YAY!!!!!!

I was just talking about this game during lunch.

cargill was wondering if DeWitt will start in AAA...the answer is no. He hasn't hit well enough in Jacksonville to deserve a promotion. That said, he is a really good prospect.

Tony Jackson is essentially clamoring for a Joe Crede trade.

Blake Dewitt! YOU MY BOY!

2

Lets start him in the majors.

Jackson schmackson, the Dodgers aren't gonna trade for Crede or Inge. I think it more likely they make a trade for a valuable backup who could start for awhile, like Esteban German. But the better Hu and Dewitt do, the better off we all will be.

woo!!

Isn't Crede hurt?

7 Bad back

I'm wondering if the Dodgers just aren't going to use someone in a studio in L.A. to call the game.

Are there any spots remaining in either of the Fantasy Leagues?

It looks like my normal league is falling through this year.

Why can't MLB put the spring training games that are on MLB.tv onto the Extra Innings package on DirecTV?

I've been trying to get my students more interested in baseball. One of my students--bright kid, real smart--just now said we should trade Kershaw to bring back Adrian Beltre.

There are times when I feel like I'm not getting through to my students. This is one of those times.

11
MLB.TV is one contract and Extra Innings is another contract. And never the twain shall meet.

Will the coliseum game be aired anywhere other than KCAL? We get Prime Ticket here in Vegas but not KCAL.

I see that the smackdown has already been laid upon Tony Jackson in the comments on his blog after the Crede posting, so no need to pile on more. I like the one from a "Paul DePodesta".

12 Plaschke has children?

12 how old?

12 & 16 - I went to Florida last weekend and saw the Friday 3/7 game. Who did I stand next to for half an inning? Yep. Plaschke himself. I asked him about the Pierre column he wrote last week and he was cordial enough to discuss it. He really swears up and down that he thinks Pierre is a better player than Ethier. After he went down to his seat, Ethier lead off the next inning with a solo shot and Pierre made the last out with a pop-up. I tried to look for him so I could rub it in his dumb face.

15-I think what's frustrating (as one of the layers of said smackdown) is that Tony's clearly figured out that posting such inane stuff drives up traffic on the blog. Hence, he's going to continue posting it. And I'm going to continue to try--hopefully with more success in the future--not to rise to the bait.

It's just so difficult. Crede. Pierre. (Who "WILL"--sic--"be the starting left-fielder...") It's tough to take that stuff lying down, even if TJ's just talking out of his, um, hat.

Man, Pac-10 refs are so terrible.

what happened to the crisp pagen trade?

20 - What happened? I just saw that USC won.

20 I turned it on for the end. Should that rebound and score been a no call? Looked like a foul but that they had been letting them play the rest of the game...

Pendergraph had a put-back dunk to tie the game up with 16 seconds left. They somehow called an over-the-back foul on him, even though the USC player was coming from the other side and Pendergraph clearly just out rebounded him. Pendergraph fouled out and USC got to shoot free throws to put the game away.

10 - I had 2 owners in my Yahoo rotisserie league drop out earlier this league. I have 8 owners signed in but have 1-2 spots open. If interested, write to me at my yahoo address, sportnut19882003@yahoo.com. We are holding an offline draft in Northridge on April 13 and will be retroactively having the stats added in one of the days after the draft. The returning owners did have the option of protecting up to 4 players. Any new owners will be allowed to catch up in the first two rounds of a supplemental draft before a primary snake draft will be held. I will give you more details if you are interested. This league is in its 5th year.

That's great that the games in China are going to be televised. Will be nice to get a look at the Olympic Stadium and any other features they may do on Beijing and the surrounding areas. At night it will be difficult to see how bad the pollution is, hopefully they will make some mention of it. When I was in Beijing last March, as UCLA was ripping through the NCAA tournament, the main Olympic site was like the Green Zone. No tourists were allowed near it. Hope the guys can atleast do a little sightseeing, even with the shortened visit. Atleast Guo's name will be pronounced correctly by the locals.

vr, Xei

23
The USC player was not set and Pendergraph pretty much just jumped higher than him.

10. Friends of DT has openings in both Roto and H2H, email me for info. Both are online yahoo snake drafts. (xeifrank@yahoo.com)
vr, Xei

28
The H2H has openings now?

updates to this post above.

