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> OCTOBER 2008 October 26, 2008
Apparently the same can be said for Ned Colletti. According to comments published Saturday in the LA Times, the Dodgers haven’t even had internal discussions about the terms of a potential offer to Manny Ramirez. If that’s the case, what exactly has the front office been doing for the last two weeks? If the Manny situation isn’t at the top of their list, what the hell is? "We intend to meet with Scott [Boras] some time in the near future and try to see what's on his mind," Colletti said. What’s on his mind??? Here’s a guess as to what’s on Scott’s mind: the length and value of a fucking contract. I don’t get it. If the Dodgers want the fans to believe they’re making a run at Manny—even though they obviously aren’t—wouldn’t they want to give off the impression that they’re doing everything they can to pursue him? Instead, Colletti is laughing at reports that the Dodgers are formulating an offer. Ha, ha, ha, how ludicrous. It would seem to me that the Manny situation is pretty much the key to the entire goddamn offseason. With Manny on the roster, you have to trade a surplus outfielder, you have a little less money to pick up a starter, and you can probably settle for a third baseman who’s not going to hit 40 home runs. Without Manny, you have a weaker hitting outfield, you have to power up somewhere in the infield, and you had better be after CC Sabathia. Either way, you’ve got to figure out the Manny situation, and everything else follows. The Dodgers have a 15-day window with which to exclusively negotiate with Manny, and you’d think they’d like to use it. If they can’t get something worked out with him in those 15 days, kiss him goodbye and move on. Here’s what I’d like to see. You give Manny a three-year deal with a mutual option for a 4th year. You eat half of Juan Pierre’s salary and trade him. (Believe it or not, he still has value.) You play Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, and Andruw Jones sits on the bench (or at home) quietly earning the rest of his $36 million. You re-sign Rafael Furcal for a year or three (thanking God that his agent isn’t Boras). You put Blake DeWitt at second (I don’t understand all the talk about moving him back to third), you watch Casey Blake go right back to Cleveland, and you move Russell Martin to third before he becomes completely worthless. You find a decent catcher who has a couple years left, and you stock the farm system with catching prospects that might be ready for the bigs in two years. (Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to still have Dioner Navarro or Carlos Santana?) Assuming Brad Penny and Derek Lowe are gone, you’re left with Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda, and Clayton Kershaw. You add one more veteran to the rotation (Sabathia? Ben Sheets?) and give someone like James McDonald an opportunity to be the fifth. Assuming Takashi Saito is done, you give Jonathan Broxton one more shot at being the closer. No need to thank me, Ned. October 15, 2008 - Phillies 5, Dodgers 1
Now, just like every year since 1988, the Dodgers are history—punished again by the baseball gods for the greatness of that one moment. On the verge of tying the NLCS just two nights ago, the Dodgers folded in embarrassing style, left to do nothing but clean out their lockers while the Phillies clean out a supply of champagne. While Monday’s loss was absolutely heartbreaking, Wednesday’s defeat was just plain sad. (And don’t blame me for it—I was on TiVo delay.) As if the Phillies didn’t have enough momentum coming into the game, Chad Billingsley gave up a leadoff home run to Jimmy Rollins. And it just went downhill from there. For the second straight NLCS start, Billingsley didn’t make it through the third inning (3 ER, 4 H, 4 BB in 2-2/3 innings) and the fat lady was warming up her vocal chords early. In fact, the Dodgers should have given the fat lady a bat. She sure as hell couldn’t have done any worse than Rafael Furcal, Andre Ethier, Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, or Blake DeWitt. Neither Ethier or Kemp drove in a single run in the series, Furcal hit .211, Martin hit .118, and DeWitt… well, let’s just say his bat accounted for about half the Dodgers’ outs. I used to like DeWitt a lot. Now I just want him to fall asleep on railroad tracks. It wasn’t all for naught, though—at least somebody on the Dodgers got their name in the recordbooks. In what I now refer to as “Triple-F” (Furcal’s Fucking Fifth), the Dodger shortstop single-handedly made more errors in one inning than Greg Maddux has made in a lifetime. Okay, maybe not quite, but when you make three errors