September 18th 2006

The craziest thing I’ve ever seen on a baseball field. Normally on any September 18th I’d be celebrating with empanadas and some of the old vino since its Chilean Independence Day. On this occasion I was celebrating with Dodger Dogs and $10 beers. Neither my mother nor I had planned to celebrate the holiday since it was a Monday so I invited her to a baseball game. It happened to be fleece blanket night which is her favorite promotion and I bought myself a Russell Martin t-shirt which I put on immediately. We got some decent field level seats on the 1st base side which drives me nuts for some reason, I prefer sitting 3rd base side but on this occasion it allowed me a chance to heckle the oft injured and overpaid Dodgers right fielder JD Drew as well as the San Diego Padres bullpen.

After just one inning my mother and I were just happy to have gotten our blankets since the Blue Crew was already down by four runs against Jake Peavey who would eventually win the Cy Young Award in 2007 but I consider the single most over rated pitcher in the league. The diehard in us however would refuse to leave a ballgame early. We were rewarded.

By the time Jake Peavey left the game in the 6th inning the Dodgers had come back to tie the game at four. But, much to my chagrin by the 9th inning the Dodgers were down 9-5 in what seemed like an insurmountable lead especially with Trevor Hoffman as the Padre closer, but instead of him walking out from behind the bullpen gate I see some guy named Jon Adkins who I’d never seen before and coincidently I haven’t seen since. This pissed me off a little bit. I felt somewhat insulted that Trevor Hoffman wasn’t coming in to pitch. I paid good money for this game and if I’m going to see the Dodgers lose I better get to see the second best closer the game has ever seen damnit! So I worked my way towards the Padres Bullpen and yelled something at Hoffman. I don’t remember what it was but I do remember a security guard grabbing me by the collar and saying, “Good job buddy, don’t do that again.” Hoffman wasn’t even warming up!

So this Adkins guy goes 1-0 (one ball – zero strikes) to Jeff Kent, the most prolific hitting second baseman in baseball history, on his second pitch Kent took him deep to center. Great! We’re still down by three runs. Oh look at that, Trevor Hoffman is warming up. I WILL NOT BE DENIED! Adkins then took JD Drew, the most prolific injury prone outfielder I’ve ever seen, to a 2-1 count and on his 4th pitch, Drew took him DEEP to right field. Back-to-back homeruns! We’ve seen this of course. No big deal. Oh look at that, Trevor Hoffman is coming into the game. This guy hadn’t blown a save against the Dodgers in over five years and had converted 24 consecutive save opportunities, you could almost hear Hells Bells by AC/DC blaring in the background, but of course this is Dodger Stadium… No Hells Bells for you! No way this guy had enough time to properly warm up. His first pitch to a rookie Russell Martin, who’s father had just come down to LA from Montreal to see him play, went yard. BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK! The crowd goes bonkers! This is rare. I’d seen this before but only on TV or on Sports Center. Next up was Marlon Anderson who was a late season trade acquisition and wasn’t impressing me at all. First pitch, gone! Everybody goes ape shit! BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK! This was just the 5th time in baseball history that a team hit four consecutive homeruns. Not sure but probably the only time four consecutive homeruns were hit in the bottom of the 9th inning to tie a game. Un-fucking-believable I tell ya.

Apparently Trevor Hoffman only needed two more pitches to completely warm up since he got the next three guys out fairly easily. Extra innings…

Aaron Sele comes in to pitch the top of the 10th. Great. After all that we get Aaron Sele. Basically we’re gonna lose now. Sure enough he gives up a double to Brian Giles, an intentional walk to Adrian Gonzalez and a single to Josh Bard. Padres 10-9 Dodgers. Will Trevor Hoffman go two innings? No. Enter Rudy Seanez. This guy is terrible. We still have hope. After issuing a walk to Kenny Lofton the entire stadium, 56,000 deep got on their feet as they heard Low-Rider blast from the stadium sound system. Nomar Garciaparra who had been battling injury after injury, who’s limp was now more noticeable than ever before, reminded everybody of Kirk Gibson although much like a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter, nobody wanted to say anything. Nomar worked himself a 3-1 count which is a great hitters count and took the next Rudy Seanez fastball deep into the LA night sky. There was no doubt from the crack of the bat it was going to be a homerun. The Dodgers exploded from the dugout. Handicapped fans jumped from their wheelchairs. Girls ripped off their tops. It was pandemonium at Dodger Stadium.

Moral of the story; “It aint over till its over.” Yogi Berra

*Post Script: After the game while in the Stadium elevator on our way up to our car, we met Russell Martin Sr.

As the 2010 baseball season progresses and looms over my head like a Cambodian Mud Monkey ready to steal my soul once again, I look at my Dodgers and wonder ‘will this be the year?’  I took a careful look at our team and while the roster may have several solid, home-grown kids in the lineup such as Silver Slugger & Gold Glove outfielder Matt Kemp, Silver Slugger and MVP candidate Andre Ethier and former Silver Slugger & Gold Glove recipient Russell Martin, I can’t help but wonder what this team could possibly look like had we actually done a better job of drafting players in the past and theoretically kept them in the organization.  I went back to the 1994 draft which was a pretty good pick in Paul Konerko and then began the study the following year which shows some lack of foresight. Of course any good Dodgers fan knows that Paul Konerko was eventually traded to the Reds for Jeff Shaw which eventually gave all Dodgers fans indigestion in the 9^th inning.  Please note that this only reflects the Dodgers 1^st round draft picks in the respective years.

In 1995 with the 20^th overall pick the Dodgers drafted LHP David Yocum.  The following year Baseball America had him listed as the #7 top prospect in the Dodgers farm system.  He never made the major leagues.  In fact, I can’t find any record that he even played in the minor leagues.   That very same year a skinny Puerto Rican was drafted in the 2^nd round #49 overall by the name of Carlos Beltran.  Carlos didn’t make it to the show full-time until the 1999 campaign when the Royals made him their starting center fielder and leadoff man, meanwhile that year the Dodgers where signing an aging Devon White *shudder* to a 2 year deal worth $6.5 million to be our everyday centerfielder and leadoff man.  I’m in no way saying Carlos Beltran would still be a Dodgers but we would have never traded him in 2004 to Houston because we were actually having a good year then and we would have never had to suffer through Devon White, Tom Goodwin, Dave Roberts or Jose Cruz Jr. as our opening day centerfielders .

In 1996 with the 23^rd overall pick the Dodgers drafted 3B Damian Rolls. This kid had some promise.  The year after his draft Baseball America had him as the #6 top prospect in the Dodgers Farm system.  While he never played for the Dodgers he has played in parts of five major league seasons with Tampa Bay and got as high as AAA Columbus in the Yankees system, which means he was good enough to play for Tampa Bay.  That same year a skinny kid from Weir Mississippi by the name of Roy Oswalt was taken in the 23^rd round.  23^rd round! After winning a Gold Medal in the 2000 Olympics, which was of course managed by Dodger Legend Tommy Lasorda, he went on to a 14 win rookie season in 2001, a 19 win season in 2002 and a 20 win season in 2004.  In 2001 the Dodgers paid Andy Ashby $6 million to pitch in two games and get hurt.  Bet it would have been nice to have been able to call up Roy Oswalt! In 2002 the same Andy Ashby went 9- 13.  And finally in 2004, the combination of Hideo Nomo, Wilson Alvarez, Edwin Jackson and Brad Penny (late season acquisition) couldn’t muster up more wins than Oswalt did that year.  I bet it would have been nice having a 20 game pitcher in that October series against the Cardinals.

1997 was an interesting year. The Dodgers drafted 1B Glenn Davis 25^th overall while there were two pitchers who were drafted after him that would have greatly improved the Dodgers in the future; Tim Hudson and Randy Wolf.  I’m going to focus on the latter for these reasons.  1. Randy Wolf was drafted by the Dodgers in 1994 but didn’t sign. 2. He’s from LA and the Dodgers should scout better in their backyard 3. He eventually played for the Dodgers… twice!  4. He won 16 games in 2003.  Imagine had the Dodgers drafted Randy Wolf in 1997, we would have had a hometown favorite who could have pitched for us from 1999-2009.  I mentioned 2003 because that would have been Roy Oswalts down year where he only won 10 games.  Glenn Davis of course never made it passed AA and is now out of baseball.  Tim Hudson would have eventually left LA to play for his hometown Braves anyways.

In 1998 the Dodgers drafted Bubba Crosby.  Remember him?  No? Well, he played nine games for the Dodgers in 2003 and played three seasons with the Yankees in 2004-2006.  He hit a total of four career homeruns, all of them with the Yankees.  Shawn Green hit four in one game back in 2002! You know who else hits a ton of homeruns? Adam Dunn.  The same Adam Dunn who was drafted by the Reds in the 2^nd round that same year.  The Same Adam Dunn who hit 40 homeruns five consecutive years.  The same Adam Dunn who in 2004 hit a homerun in Ohio that didn’t stop travelling until it got to Kentucky off then Dodgers starter Jose Lima; may he rest in peace. Can you imagine that Outfield?  I’ll explain later.

Which leads me to the 1999 1^st round draft pick…. Nobody.  We gave up our 1^st round pick when we signed Kevin Brown to that ridiculous deal and later traded him to the Yankees for Jeff Weaver.

