Murray and Smith's Locke team lost to Kennedy High in the quarterfinals of the City championships in 1973. They played all four games simulatenously at a complex at Sepulveda Dam.

That day you could see Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith, Robin Yount (three future Hall of Famers) along with future major leaguers Rich Murray (Eddie's brother), Darrell Jackson, Jim Anderson, Darrell Cias, Kelly Paris, Jerry Turner (not too sure about him) and Bobby Castillo. All in one place.

1 - Can you find my game story? It was for the Times in 1993, I believe. My recollection is that they were trying to punt on 4th and 62, but got penalized. And that they had several penalties on the series, maybe a bad pitchout that they fell on, and at least one huge sack on a wild scramble.

It was something.

Was the story for the Times or the Daily News?

http://rays.tbo.com/rays/MGBQLZRICIE.html

"AH, GO FOR IT: On fourth down and 75 yards to go from its own 5-yard line in its 27-0 victory over Verdugo Hills on Friday, Locke High School was called for a delay-of-game penalty.

Well sure, that's easy to explain. "What do you think guys, a draw play?"

Actually, the Saints were probably spending the time trying to figure out how they got in such a position.

Pretty simple, really. On first and 10 at the Dons' 30, Locke's Kimo Dunn lost five yards on a run. That play was followed by a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and another 15-yarder when a Locke coach argued the call.

The Saints' second-and-45 play was nullified by a personal foul penalty, good for another 15 yards.

On second-and-60 from its own 20, Locke threw an incomplete pass. Oooh - costly.

Third down brought a 15-yard sack, setting up the fourth-down delay of game. Half the distance to the goal line was marked off, leaving Locke with fourth and 77, give or take a foot.

Yeah, they punted. We know, no guts."

My mother was in her mid-40s and had given up figuring out which son she was speaking to.

http://www.biblio.com/books/22318076.html

http://tinyurl.com/apv2f

If the Weismans were the British royal family, Jon would be (in addition to having bad teeth and being funny looking) third in line for the throne behind his older brother and his nephew. Jon's son would be next in line. Then his niece and then Jon's daughter.

All of this could be changed by act of Parliament, but my lobbying of Tony Blair hasn't gone anywhere.

So my older sister is seventh in line. Bummer for her.

Bush, Adams (and for that matter the continued obsession with the Kennedies) shows that passive acceptance of royalism might be a genetically programmed sentiment. A Ford is running a publicly traded company because he's a Ford. Barry Goldwater Jr. was a Congressman from our state despite being a verifiable idiot. I could go on: Melissa Rivers, Nicole Richie...

Occasionally, batting instructors are seen as playing a vital role--like Charlie Lau for the Royals in the 80s. But you don't often hear HOF hitters give credit to a batting coach the way Bruce Sutter gave all the credit to a pitching instructor for his success.

Oh, crap. Do not let this man anywhere near HSC.

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/164595.html

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?statsId=6117&type=batting3

Those figures did decline last year. He had only one extra-base hit in 37 "close and late" at-bats in 2005. Anomaly?

Seriously, was Ted Williams truly an awful hitting instructor? I have no knowledge of his successes there at all.

"This year should be some fun," Murray said. "If this particular ballclub stays healthy, we can do some things. We have speed where we might be able to manufacture runs if we're not swinging well. I really think we've got a pretty good ballclub on paper."

Heh heh heh, let the fun begin.

I like the choices. I'm ready for Spring Training, Drew or no Drew.

I have to admit I'm burned out on the Dodgers after the McCourt follies of last fall. Maybe that's had an effect on others, too. I hate to admit it but the volume of highly speculative trade scenarios on this site has depleted my interest somewhat. One can only spend so much time thinking about how great it would be if we had Bobby Abreu.

I'll be glad when the team's 2006 roster is pretty much set, and we can start talking about what's happening rather than what might (but probably won't) happen.

http://tinyurl.com/7d8wn links to this story:

Mike Marlowe fully admits that he sometimes gave George Gillespie a hard time in that AOL chatroom.

But never in his wildest imagination did he expect to be sued in court for what he characterized as "razzing."

"We gave him crap," said Marlowe, a 33-year-old welder in Fayette, Ala. "I'm not going to deny it. I teased him and he teased me back. He gave it back better than he ever got it."

A generation ago, such petty personal beefs might have been settled with fists outside the corner bar, but now it's the Internet age — and Ohio resident George Gillespie instead filed a $25,000 lawsuit against two erstwhile cyber chums he met in the sprawling 900-room, mostly anonymous society that makes up AOL's chat universe.

And no, it would be the 30. They had to get to the 20 to make the first down.

I think Clark should be been absolved from blame also.

How can anyone look good coaching Cora, Izturis, Pitcher, Roberts every nite.. To go along with an empty hitting Loduca, a hurt Shawn Green, a done Fred McGriff, and a non-roided up Adrian Beltre?

That truely was one of the worst lineups ever constructed.

Now that's what TV is all about.

And then there's Michelle Merker, who seemingly has done all the news and public affairs programming by herself for the past 15 years.

George Loros makes his first appearance as "Anthony Boy", a New York thug who really hates L.A. and the freeway system and the lack of tomato sauce on pizzas.

Obviously David Chase must have liked him since he gave Loros a role on "The Sopranos" (as well as Joe Santos, but his character is dead.)

Maybe I had unrealistic expectations of Drew. He had such a horrible beginning of the year. But there has to be something to the ability or inability to hit in late-inning situations ala. Cesar Izturis.

I always like flipping past the channel and seeing that Dr. Gene Scott guy. Cracks me up. And who can forget Wally George?

I was just talking about the statistics (I can't remember a source, but I remember quite clearly) that say that Izturis was one of the best late inning hitters the first half of last year.

I'm thinking it's all Garner.

The theme song's pretty good too...

Frank McCourt is supposed to be coming up on XTRA 570 soon.

He's on 1540 right now and just said that it was the GM who made to decision to get rid of Milton Bradley.

Frank McCourt on with Fred Roggin:
Basically throws everyone under the bus for last year. Goes over his learning process, the highs of winning in 2004, the injury plagued 2005 season. His reasoning for letting DePodesta fire Tracy, McCourt supported that decision. He now believes that the GM and the manager had to be on the same page and that last year that clearly was not the case.
Okay, understand the managerial move.
On DePodesta's firing, he states that he wanted to make a clean start, handpick a GM (didn't he pick DePo) and then have the GM pick a manager that he approved.

He says the timing was unfortunate, Fred showing his support for Tracy but McCourt states that there were internal (Tommy?) things going on during that timeframe.

Believes he has made more "thumbs up" decisions than "thumbs down."

Really voices his support of "protecting the young kids" that DePo and Ned have done during their tenures.

On Jamie and his son having a big part in the organization. He states their qualifications and supporting women for executive positions but at least in terms of his son, he says if he doesn't do the job, he would get rid of him. But in the end it is a family business and will be run that way.

On football, supports the L.A. Coliseum, NFL came to him, Dodger Stadium will not compete as long as the Coliseum is a "viable site." A meeting was held, McCourt was not there, outcome was the Dodgers will not compete with the Coliseum.

Says that someone did steal some documents from within, would not speculate on why.

On the turnover at Dodger Stadium, he says that the team had not been achieving the sucess it should have at the time he bought the team, so any changes made were made with that in mind. (Personally, I always felt that the McCourts did get a raw deal on this front because we all know that this team has not been a consistently good team for a long time).

On Milton Bradley, he says that the decision was made by Ned but he did tell Ned how he felt.

He now toots the character and chemistry line as being important, working together for a common purpose. Oh, talent is important too.

One listener call,
1. Names on the uniforms (why oh why is this important) Frank made that decision, did not say he would change it.
2. Commercialism at the stadium - says they are in Year 2 of a 5 year construction plan. Again, while recognizing the concern, he basically says they need the revenue stream.

That's it for his first radio show appearance today. (That I know of)

i've sort of been around, enough to glance at the headlines at least. but i've been really busy with a seminar in DC the last couple of weeks so i haven't had time for much else.

Oh, and Vic the Brick is a brick.

The strength of the show stemmed from the way it took the private eye genre and it turned it on its head. Rockford wasn't wealthy. He had to cut corners. He got stiffed. He didn't get the girl (although women loved him.) And there was great interplay between Rockford and the supporting characters, especially Noah Beery, Jr as his father. The show had characters and rarely had cariacatures. (At least not until the final season.)

Also the show loved Los Angeles. And it showed the real Los Angeles. Freeways and long stretches of not so scenic parts of the Valley.

And there were a lot of great actors who appeared on the show. If you just go through people who got nominated for Oscars, you can find Garner, James Woods, Michael Lerner, James Cromwell, Jill Clayburgh, Ned Beatty, Lou Gossett, Burt Young, Robert Loggia, Rita Moreno, Lauren Bacall AND ... Jack Kruschen! (There might be others, I'm mainly going from memory here.)

The most realistic part of the show was that people had problems. Some were the big ones that drove the plot and made them hire Rockford. But people had cars that wouldn't start. They had houses that needed upkeep. There were people getting hassled at work by their boss.

And Steve only wishes he could work with an attorney like Beth Davenport (ably played by Gretchen Corbett)

About the local media treatment on his family, he starts how he made changes because he wanted the team to become a consistent contender. On the coverage, he says its reflective of much the fan's care about the team. He states he made mistakes.

Says there was no exact timing of when he decided he needed to get rid of DePo. He says that he signed off on the LoDuca trade but was concerned about how the trade was communicated to the players involved.

What happened between the Tracy firing and the Depo firing? He again says it was imperfect timing of making the decision. He says the decison was made to start fresh. BTW, he liked Paul and no one wanted him to succeed more than him.

He says that Ned is a great people person, he talks to Grady everyday and they are on the same page.

Payroll question, did he short the team last year by not spending $100MM, answer no, but he will spend whatever it takes. Says if Ned comes in and says he needs money to get a player, he will let him do it.

BTW - at least they are asking good questions aside from the first one.

On who has Frank's ear, he will talk to a lot of people. Doesn't fall into the Lasorda trap.

Once again, touts the kids, the kids, the kids (now the Jacksonville 5, who is the Jacksonville 5, Guzman, Chad, Russ, Loney, LaRoche?)

Mason goes with his transparency question, basically what it is going with real estate around Dodger Stadium?
First, he loves baseball and that is why he bought the team.
Second, on the NFL as he said earlier, supports the Coliseum, NFL came to him, he approved the meeting, but they decided that as long as the Coliseum is viable, they will not compete.

He will not comment on other future plans but says nothing is on the radar right now.

1. What would he do over, he says generally last year. What I get from this is that what should have happened was that he needed to have Paul put his own manager in so they could have been on the same page. Now he has that with Ned and Grady.

2. What he wants is bring a championship to Dodger Stadium.

On Milton Bradley/character issue and the Furcal signing (DUI issue). He states that he learned how important character is to running a team. He says (and rightly so), character does not mean that a person is perfect. Mistakes are made but people have to be given a second chance.

On being the leading LA baseball team, he says we drew 3.6 million with a losing team, so if he can improve the performance, there is no question this is Dodger town.

Now back to work.

The names not being on the uniforms was the visual "proof" that the McCourt detractors used to show that he was cheap. Pretty weak evidence, but whatever.

I think I've posted this story on here before, but I do it again. I was on the escalator down to the main parking lot with a friend following the Freeway Series (spring training edition) game at DS last year. I overheard the "McCourt is so broke, he can't even afford to put names on the uniforms" joke from some goober on the escalator. I told my friend (loud enough for all to hear) that I hoped one day that I was broke enough to afford a $90 million payroll.

Jack Lord was an odd guy. The rest of the cast said that they never once talked to him outside of the set. Like Vin Scully, he didn't invite his coworkers over for dinner.

According to my former client, not dining with his coworkers was the least of Mr. Lord's eccentricities.

Along your lines of thinking, McCourt may have also realized that with the perceived idea of player movement (I don't want Enders to get mad at me), branding the team is more important than promoting the individual players.

Of course, I think we are all giving McCourt too much credit for hatching such a plan. I think the reasons that Bob posted in 112 are much closer to the truth. As in "oooh, Yankees and Red Sox have no names.. Dodgers need no names".

It's all part of a contest between Jon and I to see who wasted more of your youth watching TV.

And somewhere, 1920s Hollywood moguls turn over in their graves.

I didn't like the recent one much. Especially when people coming out of the movie took it seriously.

Without the names, the Dodgers can sell more jerseys.

Its hard to argue against the Yankees pinstripes/#. The Dodgers dont have the stripes, but they still have #'s that mean something.

I liked that they removed the names. Its a better look to the uniform.

As far as less turnover, the Blue have a rent-a-team on the field for 2006. Lofton, Kent, Drew, Nomar could all be gone in 07.

He thinks we are idiots. (Apparently 3.6M of us, including me many times, are.) After firing Tracy, Depo could have hand picked his manager and they could have been on the same page. Duh. That cannot be the "real" reason for firing Depo. I assume performance and a thin PR skin were the reason but don't feed us this I had to do it to get everyone on the same page BS.

BTW, Vic the Brick (should be a "D" instead of a "Br") is the most useless excuse for a radio guy ever. I cringe everytime I hear that "I just gargaled with Draino" voice. That tired "feeling you-feeling me" s@#t or whatever it is he says should be left to ABBA. I know I'm over the top on this one but he is just so bad. Does anyone like him? His wife? His husband? His kids? Maybe the dog?

Is that right? It seems very counterintuitive to me.

It depends on the individual and the hitter. A hitting coach is like a manager. Some have a big impact, while others have less of an impact. There has never been a manager who can make a poor team great, and there has never been a hitting coach who can make a poor hitter great. . . . These are the criteria for being a good hitter: good hand-eye coordination, a certain amount of strength and no fear. If a player has those three elements, a good hitting coach can help that player. If that player doesn't, no one can help him. (http://tinyurl.com/a69ga)

Well, thanks for that, Joe.

He is horrible. But petros papadakis (?) is the worst. Try listening to 1090 a.m.

Potentially:
DeMarco Farr
Joe Grande
Colin Cowherd
Pretty much all of 570 really. (Though I am in the minority here and enjoy Jim Rome)