in a matter of three minutes when your team is struggling to stay alive (struggling being the key word), you deserve to be remembered for it. Meanwhile, Jeff Kent made sure he’ll be remembered as a dick, screaming at the home plate umpire after striking out in the 7th inning in what figured to be the last at-bat of his career. Nomar Garciaparra’s career as a Dodger is over, as well, ending illustriously with a foul out. Then there's Manny Ramirez, whose back must be hurting from carrying the Dodgers for two months. Manny went 2-for-3 Wednesday, hitting his fourth home run of the postseason. It could also be his last home run as a Dodger. Were the Dodgers to offer him a Boras-friendly contract (which they won't), would Manny even want to come back to this team? There are obviously a ton of decisions to be made this offseason (like what to do with Pablo Ozuna and whether to give Andruw Jones an extension), but let’s not look too far ahead. Let’s take a second to reflect on the 2008 Dodgers. Ok, that’s long enough. October 13, 2008 - Phillies 7, Dodgers 5
The loss, of course, leaves the Dodgers’ coffin just one nail short, but death couldn’t possibly be as painful as Monday’s game. In all my years as a Dodger fan, I don’t think I’ve ever gone from the high of the fourth and fifth innings to the depths of hell that I experienced in the eighth. To say it was a rollercoaster is an understatement. It was like having sex with Jessica Alba one minute, and the next minute her vagina turns into a paper shredder. And then the paper shredder turns into Matt Stairs. The Dodgers were five outs away from tying the series at two. Five outs away from being just two wins short of a World Series trip. Five outs away from sending the Phillies back to their hotel rooms with shit stains in their underpants. And then, before anyone realized what was actually happening, Shane Victorino took Cory Wade over the right-field wall to tie the game. Another base hit and out goes Wade, in comes Broxton and Stairs, out goes the ball (way out goes the ball), in comes the knife into my heart, out go the dreams of Dodger fans, in comes visions of a Philadelphia-Tampa Bay World Series, and out goes the vomit from my mouth. Wade and Broxton, of course, are the best the Dodgers have, although that’s not saying much when the best the Dodgers have throws a 3-1 fastball straight down the middle to a veteran home run hitter. Nonetheless, that’s who you want out there for the eighth, and they just didn’t get the job done. Neither did Joe Torre, though, turning in the sixth inning to a 20-year-old kid who isn’t quite ready for the pressure, and sticking with Hong-Chih Kuo to start the eighth despite ominous signs the Dodgers apparently noticed during his warm-up pitches before the inning. Meanwhile, a guy named Greg Maddux—who’s been through this many times before—sat in the bullpen collecting dust. As bad as the Dodger bullpen was on Monday, their offense was probably worse. The Dodgers left twelve guys on base—and the number is only that low because they grounded into three double plays and Juan Pierre was caught stealing (if stealing is what you want to call it when a guy waits until the pitch is halfway to the plate to start running). The Dodgers left guys at second and third in the first, first and third in the third, had the bases loaded in the fifth, bases loaded in the sixth, second and third in the seventh, and first and third in the eighth—an inning ruined by Andre Ethier’s decision to swing on the first pitch after Rafael Furcal had walked and Manny Ramirez was standing on deck. (The inning got even better for me when a James Loney foul ball deflected off the uncoordinated asshole sitting next to me and smashed me in the chin.) The real kick in the nuts is this: The Dodgers are set to be eliminated at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night—twenty years to the minute after Kirk Gibson’s home run. October 12, 2008 - Dodgers 7, Phillies 2
An inning after Philadelphia reliever Clay Condrey brushed back Russell Martin, Kuroda sent one sailing above the head of Shane Victorino—prompting the Phillies’ outfielder to do some weird Hawaiian dance where you repeatedly pat your head and torso. After Victorino grounded out to end the inning, tempers flared again and both benches emptied. Manny Ramirez led the charge, threatening to kill all the Phillies’ moms (well, except for Charlie Manuel’s, but that goes without saying). Can you imagine being Joe Torre in that situation? You’re trying to calm your players down, looking for help from your coaches... until you realize two of your coaches are Mariano Duncan and Larry Bowa—the most mentally unstable guys in the stadium. Things