By Jon Weisman
Transitioning from hockey to baseball, the Dodger Stadium field was in the midst of a rain-soaked rebirth Thursday.
Elsewhere …
- Vin Scully shared his thoughts about baseball legend Ralph Kiner, who passed away Thursday at 91, with SNY.
“He hit the highest home runs I’ve ever seen,” Scully said. “When you’d go to Pittsburgh back in the early 50s, the broadcast booth was in the second deck, and they would clean out the blast furnaces around 9:30. And all of a sudden there would be a great haze over the ballpark, and Kiner would actually hit home runs that would go up through the haze and then go back down and disappear. The height of his home runs is something I have always marveled about.”
- Joe Posnanski offers his own appreciation of Kiner at Hardball Talk, as does Mike Oz at Big League Stew and Megdal at Sports on Earth. Bruce Weber has the obituary for the New York Times. If you’re young and/or from the West Coast, take the time to take in Kiner’s storied life.
- The Dodgers come in at No. 5 overall (and first in the National League West) in David Schoenfield’s pre-Spring Training rankings for ESPN.com’s Sweet Spot. St. Louis grabbed the top spot in the majors.
- The Dodgers rank even higher on Matthew Pouliot’s evaluations of starting pitching and bullpens for Hardball Talk.
- Dustin Nosler of Dodgers Digest offers his evaluation of who has the best tools in the Dodger farm system.
- David Golebiewski uses graphics to illustrate Yasiel Puig’s progress with plate discipline in 2013 at Gammons Daily. “The gains he made in controlling the strike zone figure to carry over into next year and beyond, as changes in a hitter’s swing rate take on meaning after about 50 plate appearances,” Golebiewski writes.
- The Baseball Reliquary will host a panel discussion on Los Angeles baseball history March 29 in Arcadia. Former Dodger announcer Ross Porter will be part of the panel. Roberto Baly has more details at Vin Scully Is My Homeboy.
- Briefly-a-Dodger-reliever Carlos Marmol has agreed to terms on a one-year deal with Miami, reports Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportes.com.
Michael Green
Jon, some extra history. In one of his books, Kiner said that by 1976, he had tired of the losing (and, I think, of how badly M. Donald Grant ran the Mets), and heard about a new job: working with Vin and Jerry. He said he put in for it but Ross got it, and seemed to think he was runner-up. Ross had a place near Kiner’s in the Rancho Mirage area, I gather, and they used to play golf together, so Ross would be worth asking about Kiner, too.
Jon Weisman
Interesting – thanks.
DodgerSims (@DodgerSims)
Did they have to re-sod everything?