By Jon Weisman
“I was the best snowball fighter on the block.”
— Sandy Koufax, telling SportsNet LA’s Orel Hershiser how he knew he had a good arm
Category: History (Page 23 of 35)
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Dodgers vs. Reds, 6:05 p.m.
Dee Gordon, CF
Carl Crawford, DH
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Juan Uribe, 3B
Joc Pederson, LF
Alex Guerrero, 2B
Tim Federowicz, C
Miguel Rojas, SS
(Hyun-Jin Ryu, P)
Dee Gordon, CF
Carl Crawford, DH
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Juan Uribe, 3B
Joc Pederson, LF
Alex Guerrero, 2B
Tim Federowicz, C
Miguel Rojas, SS
(Hyun-Jin Ryu, P)
By Jon Weisman
I keep risking a jinx, but 60 innings into the exhibition season, the Dodgers haven’t allowed a home run. They’re the only team that hasn’t been taken yard in 2014.
The shot that Joc Pederson flagged down in the video above wouldn’t have been a home run, but it’s about as far as anyone has hit one against Los Angeles so far. Let’s see what happens in the Dodgers’ first night game.
- Scheduled to follow Hyun-Jin Ryu to the mound today are Jose Dominguez, Javy Guerra, Matt Magill, Paco Rodriguez and Carlos Frias.
- Ross Stripling had to have arthroscopic surgery today before he can have his Tommy John surgery on a future date. Ken Gurnick has details at MLB.com.
- Zack Greinke threw off a mound today for the first time since injuring his calf February 27, Gurnick reports.
- And to complete a Gurnick hat trick, a nice feature providing some welcome background on Dodger pitching prospect Red Patterson. Check it out.
- Spring Training stats: All-glove, no-hit Miguel Rojas is batting .444 and fielding .895.
- Former Dodger Trent Oeltjen will play for Team Australia in the March 20 exhibition against the Dodgers in Sydney, notes Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.
- Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale are pictured during their 1966 holdout with David Janssen on the set of the movie “Warning Shot” in a post by Scott Harrison at Framework.
- Peter Gammons has a long piece on the 2014 Dodgers at Gammons Daily.
- Eric Gagne is managing the Team France baseball team that began a five-game Cactus League tour with an exhibition game today against Dodger minor leaguers.
- Today in 1961 primary source material on the Dodgers at Ernest Reyes’ Blue Heaven: Gil Hodges.
Brian Wilson told @alannarizzo “he thinks he’s going to be in the bigs throwing a knuckleball successfully about the age of 50.” #Dodgers
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) March 5, 2014
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By Jon Weisman
I don’t have any special insight into where Dee Gordon stands in the competition for playing time at second base (as well as backing up center field), though I don’t feel he’s done much to hurt himself. At a minimum, I can say I’ve really enjoyed watching him this spring.
Gordon went 0 for 1 today but had a couple of nice diving stops, including the inning-ending play shown above.
Meanwhile, Justin Turner has quietly been going about his business of attempting to cement a spot on the roster. Turner started at short today and had this grab.
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The Dodgers suffered their first home loss of Spring Training 2014, falling 4-1 to Seattle, with Los Angeles’ only run coming on a home run by minor-leaguer Trayvon Robinson. Ken Gurnick of MLB.com has the recap.
In other news …
Tommy John surgery scheduled for tomorrow morning. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. Everything happens for a reason!
— Ross Stripling (@RossStripling) March 4, 2014
- Fears about pitching prospect Ross Stripling were confirmed: He will be having Tommy John surgery Wednesday, reports Gurnick. Stripling injured himself throwing batting practice February 21, but still pitched in a game February 26.
- A couple of notes on Australia via Ernest Reyes of Blue Heaven: A history of baseball in Australia from John Thorn and a report on the conversion of the Sydney Cricket Grounds to baseball from MLB field and facilities coordinator Murray Cook.
- Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports likes the Dodgers chances in the National League West — a lot.
- Former Dodger Bill Buckner is retiring from baseball. He has been a Single-A hitting coach in the Cubs’ organization.