quickly cooled off, and the Dodgers returned to the dugout—with a 6-1 lead. Taking advantage of a pitcher who was seven years old when electricity was invented, the Dodgers scored five runs in the first inning—three on a huge 2-out double by Blake DeWitt. The Dodgers tacked on runs in the second and fourth, and Kuroda did the rest, giving up just two runs on five hits over 6+ innings. If the five runs in the first inning didn’t invigorate the Dodgers, the Victorino incident surely did, and Kuroda deserves credit for that. Cory Wade and Jonathan Broxton finished off the Phillies, and the Dodgers prevailed, winning a must-win, 7-2, and giving the Dodgers their first NLCS victory in two decades. Should it be any surprise that I didn’t watch the game live? Deciding to actually give the Dodgers a chance, I TiVo’d the game and stayed about five minutes behind the action. So... when I’m not watching playoff games live, the Dodgers are 4-0 since 1988. When I’m watching live: 1-14. Unfortunately I have some bad news for Dodger fans: I’ll be at Monday’s game. Just look for the guy with ear muffs and a blindfold. October 10, 2008 - Phillies 8, Dodgers 5
I really shouldn’t be angry. I expected nothing less and I prepared myself for disaster. I’m callous to the Dodgers’ lousiness. Or so I thought. Apparently some part of me still had faith, still believed. I’ve tried to kill that part of myself for years, knowing it only causes pain, but I guess I can’t. I’m a Dodger fan. So there I am, along with every other Dodger fan, watching the Dodgers take a 1-0 lead on Friday afternoon. Minutes later, Chad Billingsley struck out the first two guys in the second inning. Then all hell broke loose. A single. A double. A single. A single. An error. A single. One hit came from a guy who hit .219 this season, one came from a pitcher who had four hits all season, and one came from a guy who couldn’t hit a lick in the Dodger organization. Then, after the 18-minute four-run inning, Rafael Furcal bunts the first pitch he sees right back to Brett Myers. Moments later, the Phillies were at it again, Single. Double. Intentional walk. At that point, nine of the previous ten Philadelphia batters had reached base. Apparently Joe Torre was busy daydreaming about New York, though, since Billingsley was left in to give up another 2-run single (to Brett Myers, of course) before ultimately being pulled in favor of Chan Ho Park. Good to know that Park speaks enough English these days to yell FUCK—as Shane Victorino tripled in two. The Phillies batted around for the second straight inning and the Dodgers found themselves down by six... and fading quickly. A 3-run homer from Manny Ramirez cut the lead in half an inning later, but all that ended up doing was making the top of the seventh even more frustrating. With two on and two out, up stepped Casey Blake with a chance to tie the game. Then up jumped Shane Victornio, robbing Blake of an extra-base hit that would have pulled the Dodgers to within one. Shane Victornio? Really? Two innings later, the Dodgers did it again—putting the tying run at the plate against Brad Lidge. Down went Matt Kemp, however, and then Nomar Garciaparra followed with the worst at-bat of his life. Good time for that. So back to Los Angeles the series goes, and back on my medication I go. The Dodgers’ run was a nice distraction from the country’s economic meltdown while it lasted, but like my retirement savings, the Dodgers are kaput. October 9, 2008 - Phillies 3, Dodgers 2
Dodger fans expecting Dodger domination got a rude awakening on Thursday night, watching the Phillies come from behind to defeat the Dodgers in Game One of the NLCS, 3-2. A sixth inning error by Rafael Furcal, followed by a couple of mistakes from Derek Lowe… and that was it. You could argue that Joe Torre should have pulled Lowe after the 2-run homer to Chase Utley, but I think I’d still rather have Lowe on the mound at the point than anyone else. If anything, the Dodgers should be kicking themselves for leaving runners on second and third in the first inning. A big first inning from the Dodgers could have shut up Phillies fans before they even had a chance to get into the game, but Matt Kemp flied to right to end the threat. So you can blame Kemp or Furcal or Lowe for this loss, but you’d be forgetting the other deciding factor: me. If you haven’t yet guessed, I did watch Thursday’s game—the first game of this postseason I’ve seen. For those keeping track, the Dodgers’ loss puts my post-1988 playoff game viewing record at 1-13. That means I’ve seen fourteen Dodgers playoff games since 1988 and they’ve lost thirteen of them. The games I haven’t seen? Yeah, they’ve won all three. October 4, 2008 - Dodgers 3, Cubs 1
