Dodgers Diaries

Two of my favorite interests collided Wednesday as the Dodgers Community Caravan came to Lynwood to help refurbish a home with Habitat for Humanity. As a regular volunteer with Habitat, I was on hand to lend instruction to the players.

Jerry Hairston Jr. was eager to use power tools, so I handed him the circular saw and let him cut through the stucco so we could install a new window. He's planning to build his own home in Arizona, and just might do some of the work himself now that he knows how to install windows.

James Loney, Javy Guerra and Josh Lindblom got into the swing of things, by taking a few whacks at some stubborn concrete with a sledgehammer. I wouldn't say they were in mid-season form, but it's only February.

Former Dodger Ken Landreaux diligently attacked a stubborn 800-pound tree stump, refusing to leave until we got it out of the ground. Maury Wills, Fernando Valenzuela, Derrel Thomas, Bobby Castillo and Sweet Lou Johnson helped paint the eaves under the roof.

Needless to say, the kids from St. Paul High School, not to mention the family that's receiving the house, were thrilled. In baseball, as in life, there's no place like home.

Jerry Hairston Jr. photo by Jon Soohoo

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The Dodgers will broadcast 18 cactus league games on TV this March, and why not. It’s not like Prime Ticket has a lot of programming in the middle of the day. For the price of a few cameras and announcers who are also looking to get into midseason form (you don’t think Charley Steiner can be that breathless without practice, do you?) they’ll have a live broadcast for the diehard (like me) and shiftless (also guilty).

Here’s a list of the games on TV and/or radio. All games are at 1:05 unless otherwise noted.


Tue., Mar. 6 v. SF Prime ticket AM 570

Thu., Mar. 8 v. OAK Prime ticket

Fri., Mar. 9 @ TEX AM 570

Sun., Mar. 11 v. CHC 12:05 Prime ticket AM 570

Mon., Mar. 12 @ LAA AM 570

Tue., Mar. 13 v. COL Prime ticket

Thu., Mar. 15 v. KC Prime ticket

Fri., Mar. 16 v. TEX Prime ticket

v. SF 7:05 Prime ticket KTNQ

Sun., Mar. 18 v. LAA KCAL KTNQ

Tue., Mar. 20 v.MIL Prime ticket

Weds., Mar. 21 v. SD Prime ticket

Sat., Mar. 24 v. SD KCAL KTNQ

Sun., Mar. 25 @ MIL KTNQ

Mon., Mar. 26 v. CHW Prime ticket

Thu., Mar. 29 v. CHW Prime ticket

@ MIL Prime ticket

Sat., Mar. 31 @ ARI KTNQ

Sun., Apr. 1 v. ARI Prime ticket AM 570/KTNQ

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

According to a report on Yahoo!, the family of Roy Disney is now interested in buying the Dodgers. They join a group that includes potential bidders such as Magic Johnson and Guggenheim, Joe Torre and Rick Caruso, Larry King, and Peter O’Malley.

Where were you in 2004, when the Dodgers were being sold for a tiny fraction of the $1 billion Frank McCourt is likely to hold out for ... and still not give you the parking lots? Why couldn't you have bought the Dodgers seven years ago with some actual money and saved us from this carpetbagging thief? Why wasn't local ownership a point of pride in 2004?

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

If Ryan Braun's use of performance enhancing drugs is confirmed, I don't have a problem taking the award away from him. If this news had been revealed before the end of the regular season when ballots are due, Braun wouldn't have placed in the top five, and Matt Kemp would have won the award in a landslide. So what's the difference?

I'm also in favor of vacating all awards for any player who admitted use of PEDs, was convicted of taking them, or , was dumb enough to have had his name appear in the Mitchell Report. That includes Bonds, Clemens, Ken Caminiti, A-Rod, Manny and FP Santangelo. But I don't think rewriting the history books will get a lot of traction, especially since PEDs weren't against baseball's rules during that period.

The Braun situation is different. This was steroid use discovered in the midst of the season in which the player put up MVP numbers, and revealed less than a month after the vote was revealed.

Even though the MVP vote is supposedly taken before the playoffs. Which in and of itself is a stupid requirement. If, as some have said, the MVP has to come from a contender (because how valuable can a player be if his team finishes out of the race?) then why not consider the players' contributions in the playoffs as well? If the vote is supposed to take into account such intangibles as value, clutchiness, grit, and leadership, there could hardly be a better time to discern it than October.