- Some upcoming SportsNet LA programming:
- Wednesday, 10 p.m.: “Talkin’ Blue: State of the Dodgers”
- Saturday, 10 p.m.: “Connected With…Adrian Gonzalez”
- March 14, 8 p.m.: “Connected With…Ned Colletti”
- March 21, 8:30 p.m.: “Talkin’ Blue: Dodger Pitchers”
- March 26, 8 p.m.: “Connected With…Stan Kasten”
- March 31, 8:30 p.m.:“Talkin’ Blue: 2014 Season Preview”
- April 1, 8 p.m.: “Connected With…Brian Wilson”
- Today in Jon SooHoo includes son and father combo Scott and Andy Van Slyke.
By Jon Weisman
It was 10 years ago this July that a 23-year-old prospect with three games of Major League experience was involved in a blockbuster trade that included one of the greatest shortstops of his generation.
Now, they’re both in the world of the Dodgers.
July 31, 2004
As part of a 4-team trade: The Boston Red Sox sent Nomar Garciaparra and Matt Murton to the Chicago Cubs. The Minnesota Twins sent Doug Mientkiewicz to the Boston Red Sox. The Montreal Expos sent Orlando Cabrera to the Boston Red Sox. The Chicago Cubs sent Francis Beltran, Alex Gonzalez and Brendan Harris to the Montreal Expos. The Chicago Cubs sent Justin Jones (minors) to the Minnesota Twins.
Garciaparra, of course, later became the Dodgers’ 4+1 hero and is now a SportsNet LA and KLAC AM 570 analyst. Harris, who signed with the Dodgers in November, is one of the crew vying for time in the Dodger infield.
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With Beltran and Gonzalez, Harris was in the last group of Major Leaguers to be acquired by the Expos before they would become the Washington Nationals. The Dodgers would be Harris’ seventh-major league team if he makes the active roster at any point. In 1,876 plate appearances over eight seasons, Harris has a .314 on-base percentage while slugging .381. He peaked in 2007 with Tampa Bay, going .343/.434 in 576 plate appearances with 12 homers.
Among other claims to fame, Harris was the last MLB batter to hit in the Metrodome in Minneapolis, making the final out in Game 3 of the 2009 American League Division Series for the Twins against the Yankees.
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By the way, in case you’re wondering what the Dodgers were doing on July 31, 2004, they were trading Reggie Abercrombie, Koyie Hill and Bill Murphy for Brent Mayne, Steve Finley and the 2004 National League West title.
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Photos: Armando Arorizo/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
Never underestimate the reach of Vin Scully.
When I spoke with Orel Hershiser the night of the Dodger Town Hall for an upcoming magazine piece, the new SportsNet LA analyst gave me an anecdote that caught me off guard (and I thought would be best to share online).
I was wondering how much Hershiser had gotten to hear of Scully, given that his playing days wouldn’t have offered much opportunity …
“Other than those transistor radios when you step back and you hear, ‘Hershiser winds,’ and you hear everybody’s radio,” Hershiser said. “That was amazing to be on the mound and hear his voice. Oh yeah, you could lock in and know on a day game, if they had the radios on, you could actually be doing something and hearing him announce you doing it. It was unbelievable. It was so much fun. You had to block it out, but I did hear it once in a while.”
Hershiser also had an interesting take on how he would approach the broadcast, given that by his own admission, he had a rooting interest in the Dodgers.
“I think I’ll feel the same way as the fans do,” he said. “I’ll feel the same way as Ned Colletti and Stan Kasten do in the front office when they put the team together. I’ll feel the same way as when Don Mattingly puts somebody up to pinch-hit to get a bunt down, and he doesn’t get it down. You’re killing yourself inside, but you figuring out a way. How do I impart knowledge? How do I vent my frustration so they can do better next time? How do I not kill this guy, though? And then when do they well, how do I keep them on a roll. Do you get in their way and compliment them when you’re around them, or do you just leave them alone?”
The 1988 Cy Young winner, famed for his endurance that season, realizes he faces a different kind of marathon with the hefty schedule of daily broadcasts.
“I think it’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “You have to know how to pace yourself. … I’ll be reminding myself – you’ve got a lot of time for a lot of material.”
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By Jon Weisman
Watch the video above, with our new friend Justin Turner at the plate (last year while he was still a Met), because something very cool is happening.