26 - I'm sure there's a local announcer there capable of mispronouncing it :)

I sent you an email regarding your h2h league Frank.

I read in the SF Chronicle that the Giants are "reportedly scouting Brandon Inge."

USC has held up their end of the bargain. It's up to UCLA to beat Cal tonight to give the city of LA its rubber match.

Will be nice to get a look at the Olympic Stadium and any other features they may do on Beijing and the surrounding areas. At night it will be difficult to see how bad the pollution is

On the other hand, the game will be played at 1pm Bejing time, even though that means 10pm out here the night before.

27 Yah, yer right, I saw the replay a couple of times after that and.. bad call. Hate to see the game come down to that.

Man, too bad UCLA is playing Cal - I'd be prone to root for Cal against anyone else.

33 They were originally scouting Crede, but guess his back issues scared them off. Poor Giants, I almost feel sorry for them. Inge in general doesn't make any sense, but I can see how the Giants would want him anyway.

And, yay, the new Times piece cited in Jon's update made me happy.

Well I'm taking off for Vero Beach tomorrow night and am going to the game on the 17th. I've never been to Vero, or Spring training at all and am looking for advice. I'm bringing a case of balls and some sharpies. Anyone have other hints, places to go in Vero? Thanks. I will kick Tony Abreu in the groin for those of us that are unhappy with him.

28. Email sent re: H2H

33/36 - Ha, I just made a similar point on Jackson's blog. Maybe Ned is trying to create a sense of urgency up in SF to make a move on one of those guys.

And Inge is the Caucasian Pedro Feliz. Seems like he'd be a natural fit up in Giant land.

28 - Did you see my post on offensive categories in the Roto league? Seems like a good compromise wrt average and OPS, and I don't see any reason why we can't have 6 offensive categories vs only 5 pitching.

Looks like Westbrook has ankle supports on.

Larry Bowa has begun getting impatient with Delwyn Young, who made two errors today and has been struggling at the plate.

if they ever make a grumpierer old men i know where they should start looking for the lead role.

42 Yeah, someone tell that grouch to chill out and let DY get the kinks out. He has played out of position for most of the spring and they should realize that his bat is going to come around once things settle down. I have really been pulling for that guy and want to see him get his fair chance.

29/32. I opened a 2nd H2H league and the Roto had one opening as of last night. I posted all the draft info on one of the previous threads, you can search through the last two or three threads for my name and find the info. I don't have it with me at this time.
vr, Xei

35. Duh, yeah my bad. Day game in China. :)
Should be able to gauge how the air pollution is. If it's clean up at all. Chances are they will just wait til summer time to shut down the coal factories, limit the cars and gawd knows what else. Bad thing about this March time frame, is that they always get a day or two of really bad dust storms blowing in off of the Gobi.
vr, Xei

40. Prefer not to go with 6x6. OPS instead of average gives too much weight to sluggers. OBP would be better if we change anything, imho.
vr, Xei

A Dragovic sighting in the first half is a good sign.

40 Having more categories in hitting than pitching means pitchers are less important for the fantasy team. That's why it's not as good.

Two points, two rebounds, two fouls for Love.

44 Alright Frank, Mothers of Invention successfully signed in. Looks like you got 8 teams so far.

I guess the Cal-UCLA Round III is not going to be as close as the last one.

Sitting way up high like I did last night made me realize that many shots carry from behind the backboard and into the rim.

Billy Crystal, playing DH (in his words, designated Hebrew) for the NY Yankees, struck out on six pitches in his first AB today.

Kevin Love is good in case anyone did not know.

Kevin Love is good in case anyone did not know.

Better than ...

(Jon clubs Bob over the head with a truncheon before he says it again. When he wakes up, he wonders where Jon got his truncheon.)

37 Hints: unlike me, show up early and have a map of Vero so you know where the stadium is. I didn't find that there were a lot of signs pointing the way. Other than that, just relax and enjoy.