The Dodgers did it in three games, did it decisively, and did it in front of 56,000 fans who've spent the last two decades having to watch the likes of Hubie Brooks, Tom Goodwin, Jeromy Burnitz, Delino DeShields, Mike Blowers, Karim Garcia, Jeff Reboulet, and Tim Bogar. The Dodgers managed just six hits on Saturday, but used them efficiently—including in the first inning when Cub-killer James Loney doubled in two. Most surprising, though, may have been Hiroki Kuroda. I've got to say, I kind of expected the crappy Kuroda to show up. Instead, he pitched 6-1/3 shutout innings, helping to assure that the Cubs' drought passes the century mark. Credit for the sweep has to go to Dodger pitching, James Loney, and me. That's right. Me. Because of circumstances beyond my control, I didn't watch Saturday's game live—meaning that with the exception of an inning of Wednesday's game that I caught in the airport, I missed the entire goddamn series. I've probably seen 1,500 Dodger losses over the last twenty years, and what's my reward? A kick in the fucking nuts. I'm really not sure what I did in a previous life to deserve such torture, but clearly I bring the Dodgers nothing but bad luck. If they want to win a Championship this season, the answer is simple: throw me in a basement for the next two weeks. Anyway, back to the field. After Jonathan Broxton struck out Alfonso Soriano in the ninth to end it, the ensuing celebration was unlike anything Dodger Stadium has seen since, well, October 15, 1988. If you don't have that date etched into your bathroom mirror like I do, than I'll give you a hint: Mike Davis. The Dodgers, of course, ended up winning the World Series that year in Oakland, so Game One at Dodger Stadium was really the last chance fans had to go totally apeshit at home. Well, apeshit is what they went on Saturday night, fueled in part by Dodgers who were whooping it up in the clubhouse, on the field, and in the stands. The party lasted well into the night, and probably continued at Danny Ardoin's apartment. So, when the stadium is cleaned, the hangovers are gone, and Jamie McCourt's panties are removed from Manny's locker, the Dodgers will be headed east—to Milwaukee or Philadelphia. Bratwurst or cheesesteak? Either way, Broxton won't be complaining. October
2, 2008 - Dodgers 10, Cubs 3
Maybe it’s in the Dodgers’ best interest if I continue to be assed out of watching this series. Since 1988, the Dodgers are 1-12 in postseason games that I’ve seen, either in person or on TV. When I miss games, they’re 2-0. After twenty years of complete futility, the Dodgers are now on the verge of winning a postseason series—entirely without me. If I didn’t watch another game this postseason, they’d win the World Series. I absolutely guarantee it. October
1, 2008 - Dodgers 7, Cubs 2
As I listened to the game on the radio on the way to LAX, hearing the Cubs take a 2-0 lead, I began to think that the business trip was actually a blessing. It would spare me the pain, spare me the aggravation, and spare me from having to listen to Dick Stockton on TV. But then I walked into an airport bar just in time to catch James Loney hitting a grand slam after barely staying alive by foul-tipping an 0-2 pitch, and I knew I was fucked. I’d get on the plane, miss the last four innings of only the second Dodger postseason victory in the last twenty years, and not know the final score until I get to my crappy hotel room. So here I am in my crappy hotel room, probably contracting gonorrhea from the carpet, discovering on ESPN that the Dodgers beat the Cubs, 7-2. (It took me an hour with tech support to discover that the internet connection in my room doesn’t work, so now I’m connected to somebody’s unsecured network and probably getting all my credit card numbers ripped off. Awesome.) As for the game, in addition to Loney’s slam, Russell Martin and Manny Ramirez both went deep (Ramirez on a pitch he had no business hitting that far, I’m told), and the Dodger bullpen pitched three scoreless innings. Obviously, a huge game for the Dodgers. You’re not just winning Game One, you’re winning Game One in Chicago… after being down by two runs in the middle innings. Pretty exciting—at least for those who might be able to watch Game Two on Thursday. Of course, I’m not one of those people because I have a work event. Wow, life is grand. |
Rumor has it there’s a World Series going on right about now. Like the rest of America, I’m not watching… but it has less to do with disinterest and more to do with my lingering exhaustion from the Dodgers season. It’s been more than ten days since they lost Game 5 of the NLCS to the Phillies, and clearly I needed a break from baseball. 