You’ve heard of players taking good or bad routes to balls, or having a quick or slow first step? Ever wondered who can come from behind to catch up to a ball the fastest? Now, Major League Baseball Advanced Media is preparing to quantify that.
The system is being rolled out in select ballparks this year but should be fully operational in 2015.
… MLB.com analyst Jim Duquette, who spent 20 years in front offices, including four years as an MLB general manager, said this will remove much of the subjectivity from a club’s own player analysis.
“When you look at how scouting has been done in the past, there’s a lot of subjectivity to the evaluation,” he said. “Some guys I have found have varied, from scout to scout, in terms of their opinion of each player. There is a lot of quality defensive statistics out there, but they’re not completely accurate. A lot of them are dependent on somebody charting, whether it’s UZR or DIPS or Defensive Runs Saved, and they can only go so far. Some players . . . range to their left better, some range better to their right, some come in on ground balls better than others, some have better first-step quickness.
“The exciting thing about this new technology is, you can start to take the subjectivity that is given to you by the scout and blend it with raw data now, and come up with a truer picture of evaluating a player. So when you take that data and compare it to others in the game, you can really find out if that position player is the best at his position. You can measure potential free agents, you can measure current free agents.” …
The technology won’t be limited to defensive applications – it will inform every aspect of baseball. Might be more than some of us can digest, but the possibilities are pretty exciting.
Elsewhere …
- Matt Meyers of ESPN.com wrote about other presentations at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. This part (though the whole article is worth a read), intrigued me …
… “Will we get to a point where a team moves its best defender to different positions from hitter to hitter based upon analytics?”
That was a question asked by the audience that really seemed to resonate with the panelists.
As Neyer noted, the Pittsburgh Pirates showed last year just how much defensive positioning can help a club when the field staff buys into, and Silver posited that it would only make sense, if you had a superlative defender with a variety of skills, to put him in the space where the ball is most likely to be hit.
So if you’re the Braves and you’ve decided to “shift” Ryan Howard, instead of just shifting everyone to the right, you would put Andrelton Simmons exactly where Howard is most likely to hit it, whether or not that is right next to the first baseman or up the middle. Squadron made the point that it’s surprising that teams don’t flip-flop their left and right fielders more often depending on the hitter, and quite frankly this makes a lot of sense. There are a number of teams on which the guys in left and right have extremely disparate defensive skills, and this is an easy, yet logical, switch. …
- Know who Dick “Turk” Farrell was? If not, it’s time to go to Ernest Reyes’ latest at Blue Heaven, the Dick “Turk” Farrell 1961 Union Oil Dodger Family Booklet.
- Dodger farmhand Matt Shelton deserves more attention, according to Harold Uhlman at Think Blue L.A.
- Today in Jon SooHoo.
By Jon Weisman
The first big conference at the mound of 2014, pictured above.
- Ken Gurnick of MLB.com follows up on the condition of Zack Greinke, following his early exit today:
… “I just felt something in my calf,” said Greinke. “Just try to take care of it this early in spring. Hopefully it’s not a big deal. I think it’s minor. We’ll see in a couple of days. Right now, I don’t feel too bad.”Greinke said it felt like a cramp and that when he’s had them in the past, he would walk it off and the muscle would loosen. This time he took a few steps, but the discomfort remained. He said he might have been able to pitch through it if this had been the regular season, but nobody would let him continue at this point unless he was 100 percent.
Greinke was scheduled to pitch two innings, with an additional 15 pitches in the bullpen afterward. The Dodgers mapped out a schedule for starters Clayton Kershaw, Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dan Haren to make four Cactus League starts each and would pick two of them to start against Arizona in the Opening Series in Australia.
Greinke, who recently started a stir when he said there was “absolutely zero excitement” about going to Australia, is now likely eliminated as an option, although he disagreed.
“I definitely don’t think this takes me out of the mix,” he said. “Hopefully it doesn’t.” …
- You can stream the first episode of SportsNet LA’s “Backstage: Dodgers” at ineedmydodgers.com.
- The Dodgers have the best lineup in the National League, second only to Boston in MLB, according to Marc Normandin of Sports on Earth.
