Podres didn't have much left in 1969 and he retired during the season.

In the BB ref link up above there are no 1956 stats for him: did it it take him a year and a half to recover from the experience ?

Kent would have put him in his place. Rookie.

Rest in peace, my mom thanks you for '55.

If that wasn't bad enough, with runners at first and second and nobody out, and the heart of the order (Campanella, Furillo and Hodges) due up, Campanella bunted also! Was Walt Alston channeling Ozzie Guillen? Back-to-back bunts by two of the top sluggers of the decade, unbelievable. Smallball paid off with one lousy run in what should've been a big inning.

All the more props to Johnny for coming up huge that day.

After the final out was made in the seventh and deciding game, Scully simply but memorably said,

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world."

Scully was later asked why he didn't provide a more dramatic, emotional or extended description of the Dodgers' long-sought breakthrough against their rival and longtime nemesis, the New York Yankees.

Scully answered that he would have broken down in tears if he tried to say anything more. (As seen on Ken Burns "Baseball" documentary among other places)

So the question would be did the Dodgers trade him to Kansas before or after the WS in 1955. If it was before the trading deadline, I'm sure wiki would have said "1955" and not "1956". So he must have been part of the team, even if he didn't make a single pitch (?) in the 1955 WS. I suppose he could have been dropped from the active 25-man roster for the WS.

Bob, or someone, do have the details? (And funny how Tommy never mentions having been part of the A's or - ahem - Yankees organization. Through no choice of his own, of course. It might make for some interesting stories, however.)

It may have been the 6th inning, but the Dodgers still needed runs. The bottom of the 6th was when Sandy Amoros made his famous catch. If not for that (and the smallball nonsense in the top of the inning), the game probably would've been tied.

Pee Wee Reese 13
Jim Gilliam 11
Jackie Robinson 6
Roy Campanella 5
Duke Snider 4
Gil Hodges 3
Sandy Amoros 2
Carl Furillo 2

On a team that scored over 5.5 runs per game and had a team OPS of .803, they did do their share of bunting. Even Snider with and 170 OPS+, had 4 bunts.

2. Lasorda was part of the 0pening Day roster in 1955 which at the time was 28. A few weeks in, it was pared to 25. Lasorda was sent to the minors because Koufax couldn't be sent down because of a rule regarding the size of his signing bonus.

3. While Gene Hermanski did not play for the 1955 Dodgers, he is still alive. So my statement is still correct if not viewed in context.

The Nats tended to lose to the Minneapolis Lakers a lot.

That seems a bit much, no? What does a manager have to do to be great?

Lasorda was dropped in early May when the rosters were pared. I think he may have been hurt too.

It wasn't unusual for pitchers to go long stretches without appearing in games back then. Starters went longer and the bullpens had not been La Russa-ized yet.

As for the NBA in 1955, it was amazing a foul wasn't called. That was the Golden Age of Fouling. All fouls away from the ball were one shot. So if you're behind, the math is easy to figure out.

Lasorda hated coaching for him. Their personalities didn't mesh. Players found Alston somewhat aloof.

And yet the team won four World Series and seven NL pennants. Which is not an insignificant achievement.

However, managers like Leo Durocher are considered greater. Durocher won three pennants and one WS.

Alston is the most successful manager in NL history not named John McGraw.

Charlie Dressen, Alston's predecessor, considered himself to be the greatest mangerial mind ever. He wasn't. And if not for Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca most people would forget him. Most people forget him now anyway.

Alston was believed to be on his way out nearly every year he managed and the Dodgers didn't win the WS.

To what extent is it fair to criticize a player or a manager for a play that today we know is ineffective but at the time seemed just fine?

Example one -- the Snider/Campy bunts notwithstanding, it was more common for good hitters to bunt in 1955 than today. To what extent is it fair to criticize a manager from 1955 for being ineffective, even if it was common practice at the time?

Example two -- Jim Rice, at the time he was playing, was viewed as an extremely good hitter. Today, as we look back, we dock him points, and for good reason -- we know much more about walks, about home/road park effects, etc. To what extent is it fair to judge Rice by today's methods vs. methods at the time?

For me, personally, I think you have to use every tool in your arsenal, even if that tool was not around at the time.

Does this comment make sense at all? If not, let me know, and I'll try to rephrase.

"The Dodgers released Tom La Sorda outright to their Montreal International League affiliate in order to create room for Sandy Koufax, who had been on the disabled list with a broken ankle. Both are southpaw pitchers."
- New York Times, June 9, 1955

Crisscross!

Such a premise does not work under California law.

But it wasn't common practice at the time to bunt with your best power hitters. It wasn't completely unheard of, as it is today, but it wasn't common either. It was weird even then.

