Are the NBA Finals too fresh in my mind, or did the Dodgers look like the Detroit Pistons against the Laker-Yankees this evening? Faster, crisper, more energized - it was a pick-and-roll/rebound/fast-break 6-3 Dodger victory in the first regular season game ever between the two teams.

As you know, Vin Scully has no trouble praising the game's heroes, no matter what team they toil for. But the Dodgers earned Vinny's most earnest and passionate rhapsodies tonight.

Jeff Weaver overcame a Saget's worth of bloopers in the top of the third to pitch six solid innings, and recent Dodger Thoughts bashee Darren Dreifort retired the side in order in the seventh. But it was Cesar Izturis (defense), Adrian Beltre (offense) and Guillermo Mota (strikeouts) who sent Scully full square into a reverie of admiration.

And then, Eric Gagne. Imagine a seven-year-old spying Superman on a fly-by. That's how you have to hear Vinny's call on the final pitch of the game - a called strike three, of course.

"Oh, yes! Oh my gosh, what a pitch! That's amazing! That's not fair. After a 97-mile-per-hour fastball, you can't tell, but that pitch was in the 60s ... a rainbow curve."