Twenty years ago Wednesday night I was at a bar mitzvah, sitting in temple with a Sony Walkman earpiece shoved up my sleeve. A few minutes into the reception, while awkward Jewish kids in the worst stages of puberty tried to do the limbo, it happened—Mike Davis walked. Then the magic: High fly ball into right field… she is… GONE! As Vin Scully so eloquently described, in a year that had been so improbable, the impossible had happened. Kirk Gibson wasn’t supposed to play, Dennis Eckersley wasn’t supposed to hang one over the plate, and a team with a starting lineup that included Franklin Stubbs and Jeff Hamilton sure as hell wasn’t supposed to beat Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. But Gibson found a way, and the rest is history. 
Had someone come up to me earlier Monday and given me a choice of going to Game 4 of the NLCS or being raped by a rabid mule, I’d obviously have gone with Game 4. After being at Game 4, though, I’m thinking the mule probably would have been the better choice. At least the Dodgers were kind enough to hand out those little white towels—it gave me something to sop up the blood gushing from my face after I ripped out my eyes with malt spoons in the eighth inning. Blindness turned out to be a blessing, though, as I didn’t have to watch my car inch forward for two hours in the parking lot while Frank McCourt sat in his box getting a BJ from Barbara Streisand.
Among the mistakes Chad Billingsley made on Friday, his most criticized one had nothing to do with the seven earned runs he gave up. It was all about what he didn’t do: retaliate for a Brett Myers pitch that went behind Manny Ramirez. Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t about to make that same mistake on Sunday. 
Boy, I’m sure glad I took off half a day for that fucking nightmare. By the second inning I wished I was back at work. By the third inning I wished I was a desk lamp, immune to the frustration of being a Dodger fan. I don’t even know where to begin with this one, other than wanting to go outside right now, chop down a tree, and shove it up someone’s ass. I don’t care whose ass. Anyone. The mailman, the UPS guy, a fucking cat. I haven’t been this angry since, well, yesterday.
Over the last couple weeks, I keep hearing the same thing: The Dodgers are like a different team than they were two months ago. Only one problem: They’re the same team that they were two months ago. They may have had a great run in September, and may have breezed through the NLDS by sweeping the Cubs, but they’re far from being a special team. To be honest, they’re not even a particularly good team. They’re a team that finished the season six games above the .500 mark. That means that they win 52% of their games. Fifty-two percent. And here you are expecting them to blow past the Phillies? 
Well,
Daryle Ward tried, but he couldn't do it alone. The former Dodger's
pinch-hit single on Saturday night knocked in the only Cubs run,
and the Dodgers—playoff failures for the past twenty years—have
done what many fans have only read about in books: win a postseason
series.
In
a five-game series, anything can happen. Well, anything is happening.
The underdog Dodgers won Game Two on Thursday, sucking the wind
out of Wrigley Field for the second straight night. The Cubs made
it easy on the Dodgers, making four errors—one by each infielder.
Russell Martin helped the Dodgers take advantage of two second-inning
errors, doubling in three as part of a five-run inning. Manny
Ramirez hit a monster home run in the fifth inning and Rafael
Furcal, a week into his “spring training,” had three
hits. Chad Billingsley allowed just five hits over 6 2/3 innings,
easily outshining Chicago starter Carlos Zambrano. The Dodgers
left nine guys on base, but their ten runs was more than enough
to put the Cubs a game away from elimination.
The Dodgers beat the Cubs in Game 1 of the NLDS on Wednesday evening. At least that’s what I just heard. I didn’t actually see most of the game myself because, well, that’s my life. I wait and wait for the Dodgers to make it into the playoffs, devoting myself to this goddamn website to blow the time, and I end up having to leave on a business trip late this afternoon—to San Francisco of all places. I thought about quitting my job to avoid the trip, but I’ve heard a couple of little things about the economy lately so I figured unemployment probably wasn’t the smartest idea.