The Jim Rice thing is an entirely different ball of wax. The Dodgers bunting and things like that are strategic issues, which I think are probably best judged by the wisdom of the day. (Although noting that many great baseball men, like Branch Rickey, Earl Weaver, and Billy Beane, were great specifically because they threw the wisdom of the day out the window.)

Rice and the Hall of Fame is a performance issue however, not a strategic one. I think Rice's Hall of Fame case depends on his performance, his actual value to his team, and it behooves us to use all the best tools available to us to evaluate that performance. The fact that people in 1982 didn't know Rice sucked doesn't change the fact that he did suck. (And yes, I am overstating the case; he didn't suck. But he wasn't within a mile of being a Hall of Famer, either.)

1. German trains run on time all the time. The train I'm on will be 10 minutes late! Then again it started in Italy, but it lost time in Germany.

2. Germans never jaywalk. German pedestrians cross wherever and whenever they can.

Of course, if Rice had batted (say) sixth, or was traded, his HOF would likely have looked even worse. And who knows how he'd have responded if he'd have been asked to walk more.

I know that all we can do is judge based on what he did. But he did what he did in the context of his time.

Ultimately, I don't know how far I want to take this, because I really do agree with you. Just wondering if I might be wrong to a certain extent.

wasn't completely unheard of

Jim Tracy, here's mud in your eye. As in some literal mud.

http://tinyurl.com/yttcgc

http://weblogs.variety.com/on_the_air/2008/01/the-wire-a-rook.html

... and Friday Night Lights ...

http://weblogs.variety.com/season_pass/2008/01/friday-night-li.html

19-year career. OPS+ed 160 for the first seven years, 105 over the last 12. 124 career OPS+.
10-year career, OPS+ed 155.
22-year career, OPS+ed 119.

(These are not real players, by the way; just wondering what people would consider to be better.)

If at every level of baseball a player is told that it is # of hits and batting average that matter and that walks are a sign of lack of aggressiveness, won't that player adjust his game to be less selective? I am not saying don't apply modern stat analysis, but I think if someone was among the best in stats everyone cared about at the time, that should count for something.

However, my thinking on this may not be trustworthy as it is probably driven by my need to justify my appreciation for Steve Garvey, who became my favorite player at the age of 9 and is therefore immune to all further analysis.

1) The film is narrated by one "Vince Scully"

2) When White Sox CF Jim Landis was HBP in Game 6, Scully's highlight narration included the phrase "another batter thankful for a helmet." This brings to mind many of Vin's pleas today for on-field coaches to wear helmets.

3) The video ends with a few highlights shown with the following message in large white text across the screen: "See a ball game often. It's fun and excitement for the entire family!"

4) I wonder when the first real on-field World Series celebration was. It seems every time I see an old MLB video, a championship ends with a hearty handshake and some low level excitement.

Incidentally, aside from Charlie Neal's 1 game at SS in 1959, here are the Dodgers' 1959 shortstops:

Don Zimmer: 88 games, .165/.274/.249, 37 OPS+
Maury Wills: 82 games, .260/.298/.298, 55 OPS+
Bob Lillis: 20 games, .229/.275/.271, 42 OPS+

As a comparison, fellow Dodger championship SS Alfredo Griffin hit .199/.259/.253, for a 50 OPS+

In that 59 Video, i wondered the same thing about "Vince"

Was Podres left off of the 65 WS Roster?

First, about Lasorda. I think it was Joe Black who was quoted in Jane Leavy's magnificent book on Sandy Koufax as saying that Koufax was better right-handed than Lasorda was left-handed. She quotes Lasorda's story--that Buzzie Bavasi asked him who to send out and he said, "Koufax," and Bavasi hasn't denied it, so far as I know.

Lasorda said once that after he was sent out, he was heading north listening to the Dodger broadcast and Vin said something like, "Tommy Lasorda has been optioned to Montreal. Every time he crosses the Jacques Cartier Bridge, he feels like he's going home."

Vin also said that after announcing the victory and going to the commercial, he stood up to leave. Mel Allen asked him if he planned to say goodbye to the viewers before he left! He also recalled that that night, he went to the victory party and had to park at least a mile from the hotel and walk down the street, and everybody was cheering.

Now to a cute one. His date that night was a young woman named Joan Ganz Cooney, who later created Sesame Street for Public Broadcasting. A few years ago, the Dodger affiliate here in Las Vegas broadcast a mike check Vin did for the radio network, reciting numbers--"1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." The host said it was Vin's audition tape for Sesame Street! That was fun.

I'm glad you're on board, and that you were able to jump in midstream, but I do hope you'll go back and watch the other seasons. I think of The Wire as great literature, and like a powerful novel, you won't get the full emotional and intellectual impact by reading only the last one-fifth of it.

I agree with your analysis of the newsroom scenes, and I do think this subplot looks primed to become the worst of the many hundreds of subplots the show has explored in the last five seasons. (Although I too am a big fan of Homicide and Clark Johnson -- who, as I suspect you know, also directed the pilot of The Wire.)

(Spoiler alert)
I think the "rearrangement" of the crime scene in episode 2 would have been the scene that really affected you emotionally if you'd been watching the show from the beginning, because that character is one whom viewers have fallen in love with over the years as he tries to obey the better angels of his nature. It was really a heartbreaking scene.

In the end, it's the breadth and the scope of the show that's really most amazing. In the most recent episode there were plotlines that tie all the way back to the first and second seasons, and in ways that seem not at all forced. The Wire actually has more emotional resonance than any show I've ever seen, and those moments are more well-earned than those on other shows because they have been set up so meticulously and perfectly over time. I agree that the first two episodes have been somewhat lacking in those moments, but I also think there were such moments in the first two episodes that you may have missed due to lack of backstory.

I know they weren't real players, but:

Player Two might be Albert Belle. The voters have decided that this player is not a Hall of Famer. I'd vote for him, recognizing that he's borderline.

Player Three might be Luis Gonzalez, and it might be Robin Yount. To consider this player, position and context matter greatly.

Player One is the toughest to find a comp for, mostly because that's a pretty severe cliff after his peak. You might imagine a fake Frank Thomas that stayed healthy but became an average ballplayer in 2000 or so. Is that dude a HOF? I think so, because it's think kind of player that can lead a team to the WS during those up years and he's not hurting his team during the down years.

And I have a follow up: if my grandmother had wheels, would she be a trolley-car?

For player #1, I'd look at MVPs, post-seasons, and other extra-credit stuff, but assuming I could put together that case, sure, I'd vote for him.

For player #2, I'd vote for him, but most wouldn't. He'd be borderline at best and likely wouldn't be elected.

I would not vote for player #3.

I think the crime scene rearrangement somewhat parallels a scene from the first season when McNulty and Bunk recreate a crime scene on a case that had been closed or botched. They almost wordlessly (with the exception of a repeat Rule 1 violation) and it is a crucial crime to solve.

In fact, there's only one reason to vote for player 2 but not player 1 -- three extra years of peak performance from player 2. Sure, Player 1 has many years of replaceable performance -- but Player 2 has zero.

If the reason you'd vote for 2 but not 1 is that you require a 10-year peak instead of a seven-year peak, then OK. But your quick post implies that 10+ years of league-average service is less valuable than what was contributed by a player that retired... that is, nothing. That doesn't make sense, so please correct me.

If player B just hung around and just accumulated counting stats for years without contributing more than a average player, it should barely, if at all, help his case for the hall.

The reason I asked is because Jim Rice has a career OPS+ of 128, with 4 years above 140. I'm assuming the career numbers are too low for consideration? What is the minimum standard for career OPS+, if you're going to make one?

We may start seeing 40+ games from Kobe again.

6 teams in the West are separated by 2 games at the top.

Lakers should at least make the playoffs provided they dont completely tank without Bynum.

Shawn Livingston and Elton Brand send their regards.

Just getting rid of Smush had to be worth 5-6 wins.

I think the Lakers will be okay. They'll get into the playoffs. Hopefully Kwame can stay healthy for 8 weeks anyway.

Pods was a piece of work, a very funny man in his own way and always a New Yorker. Not only did he teach many Dodgers the devastating chage-up (Pedro!) but more importantly he taught me how to bet at the dog track with our "coin"--that being the daily allowance players and coaches received (not business managers!). So we played the puppies as he liked to say. He also knew where all the good Eye-talian places were to eat whether we were in Orlando, Tampa, or Tempe, AZ.

I don't think I ever saw him again after I drove him to the airport in Phoenix during the Dodgers winter meetings so he could catch a flight to Philly to interview for the pitching coach job. That year he had been a roving minor league instructor and I think he wanted a shot at the big time again. He asked me, "Eric what should should I do if they offer it to me?" "Pods," I replied, "you gotta take it. Think of all the coin you'll have for the track." I remember him laughing at that.

What a year he had in Philly two years later.

A few years later after I was out of baseball, out of the blue, I got a package in the mail from Glen Falls, NY. I opened it and there was a signed 8x10 glossy of Pods in his heyday to "My Friend Eric." That was the kind of guy Pods was. I dug that photo out tonight and showed my 11 year old son and told him a few stories about my buddy Pods and the laughs we had, including the lunch Pods and I ate one day in Kissimmee on the bleachers with HIS buddy Sandy.

And thus the cycle of history begins again as my 11 year old Dodger fan son, who's never seen a live Dodgers game, connects with a guy his Dad once knew and who played with Jackie and the Duke.

RIP Pods. Thanks for making my time in baseball memorable. And don't spend it all at the OTB in heaven.