The 2000 draft is still making me pull my hair out.  Probably why I buzz cut these days, easier to avoid baldness and gray hairs from stressed induced by the Dodgers.  Ben Diggins was drafted 17^th overall.  Grady Sizemore drafted 75^th overall by the Expos!  Gahh! Ben Diggins was traded to Milwaukee in 2002 where he had an 0-4 record and was never heard from again.  On the other hand, Grady Sizemore became the Cleveland Indians full-time center fielder in 2005 where he has been an All-Star, gold glover, silver slugger and a 30-30 man.  Sound familiar? I swear I’ll get to it in the end.

Almost done.  Swear.

In 2001, we also had to forfeit our first round draft pick because of Andy Ashby this time.  You all know how I feel about Andy Ashby so I won’t go into it any further.

Now, from 2002 and beyond I won’t really say much other than who we’ve drafted mainly because they’re on the current roster and are making strong contributions to the ball club.

2002: James Loney
2003: Chad Billingsley
2004: Scot Elbert and Blake DeWitt
2005: No pick (Derek Lowe)
2006: Clayton Kershaw

Interestingly enough, in 2003, Andre Ethier was drafted by Oakland after Chad Billingsley and in 2006 2-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum was drafted after Clayton Kershaw.

Okay… Now just think that had the Dodgers drafted the way I just detailed could have been possible, they would have had Carlos Beltran patrolling centerfield from 1999-2004 eliminating the need for Devon White, Tom Goodwin, Dave Roberts and even Juan Encarnation.  The Dodgers would have been able to afford to let him go after that year because they had a stud centerfielder in the minors by the name of Grady Sizemore who would still be in center today.  Can you imagine replacing a 30-30 centerfielder with another 30-30 centerfielder? So what about Matt Kemp? He would be playing left field because there would have been no need to trade for Manny in the first place.  Randy Wolf would have joined the rotation in 1999 with Roy Oswalt joining in 2001 Adam Dunn joins the club in 2002 replacing an aging Eric Karros at 1B eliminating the need to sign the Crime Dog Fred Mcgriff and you’re looking at a 2004 Dodgers team  with an outfield of Milton Bradley, Carlos Beltran and Shawn Green, and an infield of Beltre, Izturis, Cora and Dunn, a rotation with Oswalt, Wolf, Lima, Weaver and Ishii.  This team could easily have won 100 games which is 7 more than they already won, payroll would have been relatively small because of the young players on the team and we quite possibly win a world series that year instead of still waiting for one today and I would have never had had to deal with Andy Ashby.

Yesterday a couple friends and I drove down to San Diego to watch Manny Ramirez make his return to the Dodgers after serving a 50 game suspension for violating the leagues drug policy.

Droves of Dodgers fans made the trip to support Manny.  Legions of Dodgers fans marched the streets of San Diego chanting “Lets go Dodgers!”  Padres faithful were….. nowhere to be seen.  I stood in front of the ticket gate on 7th and K Street behind the Western Metal Supply Company building and marveled at the inundation of Dodger Blue waiting their turn to pass through the turnstiles and said “Dodgers Home Game!”

Indeed it was just that, a Dodgers home game in our southern most suburb known as San Diego.  My friends and I took our assigned seats in the “Left Field Pavilion”  and noticed the ratio of Dodgers to Padres fans was easily 10 to 1. After a careful survey of the rest of “The Litter Box” aka Petco Park, the attendance was easily two thirds Dodgers friendly.  Some called it Dodgertown South others were confused to see so many Padres fans then realized they were actually in San Diego while others complained about the lack of Dodger Dogs at the concessions stands.  Either way, the home crowd vibe made for a fun night.

Of course the star on everybody’s mind was Manny but I was sure he wouldn’t be his typical Manny-being-Manny self.  What I wasn’t ready for was the 5 run offensive outburst in the 1st inning as the Dodgers batted around.  Manny’s first at-bat was greeted by the few and lonely Padres fans making what noise they could being almost completely drowned out by “Manny” chants.

The rest of the game was pretty quite offensively for the Dodgers but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t find something to have fun with.  After all this was a home game right?

Chase Headley.  A career .252 hitter in 173 career games was my target.  I figured if Harry the Heckler was going to give my guys a tough time, I was going to make sure whenever he opened his mouth nothing but “lets go Dodgers” chants would be heard and when his player, in this case Chase Headley was playing left field, I would give him a taste of LA.

It started with a very sincere ‘Hey Chase! Welcome to LA!” heckle.  No reaction. Then after a couple of doubles, that any decent LF would have caught, got passed him I said “You do a great job shagging our batting practice, Chase!.” and so on.

A few of my favorite heckles of the night include:

“I came to see you Chase! I’m very disappointed! I’m hurt!”
“Why do you wear #7? Is it for luck? Its not working for you Chase!”
“Chase! Can I have a souvenir? I promise to be nice!”
“Look at me when I heckle you Chase!”
“CHAY-ACE! CHAY-ACE!”

Chase Headley eventually started to turn around and look at us.  I always waved at him making sure he knew who it was.  I plan on getting LF Pavilion seats next time the Padres are in town and waiting for Chase with a very emphatic “Remember me Chase!?” I have a few more heckles I didn’t get a chance to try out on him.

A few other notable chants during the night:

“Mannys on deck! Mannys on deck!”
“Rus-sell Mar-tin! Rus-sell Mar-tin!”
“Juan P-air! Juan P-air!”

What can I say, I’m way too much fun to go to baseball games with.

One thing that fueled my heckling was that for Saturdays game they would be giving away free Beach Towels.  As Joe said “You can always use another towel.” but a towel that says “Beat LA” on it?  All I have to say is, that’s the true sign of a classy organization.  Way to fail Padres.  Way to fail.

I lost my voice last night.  I think Chase Headley stole it.

Enjoy the photo journal of yesterdays antics.

ooozing with class.

Legions of Dodger Fans

Just plain awesome

Love this picture

Thats right! 5 in the first.

Harry the Heckler had nothing to say.

Mannys Back!

Chase Headley

He hates me.

This is when Padres fans began to go home. Fail!

Post homerun fireworks smoke. Fail #2

This is why Dr. Frank Jobe should be in the Hall of Fame. (ouch)

In baseball “50 up and 50 down” would normally mean you are a mediocre team but in this sense its ironic.  Ironic that after serving a 50 game suspension for violating MLB’s drug policy, Manny Ramirez, arguably one of the greatest right handed hitters in history, returns to a team that has won 50 games and holds the best record in baseball.  50 games ago I suggested that the Dodgers might be able to pull off a .500 record (25W – 25L) in that span and maintain a 6.5 game lead on the Giants.  I was close but underestimated the team a little.  Instead the Dodgers went 29-21 in that span maintaining the same 6.5 game lead over the Giants (depending on Thursdays Giants vs Cardinals game) and continue to have the best record in baseball as I already mentioned.

One of two things will happen now; The Dodgers will go on a tear of epic proportions and finish the season with 120 wins which would establish a Major League record, or they could struggle to reaquaint themselves with Manny Ramirez cause a rift in the club house due to his lack of presence during the suspension and the displacement of Juan Pierre who filled in amazingly during the suspension and the Dodgers implode.  I’m guessing the former.

The Dodgers were 21-8 with Ramirez in the lineup.  If they play at that same pace for the remaining 83 games (wishful thinking) they will be 60-23 (or in that neighborhood) leaving them with a 110-52 record.  I think its definitely possible for me to be wrong and they add another 6 – 10 wins to that considering they won 4 more than I had expected during the suspension.  By the way, 116 wins is the major league record for wins in a season established by the Chicago Cubs of 1906 who played a 154 game season and had two rain outs that were never rescheduled or played and the 2001 Seattle Mariners who also won 116 games but played a 162 game season.  Coincidentally the 1962 Mets lost 120 games establishing a dubious record.  (That ones for you Scoot)

Manny Ramirez will play his first game back from suspension July 3rd in San Diego.  I will be driving there with a few friends to support the often misunderstood left fielder and to cheer him on.

Go Dodgers.

Really Manny?  Was this another Manny being Manny moment?  Has his legacy been tainted?  Is it all just a bad dream?

This morning, Manny Ramirez was suspended by MLB for 50 games for violating the leagues drug policy.  Hmm… This does not mean it was for steroids as everybody around baseball is already assuming.  Manny claims the drug he took was prescribed by a physician for a medical condition he would like to keep private.  My first thought was: “HAHAHAHAH it all makes sense now!  Manny has been smoking weed all these years which explains his personality and hi jinks over the last 15 years. “  I never once believed he was on roids.  Now it turns out he has been taking this medication to boost his sex drive but it is not Viagra.

So yes, it was a performance enhancer…. in the bedroom.

Seriously though… did Manny just pull a Jamaal Wilkes?  Does Manny need a sex drive boost now that he is the Mayor of Dodgertown too keep up with his “fans”.  Does Manny have his own private room where he takes his fans like Jamaal had in the Forum and Magic inherited after Jamaal left?  Or is Manny taking this drug to restart his sex drive after losing it because he juiced up while with the Red Sox?  Only time will tell.

I for one will add this to the “Manny being Manny” list.

So what will happen to the Dodgers now that Manny will miss the next 50 games?  Dodgers are currently 21-8 and a comfortable 6.5 games ahead of the 13-13 Giants.  If the Dodgers win half of the next 50 then we should still be in very good shape leaving us with a 46-33 record and 13 games above .500.  I’m not too concerned.  Yes Manny is a huge part of this teams success and yes he will be sorely missed but in a little over a month we had this record with him, then in the last three months we should be equally as good if not better.  The final 83 games of the season will be very interesting to watch as Manny tears apart the National League just like he did last year.