For that matter, if we're talking about value, shouldn't we compare prices, too? To me, the most valuable player is the one who makes the most contributions toward winning a game at the lowest price. If that's the measure, Braun would have won easily because his 2011 salary was so low: just $4 million, or a little more than half of what Kemp earned.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The argument against pitchers winning the MVP is that they can't be the team's most valuable player because they only play every five days. The response to that claim, as echoed by the Baseball Writers Association's decision today to name Justin Verlander as 2011 AL MVP, is hogwash.

Do the old "where would they be without him?" equation for all the various candidates, and Verlander is the obvious choice. Jacoby Ellsbury, who finished second, was a nice piece of a puzzle that still fell one game short of beating the Rays out for the final playoff spot. Curtis Granderson had some nice stats, but he was helped by hitting in front of Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and a short left-field porch in Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays could have finished 81-81 with or without Jose Bautista.

Verlander, meanwhile, threw 7 or more innings without allowing an earned run eight times (including a no-no and a plain-old shutout). On nine more occasions, the Tigers' ace went 7 or more innings while allowing just one earned run.

That’s a total of 17 times where Detroit was pretty much guaranteed a win if they managed to score two runs. The Tigers won their division by 15 games. You do the math.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The Left Field Pavilion, a fellow Dodger blog, has put together a friendly tournament, to be held in West Covina at Big League Dreams. If you’ve never played, or even visited, I highly recommend it. They have turned ordinary softball fields into replicas of major league stadiums like Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. I have to assume that for this tournament, games will be played on the replica of Dodger Stadium.

Here’s a link to a piece I did for the Washington Post about the first time I played at a Big League Dreams.

I’ve entered a team under the name Dodgers Diaries. Please get in touch if you’d like to join the squad (we especially need two female roster players). And if you’d like to secure your spot by paying your entry fee, point your browser to https://www.wepay.com/x138o3q/donate/48374 and fork over the $35. It’s well worth the price.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Matt Kemp won a 2011 Silver Slugger Award on Wednesday, to go along with the Gold Glove he captured Tuesday and the Hank Aaron Award he won last week. He's the first Dodger to win gold and silver in the same year more than once (he did it in 2009 as well).

Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, what's next for baseball's best offensive five tool player? The Platinum Arm? Bronze Winged-Feet? Diamond batting eye?

I'm sure the Baseball Writers Association of America can think of something. Hint hint.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

A 2012 baseball season with neither Frank McCourt nor Tony LaRussa is something to keep me warm all winter.

If I had known LaGenius would have retired, having nothing left to prove after winning the 2011 World Series, I would have rooted for the Cardinals. Now I feel cheap for cheering on the God-fearing Rangers.

There's no denying LaRussa's success. He's among the greatest managers of all time, one of only two to win the World Series in both leagues, and took a 2011 Cardinal team that had no business being in the playoffs past the vaunted Phillies, through the powerful Brewers and over the speedy Rangers. His mix-and-match bullpen philosophy works, and so does whatever it is he does to get the most out of players like Octavio Dotel, Arthur Rhodes, Kyle Lohse and Jeff Weaver. Those guys all have rings, while Roy Halladay does not.

But I won’t be sorry to see him go. Lefty-righty matchups are here to stay, and it seems every manager has embraced the three-pitcher inning. But at least we won't be hearing about what a genius the man is for batting the pitcher eighth, or for pretending he didn't know all along that Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were sticking needles up their butts.

As for Mr. McCourt, the sooner he sells the Dodgers the better. The sooner the Fox TV network can back up a Brinks truck full of money to the new owners and allow them to sign Prince Fielder or some other hitter to protect Matt Kemp in the lineup. The sooner we can talk about Clayton Kershaw defending his Cy Young award. The sooner we can stop talking about injunctions and stays and oxidation of staples in legal agreements. The sooner Jamie McCourt can fade into Georgia Frontiere oblivion.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Tony LaRussa spent the post-game press conference blaming the Cardinals 4-2 loss in Game 5 on poor communication with the bullpen. He said he wanted his "don't call him the closer" Jason Motte to be ready to pitch to Mike Napoli after lefty Mark Rzepczynski faced lefty David Murphy. But bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist supposedly didn't hear the request for Motte, so Rzepczynski pitched to the right-handed hitting Napoli.

I'm not buying it. La Russa goes to his bullpen more often than Ned Flanders goes to church; he believes one good pitching change deserves another. As soon as I see him walk out of the dugout, I get my DVR fast-forwarding muscles warmed up, because I know there's going to be parade of relievers coming into the game, each facing a single batter. If LaRussa wanted a righty in that situation, Liliquist would have known it without him even saying it. Plus, before the game, he told Tim McCarver, "Don’t be surprised if I use Rzepczynski against right-handed batters." And why not? Before Game 5, Rzepczynski had struck out all three of the Rangers righthanders he faced.

