What is this, Gagne Central?

There was so much talk about Gagne's velocity being down, I just thought I would watch.

I'm just joshing ya, Jon.

No, I know. But it was sort of out of the blue, so I figured I'd explain it.

25 Dodgers reached first safely tonight and 14 scored.
12 Dodgers reached first safely Monday and 2 scored.
13 Dodgers reached first safely Sunday and 2 scored.

ugh, just read Plashke's column for the last time.

if plaschke's got a new one, i'm not seeing it on the latimes website.

Here I thought it was gonna be a "9-15 I told you so" column. So now Arte Moreno is the victim? I would have thought Plaschke would side with the little people of Anaheim on this matter.

I will be writing "Dodgers" and "Angels" in my scorebook. I usually use city names. I used "Los Angeles" when I was in Anaheim last week.

I don't get all worked up over this matter. What about the stupid bill that passed the Assembly? Plaschke didn't mention it.

The irony is Plashke's article is as whinny as he accuses the Dodgers of being petty. I agree the Dodgers could handle it better. The LA Dodgers of LA hats are weak (even weaker at at $25 per) but it appears Plashke believes the Dodgers should give up their first amendment right to object to the Angel's name change. He thinks the Dodgers should just go along regardless of whether they feel they are being screwed. Obviously I don't know the O'Malley's but I am going to guess that they did not lay down for this sort of thing. (By the way, I don't think Gene Autry would have done this to his fans.) Don't get me wrong, I think Arte is a great owner. I wish he bought the Dodgers. He has put together a great team, but none of this changes the fact that the Dodgers are entitled to object to conduct they perceive as wrong.

Back to the point. Plashke has lost all objectivity. I am not familiar with a journalist's obligation to report all he knows. Is it the same in a "commentary" piece such as this because even I, who does not follow this dispute very closely, is aware of at least a few facts which should have been included in an effort to be fair. (I may not have these exactly right but many of you can correct me if I'm wrong)

1. I think I heard on the radio this morning that legislation was being introduced to ban the name change on the basis of false advertising. (While this sounds lame, it is legislation and therefore news and Plashke should have mentioned it.)

2. He failed to mention any opposition by OC residents, of which there is much.

3. He failed to mention the real reason behind the name change which is advertising $$$

4. He failed to mention that the Oakland A's new owners would sell their collective souls to move to San Jose but the Giants aggressively moved to block such a move.

5. I believe MLB had to make major concessions to Paul Allen and the Orioles before putting the Nats in DC.

There are territorial rights in baseball and while that Angels did not move to LA, they did change their name potentially infringing on the Dodgers' territory. The Dodgers are allowed to respond any way they like, even if its petty. Plashke should maintain some semblance of journalist integrity.

Finally, if this were any owner other than Frank, Plashke would be calling this defiance a noble stand.

anyway, i was at the game tonight and

1) i called saenz' homer right before he hit it. unfortunately i also saw miguel cabrera's double coming. i didn't know what that one was going to be but i could see that yhency had thrown him too many fastballs, and he'd timed it, so i figured he'd hit it hard somewhere.

anyway, it was really nice to see some dodger hitting, and a good starting pitching performance. 14 runs makes me a satisfied customer.

2) i think i saw the german woman at philippe's. she was tall, maybe 5'10", and thin and blonde with very sharp features. her smock had a name that looked like "airilia". i had the lamb dip (and a glass of wine), the mustard was hot but fantastic. i left before the pie suggestion though, so that'll have to wait till next time :)

Given the Dodgers success tonight, I say we require Vishal go to Philippe's and every game until the Dodgers lose. I bet you'd hate that huh Vishal?

Great to see Gagne have that type of game, even if it "didn't count as a save" Point made by Jon and Jeff kent earlier about the hitting being there but the run producers not driving them in was also illustrated tonight in the positive, but the Sunday and Monday games in the negative...In the next ten days, I would like to see the Giants get knocked down to about 6-7 games out, I think they are about ready, and with Schmit continuing his time on the disabled list,it only puts more pressure on what I thought was an over rated pitching staff....The Pads are starting to play the way that many expected and have had two come from behind victories against Atlanta and they crushed Florida and did well against St. Louis-something we have to think about as SUmmer arrives and we play San Diego...

Could somebody please explain to me the significant value of Jason Grabowski. Outside of being DePo's boy and being out of options, I find Mike Edwards and Jason Repko far better and more valuable. Since Grabowski is out of options what about trying to trade him and get some reasonable prospect. At the end of the day a bench with either Grabowski or Repko will proably not decide the pennant, but Repko and Edwards are both clearly out performing Grabowski and it is not like Grabowski is some huge power hitter. Love to hear what I am missing, according to the Dodger stats Repko has an OPS 0f 761 and Grabowski has one of 499!

Louis, I suspect that trading Grabowski isn't much of an option because who would have him at this point? I mean, if we're all talking the boy down like this, what do you think the other GMs in the majors are saying about him? The Dodgers have only two options here: fish or cut bait, and it looks like they're just not quite ready to snip the line yet.

On the other hand, would any other GM take Grabowski right now even if he were waived, instead of offered in trade?

What bothers me about Moreno and how he is treated by the Media (and I really don't care what the Angels call themselves) is that Arte broke his deal with the city. Or found a very oily way to get around it. Anaheim gave the Angels a lot of money in parking and concession revenue in exchange for Anaheim being part of the team's name when Moreno bought the team. This tells me two things; the city had reason to think Moreno might drop Anaheim from the name and Moreno planned to do just that while smiling and signing a contract that said he wouldn't. I think Moreno is as sleazy as they come.

