful ones. I look forward to a whole new set next time around.

You can stop believin’ now.

But only for now.

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[1] Not, however, “I’ll See You in My Dreams”. ;)

[2] Dodger Follies (1945) with Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, and Leo Durocher.

Analysis of the 2010 Dodgers season can get pretty snarky, fatalist, and needlessly complex. The truth of the matter is all-too simple: just check the standings.

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.