Pitching In A Pinch? Dial 1-800-GAYLORD

My own fat head ^ | 1 April 2002 | BluesDuke

[motzman]

I don't think the mound height now is quite as damaging as the inconsistent and rather tiny strike zone.

I think the umps are getting a bit better with actually enforcing the strikezone, but there's way too much variance between umpires. I mean, I always ask "Who's behind the plate?" prior to the game, and I don't mean who's catching.

I think raising the mound would help a little bit, and a little bit can make a huge difference in the overall scheme of things...

[BluesDuke]

I'm reminded of Roger Kahn, in The Boys of Summer, recording that he was actually foolish enough to ask Walter O'Malley himself what he was worth. O'Malley didn't take it personally, then said, "All right, you need a figure. You can say $24 million." (This was 1970-71.) Subsequently, Kahn also interviewed longtime Dodger general manager Buzzie Bavasi. "How much," Bavasi asked, "did the son of a bitch tell you he was worth?" Kahn told him. "That's true," Bavasi replied. "That's very true. All he left out was 400 acres of downtown Los Angeles." The O'Malley real estate holdings didn't solidify, people like to forget, until after the Chavez Ravine sale agreement was first finalised.

O'Malley, it should be recalled, a) began his quest to build a new Brooklyn ballpark as early as 1952-53; and, b) he had no interest or knowledge of any California prospect until he learned Los Angeles city fathers were at the 1955 World Series and were, in fact, thinking first to woo the Washington Senators. By that point, he was thick enough into his grappling with Robert Moses and the New York pols that he was in search of a solid enough contingency spot. The Dodgers' somewhat infamous schedule of playing six to eight games a season in Jersey City was intended as a pressure point applied to Moses and company, O'Malley's thinking being that they wouldn't exactly want to be the men responsible for losing a much-loved baseball team because they insisted that private enterprise had no business building ballparks.

In more ways than people realise, the California move was a huge gamble for the Dodgers, once they realised there was no way they'd get a Brooklyn ballpark built so long as Robert Moses was alive, even for a man with O'Malley's reputation as a business sharpie. There was, really, no guarantee that the team would succeed in California; it was untried territory for the majors (though the St. Louis Browns half-entertained the idea of moving to Los Angeles in the early 1940s, an idea that died almost as fast as it was born). Moreover, the Dodgers weren't even guaranteed a place to build themselves a new ballpark, since the Chavez Ravine purchase was thrown to a referendum (it passed narrowly) and there were court challenges to the purchase. In more ways than one, the 1959 Dodgers pulled rabbits out of their hats when a very underendowed team (the leftover Boys of Summer were aging; the utility men weren't quite that sharp; Sandy Koufax wasn't yet the real Sandy Koufax, though he pitched magnificently in his only World Series appearance) won the World Series agains the "Go-Go White Sox" - I'm convinced the Dodgers' unexpected Series win helped solidify a new fan base for them in southern California.

Bottom line: One city's political class became allergic to letting a baseball team buy fresh and viable land to build itself a new ballpark, out of its own pocket; a second city's political class was only too willing to let the same team buy some land and build the park at their own expense. Think about it, folks: Walter O'Malley has been painted as Beelzebub incarnate for wanting to spend his own money to build his own ballpark. Without elevating him to a retroactive saint (he was - as not even his staunchest sycophants would deny - anything but), there is something very wrong with that picture. I say again: Brooklyn's heart was smashed to pieces by the Dodgers leaving, but it is long past time to assign the blame where it belongs - and it doesn't belong to Walter O'Malley.

[BluesDuke]

That's not quite fair - Junior was a fielder, too.

I wasn't meaning to undermine Junior with the leather, but if we're talking about the leather he's good but not even close to Mr. Suzuki. I've seen Ichiro get to the stuff that only Roberto Clemente was ever able to get to, and I've never seen him play out of position.

[BluesDuke]

The funniest thing I ever saw in baseball was when a Pirates pitcher was getting hammered, and Andy Van Slyke came out to the mound wearing a master carpenters belt, loaded with every illegal pitchers tool imaginable!!

Andy Van Slyke was a piece of work - wonderful work. That guy was great for baseball.

Quotations From Chairman Van Slyke

The person I'd most like to be other than me is my wife, so I can see how wonderful it is to be married to me.

Van Slyke, by the way, had it about right when Lenny Dykstra was playing for the Phillies: Every time we play them and I go to center field, it's like wading through a toxic waste dump. (Dykstra was a notorious tobacco chewer.)

[conserve-it]

"Go Down Moses"?? lol

[conserve-it]

Or when the 3rd base coach fell asleep in the dugout, and the cameraman cuts to the dugout, where Andy is sticking wooden matches in his shoe. We need more characters in baseball.

[MozarkDawg]

Most people think the buds opening and the smell of new grass means Spring, but you and I both know it's really the scent of the ol' horsehide that says Spring has finally sprung!!

:)

[BluesDuke]

"Go Down Moses"?? lol

If only New York's lily-livered Tammany pols had said that to him, the Dodgers and Giants might never have left town... ;)

[BluesDuke]

Speaking of characters, the Giants have a 3-0 lead on Hideo Nomo and the Dodgers after the top of the first. Three guesses who went yard for three for the Giants...

[BluesDuke]

The smell of the horsehide, the roar of the leather...aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, 'tis baseball season...

[BluesDuke]

I had to open my big yap. It is now 12-0, Giants, going to the top of the sixth. Barry Bonds went yard a second time tonight (could he be on pace to belt 100 home runs this season alone?), pitcher Rich Ortiz bopped a three-run shot inside the foul pole, and at this writing the only Giant in the lineup who hasn't got a hit is Tsuyoshi Shinjo...oops!...he just led off the sixth with a base hit.

[conserve-it]

"at this writing the only Giant in the lineup who hasn't got a hit is Tsuyoshi Shinjo...oops!...he just led off the sixth with a base hit."

Stick a fork in THIS game...........

[conserve-it]

"Time to uncork the bats, and bring back the spitter" he drooled!

[conserve-it]

"If only New York's lily-livered Tammany pols had said that to him, the Dodgers and Giants might never have left town... ;)"

Moses-Snopes-Boss Tweed...

It's the same old song

Fortunately for we Americans, the ghost of Tammany Hall lives on through our dutiful protectors of the Constitution; our precious members of the House and Senate.

Aw can it....lets play ball !

[BluesDuke]

heheheheheheheheh....

Sutton has set such a fine example of defiance that...I expect to see him one day throw a ball up to the plate witb bolts attached to it. - Ray Miller, Baltimore pitching coach, on Don Sutton.

[2Trievers]

Hey Mr. Baseball! &;-)

[conserve-it]

Ah, the dry wit of Miller. Tis baseball season..LET'S ROLL!!