The Dodgers could easily have baseball’s best lineup in 2014. The problem is that they just as easily could miss out on this list altogether due to potential injuries or ineffectiveness from a huge portion of their lineup. That risk has them in the two spot, but it’s no insult: this lineup is absolutely stacked, and if things come together for them, they are going to crush many, many baseballs.
- If you buy only one Volcanic Jalapeno Beef Jerky this year, make sure it’s the Game On Volcanic Jalapeno Beef Jerky endorsed by A.J. Ellis. Roberto Baly gives us a taste at Vin Scully Is My Homeboy.
- Mark Saxon tells the story behind the story of October’s Scott Van Slyke-Joe Kelly staredown at ESPN Los Angeles.
- The Ron Fairly 1961 Union Oil Dodger Family Booklet, at Blue Heaven. I mean, someone really went to a lot of trouble with these.
By Jon Weisman
I look at the image of Seth Rosin above and it makes me ask … at the end of the day, what’s it like — what’s it really like — to take the mound knowing that with virtually every outing, your future is on the line?
Let’s talk about your day …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGcv9KSZgvA&w=420&h=315]
- Clayton Kershaw on his performance this afternoon (via Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.):
“I wasn’t throwing the ball where I wanted to. There were some off-speed pitches I needed to throw better; the one to (Miguel) Montero that I struck him out on, even that was up,” Kershaw said. “There’s just a lot to work on.”
- Seth Rosin — same source:
“I’m trying to establish (my changeup) as my out pitch. [Bullpen coach] Chuck Crim has given me tons of confidence with that,” Rosin said. “We’re working on that a lot, working on my mechanics daily. Everything is feeling like it’s getting better each day. Hopefully I can continue that trend, and keep improving.”
- You can read the text from yet another great Vin Scully story, told on the launch of SportsNet LA, of how he once wore a Dodger uniform during a game, thanks to Ernest Reyes of Blue Heaven.
- Matt Kemp could get the go-ahead to increase his running after an MRI on Friday. Ken Gurnick of MLB.com explains.
- The Dodgers’ annual open tryout will be held Thursday at 9 a.m. local time on the minor league side of Camelback Ranch. Those wishing to participate must not be enrolled in high school, on a collegiate roster or be under contract with any Major League club. Additional information is available on the Dodgers Scouting Hotline at (323) 224-1512.
- Steve Yeager had 14 steals in his MLB career, but one of them was a steal of home. Stephen shares the story at True Blue L.A.
- Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston is serious about also pursuing baseball as a two-sport athlete, writes Andy Staples of SI.com.
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By Jon Weisman
Some really great sights and sounds in the video above from the intrasquad game Sunday should whet your appetite for the imminent start of Cactus League play.
- Are you ready for a starting lineup? Taking the field for the Dodgers on Wednesday will be the following (though there will be plenty of others coming off the bench):
- Chone Figgins, SS
- Carl Crawford, LF
- Yasiel Puig, RF
- Juan Uribe, 3B
- Joc Pederson, CF
- Scott Van Slyke, 1B
- Tim Federowicz, C
- Alex Guerrero, 2B
- Justin Turner, DH
- (Clayton Kershaw, P)
- Wednesday’s Spring Training opener is previewed by Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A.
- Stephen also notes which former Dodgers accepted non-roster invitations around the Majors. Eugenio Velez is alive and well.
- Yasiel Puig’s embrace of Australia has proved inspirational, as you can see below and here, here and here.
- Don Drysdale is the latest stop in Ernest Reyes’ tour of the 1961 Union Oil Dodger Family Booklets at Blue Heaven.
- MLB’s At Bat mobile app is entering its sixth year — Mark Newman of MLB.com writes about the state of the app.
- As Ukraine takes center stage in world headlines, the country’s Crimea region will host a week-long baseball tournament and clinic for teams, players and umpires from Eastern European countries, March 23-28. More details at Play Global.
Happy birthday to our very own @NancyBea! pic.twitter.com/DpOnjhvgNo
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) February 25, 2014
By Jon Weisman
The offseason is getting closer and closer to an onseason …
- The new rule limiting collisions at home plate is official. Details from Paul Hagen at MLB.com.
- A.J. Ellis had an interesting reaction to the rule, as told to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.
… Ellis said if the rule change is motivated by the serious ankle injury Giants catcher Buster Posey suffered in a collision three years ago, self-regulation might be a better route to take.
“Now it’s like rules protecting quarterbacks in the NFL — you want to keep your best players on the field,” he said. “But the Giants took steps by not having Buster involved in plays where his body is in harm’s way. In our organization, maybe I’m a little more expendable. That’s where my value to the team lies.” …
-
Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Library of Congress
President Woodrow Wilson was a baseball fanatic as a child, according to official MLB historian John Thorn (via Baseball Think Factory):
… Like the protagonist in Robert Coover’s 1968 novel The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop., the 14-year-old Thomas Woodrow Wilson—known as Tommy—created a whole universe of players, statistics, and a pennant race, with or without the aid of dice. But unlike Waugh—who invented a table game using three dice, a “Stress Chart,” and an “Extraordinary Occurrences Chart”—the young Wilson did not create players or teams. He used only the cast of characters in the real-life National Association of 1871, which he surely read about in the sporting weeklies.
And now, from deep in the archives of the Library of Congress, we have come upon Tommy Wilson’s complete handwritten record of that fantasy season. George Wright, Al Spalding, and Cap Anson cavort on an imaginary field, along with all the other worthies of that first year of professional league play. …
- Here’s the annual reminder that Spring Training stats can be deceiving. This time, we’ll let Daniel Brim of Dodgers Digest do the honors.
- Brim’s colleague Dustin Nosler offers his all-name team from the Dodger organization, starting with Pratt Maynard at catcher.
- Non-roster catcher J.C. Boscan talked to J.P. Hoornstra of the Daily News about his concerns about his native Venezuela.
… He said that his parents run a restaurant in Maracaibo, a city in northwest Venezuela near the Colombian border. Since last year they have been deeply affected by the nationwide food shortage, which has been one of the main causes for protest.
“They understand the protests,” Boscan said. “It gets tough for them when they try to get something for the restaurant and they can’t find it. …
- The best kept secret at Camelback Ranch is the area with the back fields, writes Evan Bladh of Opinion of Kingman’s Performance.
Four remain in the #Dodgers Ping Pong Tournament: Withrow/ Moskos Stripling/ Butera Rosin/ Rojas (one loss) Kershaw/ Billingsley (one loss)
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) February 24, 2014
By Jon Weisman
Take heed: With this year’s trip to Australia, the Dodgers’ process for determining the regular season active roster is even more unusual than you might imagine, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com.
First, there’s this rather stunning comparison.
“The Dodgers will have only 19 days of Spring Training games to make nearly all of their decisions,” Gurnick writes. “Last spring, they played 36 games before Opening Day.”
But further confusing matters is that the Dodgers’ don’t actually have to settle where everyone beyond the 25-man roster has to go before Sydney.
… Even though the 25-man roster officially doesn’t need to be submitted until March 21 at 1 p.m. PT, the Dodgers and D-backs will break camp on March 16 and take a maximum of 30 players to Australia from which to draw their 25-man Opening Day rosters.
Players on the disabled list can be back-dated to March 19, but those decisions might be made before the flight west, if not announced.
From the 30 players who can make the flight across the Pacific Ocean, three will be designated as “exempt” before Opening Day and would otherwise be active, be they starting pitchers left behind, players out of options (like Javy Guerra or Drew Butera) or Rule 5 selections (like Seth Rosin). Corresponding moves would need to be made to make room for their activation.
The other two players on the trip will be “extras” that can be players on the 40-man roster with options, or Minor Leaguers.
From these five additional players, clubs must be covered by position for an injury, whether it occurs as a result of the exhibition game against Team Australia, or the regular-season opener, because it will be impossible to call up a player and transport him to Australia in time for the next game. So, the five spots are likely to include at least one catcher, one middle infielder, one outfielder and one reliever. …
Read more about it here. Elsewhere around the Dodgers …
- Andre Ethier echoed Matt Kemp’s sentiments about no potential starting outfielder seeking out a spot on the bench. Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles adds context.
… Ethier moved from right to center when Kemp got hurt last year, but before that he was entrenched in right field the previous four seasons. He said he’s willing to give the utility role a go if it helps the team.
“I’ve done a lot personally and done a lot with this team and I think we’re still just missing one thing, [a World Series], so if it’s something that leads to that, let’s figure out a way to get it done,” Ethier said. …
- Saxon quotes Don Mattingly on Yasiel Puig weighing in at about 25 pounds more than last year: “We don’t feel it’s going to be a problem, but we’re paying attention to it, put it that way,” Mattingly said.
- There’s no urgency for Paul Maholm to be ready to pitch regular-season games before April, and given that he’s behind the other starters, as Gurnick notes, he could use the extra time.
- Miguel Rojas’ wife flew out of strife-heavy Venezuela this morning, reports J.P. Hoornstra of the Daily News.
- Today’s guest star in Ernest Reyes’ series on the 1961 Union Oil Dodger Family Booklet series at Blue Heaven: Willie Davis.
By Jon Weisman
Just to show how unprecedented it would be for Alex Guerrero to step into the Dodger starting lineup at the beginning of the 2014 campaign, consider this:
In the eight previous seasons of the Ned Colletti era, no position player without previous MLB experience has been the Dodgers’ intended starter in March or April.
Since Colletti arrived, only three Dodgers have started more than 10 games before April 30 without previously playing in the Majors, and none was the first resort:
Blake DeWitt and James Loney in action at Game 1 of the 2008 National League Championship Series in Chicago. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
James Loney, 2006: Loney made his debut on April 4 and started 10 games in a platoon with Olmedo Saenz while the Dodgers waited for Nomar Garciaparra to recover from a strained ribcage muscle suffered in the Freeway Series. Loney, who OPSed .595 in 44 plate appearances during this first taste of the Show, went to Triple-A once Garciaparra was activated April 22.
Blake DeWitt, 2008: DeWitt had but 45 games of experience above Single-A when he was thrust into the role of starter at third base, thanks to injuries not only to Garciaparra (wrist microfracture) but also Andy LaRoche (torn ulnar collateral ligament in right thumb) — both suffered in the same March 7 Spring Training game — as well as Tony Abreu. Nicknamed “The Solution,” DeWitt played regularly at third base with an OPS above .800 as he passed the 200-plate appearance mark in mid-June, before he slumped and was ultimately replaced by midseason acquisition Casey Blake. DeWitt remains the only Colletti-era Dodger to start the most games of anyone at his position in a given year (77) without having previously earned an MLB paycheck.
Jerry Sands, 2011: Sands slugged .529 for Double-A Chattanooga in 2010, but still began 2011 in the minors as predicted. He was called up April 18 to fill the roster spot of Xavier Paul, who was designated for assignment, and play some left field in a year the Dodgers began with Tony Gwynn Jr., Marcus Thames and Paul (with a sprinkle of Jamie Hoffmann). Sands played somewhat regularly into early June and ended up starting 53 games for Los Angeles in left field, right field and at first base.
Bringing up players in May has been a different story: Russell Martin, Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp are notable examples. But handing a position to a pure rookie before May Day just hasn’t been happening. Even Yasiel Puig, of course, waited until June last year.
While Guerrero isn’t a typical rookie, it would still be groundbreaking for him to serve as a regular for the Dodgers in March and April.
By Jon Weisman
Who are those guys again?
- Paul Maholm has been slowed for precautionary reasons by some elbow tenderness. He threw on flat ground today.
… “I’m just being smart and understand what’s needed to prepare for the season,” Maholm told Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. “I only really missed one bullpen session today and I expect to throw a bullpen Saturday, and it won’t set me back.” …
- Yasiel Puig was held out of action today after fouling a ball off his right leg yesterday. According to the Dodger press notes, Puig will not undergo any further testing at this time and is expected to be a full participant in tomorrow’s workout.
… “There was a little swelling and we don’t see the need to have him limp around out there,” Don Mattingly told Gurnick. “We feel he’ll be back tomorrow.” …
- Gurnick added that Zach Lee returned to the mound for a short bullpen session for the first time in 10 days after suffering a mild lat strain.
- “Tim Federowicz was limited in workouts Tuesday after feeling tightness in his side during blocking drills,” writes Bill Plunkett of the Register in a notebook item. “He was back to full participation Wednesday.”
- The Dodgers will play intrasquad games Sunday (with pitchers Matt Magill, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Chris Perez, Brian Wilson, Kenley Jansen and J.P. Howell) and Monday (Stephen Fife, Dan Haren, Chris Reed, Paco Rodriguez and Jamey Wright) on the back fields of Camelback Ranch.
- Miguel Rojas spoke to Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles about his anxiety over political violence in his home of Venezuela. “Rojas’ wife lives 35 minutes from Caracas, the nation’s capital and the center of unrest,” Saxon writes. “Rojas said she scarcely leaves the house these days.” J.P. Hoornstra has more at the Daily News.
Brandon League talked about his 2013 season with Dylan Hernandez of the Times.
… “It was not just one thing,” he said. “It was not just mechanical. It wasn’t just preparation. It was one thing one time, something else another time.” …
- “Meanwhile, reliever Jose Dominguez tried out a new slider grip suggested by legendary lefty Sandy Koufax and reported improved downward break on the pitch,” reports Gurnick for MLB.com.
- Non-roster catcher Miguel Olivo, looking for a career rebirth, is the subject of this Saxon piece for ESPN Los Angeles. The 35-year-old has 145 career home runs. Random note: Only two catchers have hit that many for the Dodgers, Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza. In fact, since making his MLB debut in 2002, Olivo has nearly outhomered everyone who has played catcher for the Dodgers in that time:
- Russell Martin 53
- A.J. Ellis 25
- Paul Lo Duca 25
- Rod Barajas 21
- Dioner Navarro 10
- Jason Phillips 7
- Tim Federowicz 4
- Ramon Hernandez 2
- Chad Kreuter 2
- Matt Treanor 2
- Danny Ardoin 1
- Brad Ausmus 1
- Gary Bennett 1
- Mike Rose 1
- Total 155
- Baseball America has released its top 100 prospects list. The Dodgers’ usual suspects are there: Joc Pederson (34), Corey Seager (37), Julio Urias (51 and the youngest player in the 100) and Zach Lee (95). Dustin Nosler sums up the spectrum of propsect lists at Dodgers Digest.
- The Dodgers rank second behind St. Louis in Jonah Keri’s “Offseason Stock Report” for Grantland.
- David Schoenfield of ESPN.com explains why he thinks the Dodgers are the biggest lock of any team to win their division.
- Eastern Park, where the Brooklyn baseball team played from 1891-97, is the subject of this piece by Ernest Reyes at Blue Heaven.
… Eastern Park is said to be the birthplace of the famous Dodger name. It is believed that this is the stadium where the nickname “Trolley Dodgers” came about. The trolley and rail lines, that were located directly to the east of the stadium, were a constant hazard to fans attending games. Frankly, this last item was a surprise to me as I began my research on this stadium. I had always thought that Ebbets Field was were it originated, but that appears to not be the case. …
- Former Dodger pitcher Chris Capuano has reportedly agreed to terms on a deal with the Boston Red Sox. With more is Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston.
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By Jon Weisman
A classic find of Leo Durocher at the Dodgers’ 1945 Spring Training was posted by MLB.com.
“Thinking about this year’s club for Brooklyn,” Durocher begins. “After all, how bad can we get? We finished seventh last year, and I know this club is going to be quite an improvement over last year’s club.”
And then, during drills…
“Oh ho! Now look, you haven’t got a bucket of paint with you at third base, you know! You gotta get the paint brush out of your hands! Let’s go!”
In 1945, the Dodgers trained at the Bear Mountain Inn in New York’s Hudson Valley, due to World War II. And indeed, after going 63-91 (with a tie) in 1944, the Dodgers improved to 87-67 and third place in ’45. A pennant would come two years later, with Jackie Robinson — but without the suspended Durocher.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrmGKylacQg&w=550&h=413]
By Jon Weisman
Check out the stars. Check out the hats. Check out the moves in this time capsule from March 1985 of the long-forgotten game show “Body Language” with Steve Sax, Dave Anderson, Mike Marshall and Greg Brock. It is quite a sight.
Thanks to Joe Adalian for the link.
