And I thought he majored in American Studies.

.292 .355 .511 .865
.294 .356 .480 .837

Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham, Buffalo, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Dayton, Fort Myers, Greensboro, Greenville, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Knoxville, Louisville, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Richmond, San Antonio, St. Louis, Tulsa, Washington, West Palm Beach

You'll either get the Tigers/Twins game or D'Backs/Dodgers. I have no idea how they'll decide.

I think it needs to be stressed that Ethier is not just on a hot streak right now. Ethier is locked in and has been getting progressively more locked in since the beginning of the season. He has been giving the team its best at-bats ever since mid-June, coincidently around the time Russ started swinging at low breaking balls. And Ethier hasn't really taken a step back, in terms of the qulaity of his at-bats, since. That distinguishes him from other young players, who you should rightly expect to progress in a two-steps forward, one-step back, sort of way.

Ethier's last three months are also encouraging for the Dodgers in a wider sense. The other young Dodgers will likely make a similar production leap, by simply having less periods of times where they are lost at the plate, as they reach their prime age years.

Ethier has begun the prime of his career. It will be a lot of fun when Russ, Loney, and Kemp do as well. And when Bills reaches his prime, it might just end up being something historic.

But I like it.

Go Dodgers!

I'll miss the game live because I'll be teaching writing to a very small group of crabby adults, stuck in a hot room on a hot, sunny day. If I should survive, thankyou, comeagain.

50 G 224 PA 202 AB 43 R 65 H 15 2B 4 3B 13 HR 33 RBI 21 BB 41 SO

.322/.384/.629/1.013

Ethier was red hot before Manny came over.

Now, you run out of things to say.

Since August 5th:

.351/.405/.730/1.135

Menin aeide, thea, Aristideo Ramirezou!

Also, I find it hard to believe that Ned couldn't acquire hard-nosed veteran David Eckstein and have him play second base. I'm sure everyone noticed how hard Eckstein runs out ground balls to short and second. Why oh why couldn't the Dodgers trade non-veteran pitchers like Elbert or McDonald (or even both, to make sure the trade went through) to acquire this gritty professional? Eckstein, like Sweeney, Pierre, Proctor, and pro's pro Tanyon Sturtze, gives you a professional haircut EVERY TIME HE GOES OUT THERE TO PLAY. Jeff Kent has been sorely missed these last six games, and Eckstein would have provided veteran leadership and professional interviews in his absence.

I suppose I'll watch the game today, but I will only get depressed marveling at Eckstein's scrappy play, with my depression intensifying YET AGAIN because I have to worry about Ethier making another green baserunning mistake as he clears the bases with another inexperienced drive to the gap.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/phillies_zone/Iguchi_Is_Back.html

That is all.

I was at the game yesterday. When Ethier's ground rule double bounced into the stands, I cheered, and then said, "Now he just needs the triple!" Mrs. Kavula said, "Don't hold your breath."

Then Ethier came up. I was silently screaming inside my head for a ball to the deepest part of the park. And when he did it, my heart went into my throat.

I saw the ball land and looked back to see Ethier rounding first, then round second, then pick up speed, then stop.

Run, I thought. Even if you're out at third. Run. Even if you're out by six steps. Run. This is history we're talking about -- the Dodgers have a safe lead thanks in no small part to your performance, so give history a shot.

I have rooted for few things harder than I was rooting for Ethier to make it into third.

Then he went back to second, got tagged, and that was that. It wasn't meant to be. Still, it was a fantastic, fun night at the ballpark. People in Section 160 of the Loge were very into Ethier's performance, and Lowe was dominant.

And Spawn of Kavula stayed awake the whole time but didn't get fussy! We saw the whole game! Not bad for a nine-month-old!

...Please be able to throw Casey. Please.

Is this line about Plaschke?

No outs.

And when I wrote that, ESPN.com did have him as 26th in OPS. Now they have him ranked as 19th. I wish I knew when they updated their nightly stats.

Thanks for the link, Jon.

Amazingly both Selig and Fehr agreed to this readily.

Guys like Lindsey or Tiffee didn't get called up because they wouldn't be able to help the team, even as pinch hitters, and they're not great defensive players either.

Still, it was one of the more memorable individual performances I've seen at Dodger Stadium. I saw McGwire hit one over the pavilion and into the parking lot. I saw Brooks Kieschnick, of all people, lead the Rockies over the Good Guys with two bombs. I saw Ethier's 5-for-5-almost-cycle.

I doubt the Minotaur will pitch after the division race is settled.

A guy like Lindsey could probably hit a few home runs before big league pitching figures him out.

My allegiances this September and Octovber are very simple:

In the NL, go Dodgers. (I remain hopeful but not optimistic. I said two weeks ago that I'd given up on the season, and while I still have hope that I'm wrong, I still wonder if the best case scenario is that the good guys actually win one game against the Cubs in the NLDS.)

In the AL, go Rays.

The knocks on Pierre -- and no one's tougher on him than me -- are that he doesn't get on base often enough to be a starter and that he is overpaid as a bench player. But he is certianly a major leaguer.

And as for D. Young, he has slightly higher numbers over JP. A 69+OPS for Young, over a 66+OPS for JP.

Woo, battle of the 2006 Draft picks!

Sunday went from Johnson vs. Maddux to Scherzer vs. Kershaw.

Battle of the ages.

Smaller ages.

I think Pierre has to wonder what he did differently last season and this season than he usually does that would derail that.

Drew bats third and the DBacks start with the guttiest 1-2 punch in baseball: Eckstein and Ojeda.

Again, I say: wow.

They don't.

Most people just want to watch their home team and then do something else. It's not like people are out with a parlay card seeing how they did on all the games today.

It seems ridiculous to black it out for people who can't even watch it on Fox in their area. It's not like i would be watching it rather than the same game on Fox. I just want to watch the game. Makes me wonder why I paid for mlb.tv when they black out half the games. Sorry, I am done venting now.

The Commissioner's Office would like to change it, but the teams are resistant to it.

Let me tell you kids about back in the day, when folks in L.A. wouldn't be able to see the Dodgers on the NBC Game of the Week even if they were a road team.

When Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record, NBC had to get special permission from Walter O'Malley to show the game in L.A. And Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek seemingly thanked O'Malley every 10 minutes.

Then again, I also lived in a time when it was big news that there would be no blackout of the Super Bowl between Miami and Washington at the Coliseum.

Grace: "And guts!"

Next pitch: swinging strikeout.

I am used to people belittling the Huskies but I am not used to BYU smack talk.