But after Murphy’s infield hit, LaRussa made no move to the mound. He didn't send Dave Duncan out for a visit, or even Yadier Molina to stall until he could get Motte ready. If he really wanted a righty to face Napoli, he could have used Lance Lynn, the pitcher who was warming up. But he didn't do any of those things. Instead, he started thinking of his excuses for why Napoli was able to deliver in run-scoring situations that had foiled the Cardinals all night.

The "poor communication" continued even after Napoli's two run double made subsequent pitching changes akin to moving deck chairs. This time, when LaRussa asked for Motte, Lynn came out of the pen. LaRussa said Lynn was unavailable because he had pitched 2.1 innings Saturday (Saturday!). If that's the case, why was he even in the bullpen? Why would Lilliquist assume LaRussa wanted him to warm up, rather than, Motte, or, oh, anyone else in the pen?

It wouldn’t be a LaGenius game without a four-pitcher inning, so the St. Louis manager had Lynn intentionally walk Ian Kinsler, then finally brought in Motte to get the last out. But by then, no amount of annoying pitching changes and three-minute commercial breaks could salvage the game for the Cardinals. Or for LaRussa's genius.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

The postseason is when good pitching is supposed to beat good hitting. Good luck with that. Aside from Octavio Dotel's mastery of Ryan Braun (Octavio Dotel!!), there wasn't a whole lot of good pitching in either LCS. Chris Carpenter was the only Cardinal starter with an ERA under 4.00 in the postseason; Jaime Garcia (5.74), Edwin Jackson (5.84) and Kyle Lohse (7.45) all put up terrible numbers while failing to throw more than 16 innings total.

Over in the A.L., Colby Lewis played the Carpenter role, with a 3.86 ERA, while Matt Harrison (4.22), Derek Holland (5.27) and CJ Wilson (8.04) all made for long nights for the bullpen. Luckily for Texas, its relief corps were lights out. The Rangers' pen allowed just 10 earned runs in 40.1 innings, and half of those were in 1.1 innings of work by Koji Uehara.

It has all made for some extremely boring baseball, with countless pitching changes (and three-minute commercial breaks to accommodate each one). I usually look forward to watching the World Series, no matter who's in it. But the prospect of more Tony LaRussa three-pitcher innings has me longing for the last two minutes of an NBA game.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Wednesday night's thrilling conclusion to the baseball season was the perfect example of why the league shouldn't add a second wild card to the playoffs. Had each league admitted five teams rather than four to the postseason tournament, none of the pennant races of the last week would have had any excitement. The minute the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Anaheims were eliminated, all interest in the remaining games would have evaporated. Boston and Atlanta would have advanced alongside Tampa Bay and St. Louis without any of the thrills of the past week.

The nation would have instead been treated to one (or worse, three) overhyped play-in games between the two wild card teams. But it’s almost unfathomable to think that those games could have delivered the kind of bottom-of-the-last-inning fireworks of Wednesday night.

If the commissioner’s office really wants to make the wild card less valuable than winning a division, take away a home game. And make sure the wild card team plays against the team with the best record, even if that club is in the same division. Currently, wild cards are prohibited from playing against their division winner in the first round even if the records would otherwise dictate such a matchup (it’s why you don’t see Yankees-Red Sox in the ALDS).

That defies good sense. Under the current structure, AL West-winning Texas gets to play the battered Rays, while the AL Central champion Detroit Tigers draw the Yankees. Instead, the Central and Western division winners should square off for the opportunity to play the winner of the Yankees-Rays series. And that series should involve two games at Yankee Stadium, a single game at Tropicana Field, and the final two games in New York. The unusual travel schedule would also create off days in non-customary places, which television loves.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Mariano Rivera was the greatest closer in baseball history long before he recorded his 500th save, much less his 602nd. Take him off the 1996-2000 Yankees and replace him with, oh, say Jeff Shaw or Mark Wohlers or even Trevor Hoffman and the Yankees might not win any of those championships. The Yankees won games by beating the other team's closer while their bullpen was practically invulnerable.

The fact that Rivera has been able to do it now for 17 years only adds to his luster, and puts him in the conversation of greatest pitchers of all time, not just relievers, a marginalized group to begin with. If you were building a pitching staff, you surely might choose Walter Johnson or Koufax or Cy Young first. But the falloff between Rivera and the next-best guy is so steep that you could arguably choose him with the No. 1 overall pick and figure that Bob Feller or Greg Maddux or Jack Morris might still be available in round 2.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL