The Penguin has hit the big 6-0?? Yikes, just the thing to make me feel my age. Thanks a lot, Jon. ;-)

I saw a picture of Russell Martin & Dylan Hernandez wasn't joking (the guy looks AWESOME) happy B-Day to ItD as well.

Continuing the "letter of the law" discussion from previous thread...

Here is the actual NBA rule regarding leaving the bench:

"During an altercation, all players not participating in the game must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench. Violators will be suspended, without pay, for a minimum of one game and fined up to $35,000. The suspensions will commence prior to the start of their next game"

When Duncan came on the court, it wasn't during an altercation (according to the NBA). Also, Duncan was a few feet from the bench, whereas Stoudemire and Diaw were, according to Stu Jackson, "about 20 to 25 feet away from their seats", and during an altercation.

The diving catch of the soft pop up along the third base line during the '81 Series will always be one of my most exciting Dodger memories.
Happy Birthday, Penguin!

This book might be of interest to some. I like the acronym, anyway:

Start Winning Again with HOGWOG: The New System for Assigning Value to Baseball Hitters by James D. Welty

http://www.startwinningagain.com/

{5} Was it published by the HOGWOG Academy?

Per ItD, the television schedule has been published. Looks like the games in China won't be broadcast out here (not even on MLB.tv). That seems peculiar. The Coliseum game will be, though.

Darn! Lat'd again, and I thought it was pretty good.

7 - I think that was just the KCAL/FSN sked. Since the Feb. 29 game wasn't on it, at least on the release I got.

7 - I think that was just the KCAL/FSN sked. Since the Feb. 29 game wasn't on it, at least on the release I got.

5
This is from page 3 of the preview:

"Michael Lewis' Moneyball is an enjoyable novel..."

Okay

I suspect the acronym should be HOGWASH

I like the early days of spring training because of all the funky matchups going on. Next week we get...

Michigan at NY Mets
Miami Florida at Florida
Manatee at Pittsburgh
Georgia at Atlanta
Georgetown at Washington
Boston College at Boston
Northeastern at Boston
U of South Florida at NY Yankees
Mexico at Colorado

and, most interestingly, the battle over abbreviation:
Saint Louis at St. Louis

11 I can't remember what paper it was in, but I was reading some newspaper article the other day where the writer described an event as being "like something out of Freud's novels."

The website schedule shows the 2/29 game, as well as the 3/6 game, plus opening day on ESPN. Then it has some KCAL ST games. The regular season schedule only shows the Fox games, plus one (5/27) ESPN game. Anyway, I hope they'll show the games in China.

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=la&m=3&y=2008

I don't care whether they show the games in China. I just hope they show them here. ;)

16 Good one.

16- Racist.

Russell Martin - 295/380/480

Martin on Kuroda, in Gurnick's new article:
"He was throwing harder than I thought he would," said Russell Martin. "And he told [Brad] Penny he was only throwing at 60 percent. He had a nice two-seamer that complements his slider, and he showed good command of his splitty, which he says he likes to throw in the dirt. This is going to be fun."
http://tinyurl.com/335ya5

I hope Russell has A LOT of fun catching Kuroda.

If everything goes as planned I'm thinking Russell Martin will hit a few more long balls & have slightly better overall #"s in '08. I swear the guy is everything you want in a player.

Eric Cyr?!

Sorry, I'm still made about the Sporting News (as posted in the last thread.)

As you were.

mad, not made. This isn't GoodFellas.

I'm going home.

"Ron Cey (60)."

Well that just capped off my week. I was so happy, but now...

Well, bittersweet is the mood of most baseball fans, especially of the Dodgers'. It's time for emotional spring training.

Thanks for the link Dave. Hey you guys think the Dodgers & more importantly Vinny will want to return for the '09 season? I really hope the Dodgers Ink him for a few more years.

I don't understand why we ever signed Eric Cyr to begin with. He's useless as a ballplayer, less than useless as a human being, and singlehandedly refutes Colletti's and McCourt's stance that "character matters."

The Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri is called
"Saint Louis" I believe to accentuate it's Catholic affiliation and not appear to be a state school. But the local paper in the Mound City NEVER uses "Saint Louis." It is always St. Louis U or SLU.
It is such an odd city. I'm glad my folks left.

26 But how can you say that about our second best pitching project!*

(*courtesy of TSN baseball preview)

26 Brian Shackleford resents that.

Nice writeup in the LA Times on Andruw Jones:

Home of the ex-Brave

http://tinyurl.com/2vdebk

Hello DodgerThought family, I have been lurking for years now and have really enjoyed all the comments and insights about a game we all love. I cannot thank John enough for putting this blog together and all of the people who post here. I grew up and went to uni in Santa Barbara until I met my Australian wife and off to Oz I went. I thought I was giving up all thing baseball, until I found DodgerThoughs and mlb TV. Now my love for all thing baseball (Dodgers) has been taken to a new level. An article John posted a year or so ago about a man in his fifties still pitching and enjoying baseball, inspired me to find a league here. Last year I played coemptive baseball for the first time in 12 years and we won the championship. It was the first for the club in 17 years. The best thing about playing ball is when my 3yo son told some friends of my wife's "my papa plays baseball". Playing ball also led me to find people in OZ who love the game as much as I do. And to my surprise there are few hundred-baseball clubs in the state of Victoria alone. Down here autumn is just right around the corner but for me spring is coming. The boys of summer are almost here and I know that the warmth of Vin's voice will always get me through the long winter. Well enough my rambling. Once again thank you John and DodgerThought family for bringing the game to me down here and hope to see some of you in June at dodger stadium when I am back home visiting family. GO DODGERS! And I will be wearing my new DodgerThought T-Shirt.

Australia? He's speaking to us from the future! He's seen Saturday!

Welcome aboard!

I love the fact that there are worldwide readers of Dodger Thoughts. Simply fantastic.

1) another addition and a welcome one.

2) Jon not John:0)

Now my latest rant. The guy gave us an A-(which was still in his grand slam region) but slapped us off-side the head for not stripping our farm systen to get a starter on this years market. Well lets see how Koruda's results compare with Haren and Bedard.(Of course if we don't play the young players we develop, we might as well trade them for people like Baez and Hendricksen who we can buy out and be rid of it all).

Idle thought: since the Giants have already announced Zito then Cain for the first two starts of the season, could it be a Lincecum / Billingsley matchup in game 3? I imagine Torre wanting to start Penny and Lowe - either order - in the first two games. The Bay Area Branch of DT might have a gathering for that game, eh?

35 The Bay Area Branch of DT might have a gathering for that game, eh?

That games is at Dodger Stadium and on a Wednesday night. I'd expect them to choose a weekend game to come down here.

That game

34 I'll bet that Haren and Bedard are better than Kuroda this year.

31 - Welcome, and great story. I'm forwarding your comment to Kevin Bronson.

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/578764.html

A little bit of blog-whoring, but looks like the Register is thinking about pulling the plug on their Dodgers coverage:

http://6-4-2.blogspot.com/2008/02/kiss-registers-dodgers-coverage-bye-bye.html

Infield sleepers:

First basemen

James Loney, Los Angeles Dodgers

http://msn.foxsports.com/fantasy/story/7786550

Back to the last thread, but the silliest thing about the Heat-Hawks do-over sans Shaq is this:

The reason for the do-over was that Shaq was incorrectly removed from the game when his fouls were miscounted. So now they'll make up for that by playing the last few minutes of the game without Shaq. Since the new acquisitions are not allowed to play, that means that they'll play the do-over with exactly the same roster as they were mistakenly forced to use last time.

Life is funny.

42
I thought it was funny when I brought it up the first time here also.

I look at things that are and say "Why?" and "How Come?" and "I don't think that will work." I look at things that may be and say the same thing as I say when I look things that are.

40 - I noticed Tony Jackson appearing on the Register site this week.

31
I spent two years in Melbourne as a missionary. I had no access to the internet (or any other news, for that matter), so it was a completely baseball-free period of my life. Right before I came back to the States, somebody told me the Marlins had just won the World Series, and I thought he was joking.

I came home to find out that Eric Gagne, a mediocre starter whom I had booed at the last game I attended before I left, had won the Cy Young.

45
Are you sure you weren't trapped on an island with a lot of people with father issues, a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, a fat guy who had won the lottery, and numerous hot looking women?

43. Sorry, Bob. I knew there'd been discussion about how it was dumb to replay the thing given that the Heat were without Shaq. I guess I just missed the link to the irony that the reason for the protest was Shaq's unfair absence.

Or, just as likely, I noticed the discussion of the irony, maybe even contributed to said discussion, but forgot about it.

One nice thing about getting older - one can come up with the same clever idea over and over again, and be surprised by it each time.

It's been a long week...

47
It's OK. I blame Billy Joel for all this.

Anyone catch the Daily Show? The introductory bit on the ludicrous Clemens vs McNamee steroids hearing was spot-on and hilarious. And my g/f had already said, after watching just a few clips of the hearing, "Why is Clemens licking his lips so much?" I said maybe it's a side effect of steroid use. But then it was priceless to have Stewart go off on that nervous habit ("if you're ever playing poker against Clemens, let me give you some advice. If you see him lick his lips, it's a tell.") Anyway, good stuff.

Oh, and welcome to our newest Aussie commenter! When did you grow up in Sta Barbara? I'm from there, as well.

47 I don't think you need to apologize for coming up with something that Bob had already posted about. That's like feeling bad because a computer can do math faster than you.

10 things to watch in spring training

2. The two Joes:

>> The expectations are enormous, and the Dodgers' front office is factionalized. Torre no doubt will give his best, but his transition probably will be more difficult than he imagined. <<

http://tinyurl.com/29tdlh

51 Yeah, that was really exciting to read.

But then, Ken R. seems (at least to me) to be a bit pessimistic toward the Dodgers.

31
Nice to have another Gaucho around and another Aussie (I am part Australian, but I am part a lot of things).

I wonder what country our next international Dodger fan will come from.

I am going with Spain.

38 Reg, you are likely right, but the question is how much better. Each was obtained with a measurable portion of their farm systems strength. I am saying we may have gotten a close amount of pitching in another way. Now if we only figured out how to get some value out of using or trading those farm assetts. Sigh.

50
Actually, I was just using the event as an excuse to make a poor very parody of a famous saying by Robert F. Kennedy.

"One negative is their continuing reticence to consider trading any prospects; in a year when three top-of-the-line starters were traded, the team with the best farm system got none of them."

http://tinyurl.com/2emrqx

Apparently it's a bad thing we have a plan to rebuild through young players without giving them away for a potential torn shoulder and 136 million extension.

And the team with the best farm system can't figure out how to play them.
Even the media seems resentful for the small market teams.

Boy, Tot Holmes isn't quite a "tot". Saw his picture for the first time.
http://dodgers.scout.com/2/729415.html

But they've posted their ratings of the top 50 Dodger prospects in full there today; worth checking out.

In other news, "Father of the Bride II", "Heartbreak Ridge" and "Firefox" are now apparently American Movie Classics. (They did show "The Player" today, too, though. And Letters from Iwo Jima tomorrow night, so I'll cut them some slack.)

AMC used to play the straight to horror film, "Pinata: Survival Island."

59 They did show "The Player" today, too, though.

Juan Pierre is an American Movie Classic?

51 - Rosenthal is usually pretty good, but you do wonder where he gets this stuff from. On the other hand, 2007.

Happy birthday to Russell Ron & ITD.

There was a great story on NPR the other day about problems with unnamed sources. Many on this site have far more journalistic experience than I do, I also understand the difference between pundantry and straight news reporting.

It may make a great deal of sense to state directly that it is probably a bit difficult for Torre to come to a new league and manage at the age of 67. There is some basic logic behind that statement. However, to say that this year's Dodger "front office is factionalized", and offer not one shred of evidence that this is the case makes me yawk!

We all know about last year's problems, but has anybody else heard anything about this year's front office being split into factions? Rosenthal didn't even explain what the factions are or who is representing what side!

31-It is a very lovely day in the future, but sorry to say JP is still wearing BLUE
34-thank you and yes sorry JON.
45-when I started to get good Internet access down here it was a few days before mike piazza was traded. I shed a tear and then could make a coherent thought for a few days, my wife could not understand what I was on about and I had no one to share my sadness with. Very sad times. I hope you had a chance to explore Melbourne. It is a truly wonderful city.
49-I was a 3rd generation local. I grew up just off Hollister AVE. near San Marcos high school. I went to San Marcos for a year then finished up in Lompoc High. Then back home to go to Brooks Inst. The rest is history, but when I go back to SB to visit friends and family I really do get home sick. Love to live there again but I have to make a living. I would love to own business there like my family did. It is just too hard to do that any more with all of the big business around.
53-I am not a gaucho but I loved to have fun in IV. As a kid my friends and I use to sneak into the red barn for some live music. I also loved to surf campus point, tar pit and devro. I would almost say I am more form Goleta and SB.
And here is a link to the last out of my grand final. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uBV3d_mro

51 Given how off-base Rosenthal was over the winter and especially at the Winter Meetings, I have real trouble taking him seriously. "The front office is factionalized." What does that even mean? Ned leads the Sharks and Kim the Jets?

I'm off to play golf for the first time in 6 months. This could be brutal.

as for Rosenthal, when you say something that fractious, you have to back it up or you look like an imbecile.

Joel Guzman has fallen all the way to #29 on the Rays' prospect list. BA's scouting report calls his approach apatethic, which means things haven't changed since he was traded.

65 My brother lives in Melbourne now.

Have the Dodgers released a promotional schedule yet?

I've been looking and I can't seem to find it.

65 The Grand Final link is great fun. What position were you playing?

70 If your brother plays ball have him e mail my baseball club northbalwynbc@yahoo.com. I am the younger american on the team.
72 I started the game at 1st and finished in left field.