The Trolley Dodger » Roy Campanella http://www.trolleydodger.com Tangled up in Blue since the late 19th Century. Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:05:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Memorizing the Dodgers Retired Numbers http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/08/10/memorizing-the-dodgers-retired-numbers/ http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/08/10/memorizing-the-dodgers-retired-numbers/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:25:41 +0000 Trolley Dodger http://www.trolleydodger.com/?p=936 The set of people who are both readers of this site and users of the Mac flash card program iFlash is probably quite small, but just in case I’ll let you know I uploaded a “Dodgers Retired Numbers” deck to their Deck Library if you’d like to memorize those.

Here’s the Dodgers Retired Numbers page on Dodgers.com as well.

(I discovered over the weekend that you can also sync up iFlash decks with an iPhone/iTouch app for on-the-go memorization, so that’s pretty handy. I grabbed a couple of GRE vocab study decks to keep up my vocabulary chops. :)

]]> http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/08/10/memorizing-the-dodgers-retired-numbers/feed/ 0 1969 Dodgers http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/01/12/1969-dodgers/ http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/01/12/1969-dodgers/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:14:23 +0000 Trolley Dodger http://www.trolleydodger.com/?p=402 As I’m observing my 40th birthday this week, I thought I’d have a look see at the 1969 Dodgers season. This was the 7th year in Dodger Stadium and 11th in California.

100th anniversary celebrations for MLB saw the addition of four expansion teams in 1969: the KC Royals and Seattle Pilots in the AL, and the Padres and Montreal Expos in the NL.

Not a great finish for the Dodgers in 1969: 4th place in the newly formed National League West division. The teams in the NL West from 1969-1992:

  • Atlanta Braves
  • Cincinnati Reds
  • Houston Astros
  • Los Angeles Dodgers
  • San Diego Padres
  • San Francisco Giants

(Colorado was added in 1993, while the Braves, Reds, and Astros moved away in 1994. Arizona came in 1998.)

The Dodgers finished 85-77, eight games back from the division-winning Braves. The opening day Dodger starters:

  • CF Willie Crawford
  • RF Len Gabrielson
  • 3B Bill Sudakis
  • 1B Ron Fairly
  • LF Andy Kosco
  • C Tom Haller
  • 2B Jim Lefebvre
  • SS Ted Sizemore
  • P Don Drysdale

That was April 7, 1969, at Cincy. LA won, 3-2. Don Drysdale won, with Bill Singer getting the save — the first official save in baseball history.

While the 4th-place finish wasn’t great, it was a bit of an improvement over their awful 76-86 and 73-89 performances the previous two years. One step closer to the glory years of the mid-to-late 1970s.

Two highlights from 1969:

Transactions that year (from Wikipedia):

  • March 30: Acquired Jimmie Schaffer from the Cincinnati Reds for Ted Savage
  • April 17: Acquired Al McBean from the San Diego Padres for Tommy Dean and Leon Everitt
  • June 5: Bob Randall was drafted by the Dodgers in the 2nd round of the 1969 Major League Baseball Draft (Secondary Phase).
  • June 11: Acquired Maury Wills and Manny Mota from the Montreal Expos for Ron Fairly and Paul Popovich
  • August 15: Acquired Jim Bunning from the Pittsburgh Pirates for Ron Mitchell, Chuck Coggin and cash
  • September 1: Acquired Jack Jenkins from the Washington Senators for cash

More info:

]]> http://www.trolleydodger.com/2009/01/12/1969-dodgers/feed/ 2 What’s My Line: Duke and Campy http://www.trolleydodger.com/2008/12/12/whats-my-line-duke-and-campy/ http://www.trolleydodger.com/2008/12/12/whats-my-line-duke-and-campy/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:52:19 +0000 Trolley Dodger http://www.trolleydodger.com/?p=388 Thanks to the Game Show Network, I’ve been able to watch a bunch of episodes of “What’s My Line?” from the 50s. Every episode has a celebrity mystery guest, the identity of whom the blindfolded panelists attempt to guess.

Earlier, I saw a special episode from Los Angeles (the show was normally shot in NYC), with an extra mystery guest of Duke Snider, Los Angeles Dodger center fielder. It was awesome to see them discussing the recent move from Brooklyn, not to mention the audience cheering about the comment that the team was “the Los Angeles Dodgers now.”

Back in NYC, and before the move west, Duke Snider joined NY Giants pitcher Sal Maglie as co-guests:

And here’s Roy Campanella from 1953:

Recently I also caught an episode of “The Name’s the Same” with Gil Hodges, but I’ve not been able to find the episode online yet.

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