Raise your hand if, at any time in the past, you ever expected to see the following on ESPN's NL leaderboard:

BATTING AVERAGE
5. Cesar Izturis, LA .339

Re 15: I agree with your opinion about Arte, but just for the record, the city's deal was with Disney, not Arte.

IIRC, the city wanted the name Anaheim Angels in the contract, but Disney balked because they wanted to reserve the right to call them the "Angels of Anaheim" (ala Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) if so desired in the future.

Bill Plaschke is the pod.

By the by, relating to Jon's post, I'd like to see Gagne break 95 on the gun. I'd like that very much. Mind you, I'm not concerned. It's only his second appearance this season, he's been out for awhile and he did strike out two last night. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for the fastball not breaking 95 on the gun.

Again, I'm not worried. Not worried at all. I don't even know why I'm bringing this up. Because there's no reason to be concerned.

(right?)

I didn't start to worry until they renamed LAX to the Los Angeles International Airport of Anaheim...

Plaschke/LA Times revisionist history;

1)"The Dodgers greeted the Angels by sticking out their hand."

Actually O'Malley stuck his hand in the Angels' wallet, so thoroughly financially hosing the expansion team in its first five years that it retarded the development of the franchise. Plaschke would know this if he bothered to read colleague Newhan's book on the Angels.

2)"Games between the friendly rivals were called the Freeway Series."

Friendly rivals?? O'Malley was so pissed that the Angels kept winning, that he peevishly unilaterally cancelled the Freeway Series for four years.

3)"You've got to be kidding me, said Steve Brenner former longtime Dodger public relations boss."

Wow, there's an unbiased source, a PR boss that was FIRED years ago by Peter O'Malley.

4)"baseball believes (the name change) is a done deal... the effort(to legally challenge the name change) is clearly not going to work"

Someone should let the Court of Appeals know of this conclusion, rather than have them force settlement talks, and rule on Anaheim's writ.

Plaschke and the Times engage in a kind of "groupthink" (Angels good/Dodgers bad), in which everyone agrees with a point of view, with no diverse opinions given. And their circulation continues to plummet.

So will Jim Hahn make a bet with Curt Pringle on this weekend's series or we will he just say "Screw it, ain't my town to run anymore?"

And who should be pitching Saturday:
Penny vs. ?????

In response to gvette, I'm actually curious--does anyone know if the Times' circulation is dropping in part due to its Dodgers coverage? Or is it more a part of the general trend of newspaper decline? How has the LA Daily News been doing as of late? Should we even care all that much about what the Times sportspage says? I'm just recalling the very quick arrival of Hee Seop Choi chants at the stadium, in spite of all the ribbing he gets from Simers et al. How many people at the stadium even read Plaschke?

Just a question--I'm really just curious as to what others think. I'm on the east coast now, so it's harder for me to get a sense of the Times' local importance in LA.

WWSH

Wayne, from what I've heard, the LA Times' readership has been dropping at a faster rate than that of most other newspapers. So they're part of a nationwide trend, but even more so. I don't know if anyone's tried seriously to quantify the effect that the drop in both quality and quantity of sports coverage has had.

For myself, it did play a part in my scaling back from every day delivery to Sundays only. It wasn't the only factor--the increasing value of the Web as a news source was another--but for those of us who remember Jim Murray and Scott Ostler, it's hard to get excited about reading the LAT sports section anymore.

WWSH,

Not being an expert in this field, I can only relate what analysis on the web, and elsewhere have indicated about the Times circulation issues. The Times circulation is the lowest since 1968, with double digit drops the last quarter.

It looks as though the Times is having the problem other papers are having with circulation,PLUS local issues involving a decline in the demographics that read newspapers as opposed to getting news from other sources, an increase in a culturally diverse population of people who seek news sources in languages other than English, a steep drop in advertising revenues, and poor coverage of news in the surrounding areas of Los Angeles/Orange/SB County.

Although there is anecdotal evidence that people cancel their subscriptions because of disagreement with the content of the paper (political, or because of certain columnists), I've never seen that number quantified.

Similar to DougS, I cut my subscription of the LA Times down from daily to weekends only. And lately, I find myself not reading about the Dodgers in the LA Times even then. I agree that some of the Dodgers' moves deserve criticism, but reading the LA Times and their biased coverage is depressing... I get more objective information from sites such as this.

All that being said, the masochist in me did read Plaschke's column today. It is unbelievable that he is being paid to write this drivel. All of you have done a wonderful job pointing out the omission of information as well as the wrong information that he has in his article.

My two cents on the whole issue... As a Dodger fan, it does not bother me that the Anaheim Angels want to refer to themselves as a Los Angeles team. Here is what bothers me. After the Dodgers, I used to root for the Angels. I cheered for them in 2002 (ok, mostly coz of the stupid Giants (sidenote... only thing worse that Giants winning the World Series would have been winning with Dusty in charge)) and generally like Scoscia. But this season they have been getting on my nerves. They are no more a Los Angeles team than they are a San Diego team. They do not pay city business taxes to Los Angeles. So I have been rooting against them this season. It doesn't help that Scoscia has gone from lovable ex-Dodger who had good managerial instincts and got lucky enough to end up winning the WS to a total blowhard moron who says the stupidest things without thinking and thinks too much of himself and the Angels.

Anyway, my second favorite team now is The East Coast Devil Rays of Tampa Bay. Think of all the marketing opportunities!!