Jan 30

The Turner Diaries

The Dodgers and Justin Turner are still a couple of years apart before they can make a deal. Turner, who’s 36, wants a four-year deal. The Dodgers, in part because he’s 36, don’t want to give him more than a two-year deal. MLB’s Jon Heyman reported on Tuesday that there are three teams beside the Dodgers expressing interest, although one of them, the Blue Jays, may have lost interest now that they’ve signed infielder Marcus Semien. The Braves and Brewers are likely the other two.

In other news, stupidity shut down Dodger Stadium for an hour this afternoon; approximately fifty anti-everything* people blocked an entrance to the Stadium where COVID-19 vaccinations were being performed.

*A post on social media described the demonstration as the “Scamdemic Protest/March.” It advised participants to “please refrain from wearing Trump/MAGA attire as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple. No flags but informational signs only.

“This is a sharing information protest and march against everything COVID, Vaccine, PCR Tests, Lockdowns, Masks, Fauci, Gates, Newsom, China, digital tracking, etc.”

Sep 27

Postseason schedule

Here it is:

The AL Wild Card Series starts Tuesday, Sept. 29 and the NL Wild Card Series starts Wednesday, Sept. 30. The Wild Card games will be played at the top four seeds’ home parks. When the Division Series begins games will shift to neutral sites in California (American League) or Texas (National League).

I’ll have an AL Wild Card games post that covers all four games each day and the same for the NL Wild Card games on Wednesday.

Oct 01

Game 162, 2017

Dodgers at Rockies, 12:10 PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ATT Sportsnet RM, TBS (out-of-market only)

RHP Ross Stripling (3-5, 3.86 ERA) will start what looks like a bullpen game for the Dodgers and may go only a couple of innings. He’ll face LHP Tyler Anderson (6-6, 4.81 ERA). Anderson is 0-3 with a 7.00 ERA in four starts against the Dodgers this year, but overall since he returned from the DL on Sept. 11 he’s had a 1.19 ERA in four appearances.

This day in Dodgers’ history:

  • 1944 Dixie Walker, an outfielder on the seventh-place Dodgers, wins the National League batting crown with a .357 batting average, finishing ten points higher than runner-up Stan Musial. In 1947, the “People’s Cherce’s” younger brother, Harry “the Hat”, will also lead the Senior Circuit, hitting .363 in the year when he is traded, after playing ten games for St. Louis, to Philadelphia.
  • 1950 In the season finale, Robin Roberts, in the first of his six consecutive 20-win seasons, becomes the first Phillies right-hander to win twenty games for the team since Grover Cleveland Alexander accomplished the feat with a total of 30 victories in 1917. The complete-game, ten-inning 4-1 Ebbets Field victory over the Dodgers hurled by the Whiz Kid from Springfield (IL) clinches Philadelphia’s first NL pennant since 1915.
  • 1950 After they retire today, Burt Shotton of the Dodgers and the A’s Connie Mack will become the last managers to wear street clothes. Although no edict specifically mandates a skipper must wear a uniform, there is now a rule that states that a person not wearing a uniform, except medical personnel, isn’t allowed on the field of play during a game.
  • 1950 On the last day of the season, Pee Wee Reese, ignoring second base ump Frank Dascoli’s directive to slow down when his high outfield fly becomes stuck between the screen and the right field wall, continues sprinting around the bases at full speed, crossing home plate with the tying run in a game the team needs to win to finish tied with Philadelphia for the NL flag. The Dodgers shortstop’s unusual inside-the-park homer, due to an odd ground rule, will be the only run Robin Roberts gives in the Phillies’ pennant clinching 4-1 victory at Ebbets Field.
  • 1951 The Giants’ 3-1 victory over the Dodgers in the first game of the National League playoffs is the first major league contest to be televised coast-to-coast. CBS, who obtained rights to the game, transmits the picture from Ebbets Field, but has to get the signal from ABC, who had made previous arrangements with WOR-TV, the New York station which carried Brooklyn’s regular season games.
  • 1955 After losing the first two games in the Bronx, the Dodgers even the World Series at two games apiece when they defeat the Yankees at Ebbets Field, 8-5. Brooklyn will make it three victories in a row tomorrow with a 5-3 victory over the Bronx Bombers, but it will take a dramatic Game 7 for the ‘Bums’ to capture their first World Championship.
  • 1961 The Wrigley Field on the West Coast hosts its last professional baseball game when the Angels, who will play at Dodger Stadium next season, are defeated by Cleveland, 8-5, in front of 9,868 fans at the 36 year-old ballpark, which will be torn down in five years to make room for an eventual public playground and senior center. In addition to being the home for the American League expansion team, the venue housed the PCL’s Angels from 1925 through 1957 and served as the location for the 1960 television series Home Run Derby.
  • 1974 At the Astrodome, Mike Marshall establishes the major league mark for the most appearances by a pitcher when he throws two innings in the Dodgers’ 8-5 victory over Houston. With his 106 appearances, the right-handed reliever appears in 65% of the games that his team played this season.
  • 1993 Mike Piazza scores Jose Offerman with a first-inning single to set a new team mark for runs driven in by a rookie with 107. The 24 year-old Dodgers catcher breaks the franchise record for rookie RBIs established by Del Bissonette, a freshman first baseman who played with Brooklyn in 1928.
  • 2009 The Rockies’ 9-2 win over Milwaukee assures the team of a wild card berth in the postseason, and puts the team in position to still win the NL West by sweeping the Dodgers this weekend in L.A. Although the team was 12 games under .500 on June 3, today’s victory, their 91st – a club record – puts Colorado 23 games over .500, another first in the 17 year history of franchise.

Lineup when available.