14. Will the coliseum game be aired anywhere other than KCAL? We get Prime Ticket here in Vegas but not KCAL.

Apparently not for Dodgers fans in Las Vegas. But it depends on your definition of anywhere. :-)
Gen3Blue will probably be happy to know that the Red Sox are televising it on NESN.

52 does he at least look some what like a ball player?

Weather condition at Staples Center: raining three pointers.

UCLA 12 for 19 so far from long distance.

me & billy crystal are bonded by hight so i'm rooting for him to get a hit

52 No idea. But he is 60 years old.

A Cal comeback seems unlikely at this point.

let the record show that I am a little taller them him though.

48 - But there are more offensive roster spots than pitchers. Shouldn't they count for more in the scoring?

54. But how does his game translate to the NBA, where his size is not such an advantage and his quickness ???.

vr, Xei

64
I don't speak NBA.

65. How about NNBA?
vr, Xei

65
I'm dying to post as Barbara Billingsley, but I don't want to make this a racial issue.

me & billy crystal are bonded by hight so i'm rooting for him to get a hit

A guy I work with, 81 years old and all of 5'2", went down today to apply today to be the stand in for Joe Pesci in his role as Joe Conforte, one time owner of the Mustang Ranch.

A question--I have been thinking about finally getting MLB TV. For those who have it, what are the pros and cons? Is it reliable? They offer a regular subscription for $89.95, and a hi-res one for $119.95--is there a great difference between the two? Also, being a Dodger fan in New York, how many Dodger games per season can I expect to see?

Thanks,
Robert

69 I really like mlbtv. Last year I had both mlbtv and EI. Given how horrible non-HD looks on my TV, the poor picture quality (though improved now in 700K) is not such a disadvantage. You'll also get more games than with EI. Last year with the cable package the Dodger game at 10 EST was often blocked by some 8 hour Yankee-Red Sox game, while there were channels designated for MLB EI that weren't being used. And then some games were just inexplicably absent. As far as I can remember from the last two years, mlbtv has had every game that wasn't blacked out either by FOX or ESPN, or whatever, or because they were playing Cincinnati/Pittsburgh.

All things being equal, I'd rather sit in front of my TV than my computer. But all things aren't equal, so it's a closer call.

37

I was there last weekend and I also went last year. The best advice I can give is to arrive early (like 10:00am) so that you can see all the warming up on the back fields. Although the stadium is great and much has been written about it, the most intimate experience will be before the game on the back fields. As far as autographs go, it is sort of hit or miss. When the players are walking to the stadium from the back fields (about an hour before game time) is a good chance and other than that just have what you want signed out and ready to hand to the player.

For accomodations, I wouldn't really suggest staying in Vero. It's expensive and there isn't a whole lot to do after the game. I stayed up the coast in Cocoa Beach one night, and Satellite Beach another. Any of the beach towns up the coast is going to give you more options at night. Plus, if you are flying into/out of Orlando, this puts you closer to the airport.

Everybody has been writing a lot about Dodgertown. It really was special for me. But keep in mind, it's not going to change your life. And it's not like the players are going to sit down and have a beer with you or anything. The best thing you can do is soak up the environment, talk baseball with all the knowledgeable Florida fans, see you favorite players up close, and proudly tell everyone next year in Arizona that you saw Dodgertown.

If anyone here does the New York Times crossword, but hasn't gotten around to today's puzzle, be forewarned: it's both challenging and unsatisfying and will prompt many rule one violations.

72 At the rate I'm getting through my page-a-day calendars I'll be getting to it sometime in 2011. I think I'll have forgotten the warning at that point.

73 I used to love those page-a-day calendars. Then, in 2006 (I think), they published all the same puzzles that they had published in 2005. Or maybe it was 2007/2006. Doesn't matter.

So now I buy the "Easy to Not-So-Easy" puzzle collections. I like knowing the difficulty of the puzzle I'm doing and that one collection has every type of puzzle, Monday through Saturday, divided up by day.

