[mlbvideo id=”33284197″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

Pirates at Dodgers, 7:10 p.m.
Dee Gordon, 2B
Chone Figgins, 3B
Yasiel Puig, RF
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Matt Kemp, LF
Scott Van Slyke, 1B
Andre Ethier, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
Drew Butera, C
Josh Beckett, P

By Jon Weisman

After you enjoy Vin Scully’s description of “maestro” Yasiel Puig

  • Well, if this headline doesn’t make you click, I don’t know what will: “How Sandy Koufax’s Motel Helped Lead to Baseball’s Big-Money Era.” Here’s the first paragraph from Michael Beschloss’ story for the New York Times …

    In 1962, the star Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax invested in a West Hollywood motor inn, which was renamed “Sandy Koufax’s Tropicana Motel.” Down Santa Monica Boulevard from the famed Troubadour club, these “74 luxurious air-conditioned rooms” — rented at “popular prices” — came to lodge some of the biggest musical acts of the period: Alice Cooper, Bob Marley, the Mamas and the Papas, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and the Doors. “I don’t know which made me more excited,” said one guest, “to be in Sandy’s motel or to be in a room right beside Sly Stone, from Sly and the Family Stone.”

  • Sports on Earth delivered a couple of great Dodger-related pieces this week: Jorge Arangure Jr. on Dee Gordon’s maturation and Howard Megdal bonding with A.J. Ellis over how each of their wives delivered babies in cars on their way to the hospital.
  • Here’s another eye-catching headline, found at The Bowery Boys: “The short shelf life of the Tip-Tops, the Brooklyn baseball team situated near the Gowanus River and named for bread.”/li>