69 MLBTV's definitely worth it for me since I'm also outside LA. I had some problems at first with it since I have a Mac, but if you download Flip4Mac you'll be able to run the MLB Player WMP style with very few problems. It also depends on your connection, of course - we have a cable connection in our bldg and a wireless router, I use both but recommend running off the ethernet directly to make sure it's as fast as possible. And even then, it still hangs up on me sometimes, on the Mac. When I watch it on Windows at work it doesn't stick as much but I still sometimes have to reload it. But in general it works great, and the new player is pretty cool (though a little buggier so far). Mostly, few problems and get to see a lot of games. But as GP says above, watching on TV would be preferable if you have that choice and can pay a bit more for EI.

63 Hmm. That's a good point. I was just thinking about traditional fantasy leagues and the depths people are used to having. Now that makes me wonder the depth of useful fantasy hitters versus useful fantasy pitchers, and how changing the number of categories would affect each.

Lurch!

http://tinyurl.com/3ys6qn

I didn't know the Nats had both Boones in camp.

The Cougar fans outnumber the Duck fans here at Staples.

But there isn't a big crowd. I assume the place will fill up later for the Stanford game.

Last night, ASU fans were heckling unnamed fans, but the ASU fans aren't around tonight.

Billy Crystal didn't look all that bad, considering...

55 71 Thanks for your advice. Arizona will be so much easier for all of us to get to starting next year.

Interesting Lost tonight

Torre's plan manufactured

http://www.presstelegram.com/sports/ci_8554659

82 Shhh!

Okay, better make sure Tivo's set, as I have a 9pm (!) soccer game tonight.

83 This was kind of cute in that article:
>>Closer Takashi Saito, who has yet to appear in a Grapefruit League game because of a strained right calf, was all set to throw batting practice against Mark Sweeney and Jeff Kent when Sweeney, who was standing in the cage, said, "Wait a minute, we're not ready yet."

With that, Sweeney, Kent and Nomar Garciaparra, who was standing nearby, all tied Japanese "hachimaki" headbands around their heads, each with the Rising Sun painted on the front. Actually, they were baseball sanitary socks rigged to look like hachimaki, but the effect was the same. The gallery of fans standing behind the backstop broke into laughter, and Saito laughed so hard that he fell to one knee on the mound.

A relaxed Saito threw 26 pitches without difficulty. Although he will need at least one more session of batting practice before appearing in a game, it now appears he will have plenty of time to be ready for the start of the season.<<

You mean Hurley throws a no-hitter on "Lost" tonight?

Someone always gets hit on "Lost."

One new post up top that points out three other posts. But chat can continue here.

Got it?

This was kind of surprising. I figured he's be around for as long as Tim Wakefield was on the roster.

Red Sox Release Mirabelli

http://www.nbc10.com/mlb/15586529/detail.html

Man, Mike Montgomery needs a higher chair. He's not a short man, but it's just not fair to sit him next to Don McLean like that.

89 As noted at the Griddle. : )
http://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/922731.html

Mirabelli is a VERY solid catch & throw guy with a really nice bat I wonder why the BoSox let him go, I'm kind of surprised.

Just guessing but Mirabelli is 37 and the bat hasn't shown much in a couple years. Maybe he just looks done.

Major bummer for Hawaii to lose to Boise State. You always want that 10-win team to have a chance to advance to the tourney.

Mitch Johnson shoots like David Eckstein throws.

I can't picture Stanford pulling away in this one.

The unnameds seem to have run out of gas.

Yahoo! has come up with a jinx-free name for the mythical creature:

http://tinyurl.com/3d93ah

88 - CCCH?

Dodgers get ready to make history in China

>> Kemp bestowed the honor of playing center field in the first game to Andruw Jones, the only other projected starter to land in China on Thursday night.

Manager Joe Torre told Kemp and Jones that they would each play in center one game and be the designated hitter in the other, and that it was up to them to figure out who would play where on what day. <<

http://tinyurl.com/2nhrtl

98 "Kershawn?" Yikes.

Kershawn Johnson.

Beats Kerplunk, I suppose.

Real new post up top.