Neat to see Andruw's (ahem) blog, and great to see some classy comments on that posting, including from Braves fans. Look forward to more.

So, no need to switch to the zone defense yet?

1 how'd you're soccer game go? the US U-23 team beat Panama. Frankly, they should call it Adu and Some Other Jerks.

The Baseball Prospectus 2008 handbook got a little face time on Leno. Followed by a steroid joke. Someday, somebody's going to tell a funny steroid joke, and it'll all have been worth it.

2 So far we have gone 2 days with no problems at the tournament. I pad my odds by giving him rides to the train station for his trip home.

2 - Still in a holding pattern.

As an Arizona fan this has probably been the most frustrating Pac-10 season to watch. It's disheartening to see the Lopez twins absolutely dominate the low-post against them. It's frustrating that every team besides Oregon State is a tough game. Playing against USC and Oregon was never fun because either team could go on a ridiculous streak and make you look silly. Then there's the unenviable task of having to play UCLA (my alma mater) and knowing that most of the time they're just toying with you.

Whoever doesn't think the Pac-10 is stronger than it's been in years hasn't watched enough games.

6
It's just as exciting as a cycle alert for me!

As Dodger49 pointed out in the last thread, Dylan Hernandez writes:
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. Kemp and Jones played a game of rock-paper-scissors in front of their wooden lockers in the cramped and dark Dodgers' clubhouse, and Kemp won.

but in the Gurnick column:
Torre said that he was leaving it up to Jones and Matt Kemp to decide who plays center field and who is the designated hitter on Saturday, with the players swapping roles on Sunday. Kemp said that he will start the first game in center after a high-powered decision meeting with Jones in the clubhouse. "We did paper, rock, scissors, and I won," Kemp said.

I hope Gurnick is wrong, otherwise we'll be hearing more about how Kemp doesn't have respect for veterans. ;)

1 Don't worry, pretty soon I'll be over there to demonstrate why I'm the poster child for what is wrong with blogs by polluting that site by contributing nothing.

Interesting conjecture from an ItD (Rawitch) commenter.

... though I guess that we'll see him [Kershaw] pull a 2006 Chad Billingsley--come out to LA for the exhibition games in LA, go back to Las Vegas, and get called back sometime in June/July.
Posted by: leekfink@yahoo.com

Kershaw in an L.A. exhibition game? The thought hadn't crossed my mind.

8 You would have been on overload in my household.

One of the sources did say, however, that the Dodgers have interest in infielder Willie Harris, who has a .407 on-base percentage this spring.

(Posted without comment, other than to note that this is very unreliable dude over at mlb.com.)

http://tinyurl.com/yuarc7

6 The DC satellite office is excited!

So, if today's the day, will you go with "Pi" or "Pye"?

Back down to Defcon 2.

Those are really joyful, wonderful quotes from Matt Kemp. What a pleasure to read them.

16
Whew! I had kept typing the numbers in every 108 minutes. You would think that helped.

Just taking advantage of the time zone, sometimes I start a Joe Posnanski and I get derailed by something or find that I just don't have it in me to take on an undertaking of such scope. That happened with this one, http://tinyurl.com/25bwkh , which I saw a bit ago but never read. A friend just pointed me to it, for the fun of reading his imaginary conversation between a blogger and the baseball establishment, which takes place in a world here the establishment has since time immemorial used OBP to measure offensive performance and the blogger is trying to introduce this newfangled stat, "batting average."

13 "unreliable" indeed, as Willie Harris is primarily an outfielder, and I'm sure we're lookiing for more outfielders.

20 Yeah, here's a blog post discussing that writer's statement in a recent mailbag that this year "Zimmerman will hit over .300 with 40 home runs and 120 RBIs."

http://tinyurl.com/295yx6

3 At least give Jozy some credit.

Last couple of spots in the 2nd Friends of DT H2H fantasy yahoo league is still open.

H2H league
ID: 138325
pw: monkey
draft date 3/22 730pm

19 Another amazing piece.

I really hope that Andruw Jones doesn't rent a bike to ride the streets of Beijing. The drivers are crazy there and the rules of the road are not what we are use to. Bicycles and pedestrians have very little rights on the road. I was scared just crossing the street in a crosswalk with a green light. The cars turning, hoards of bikes, mopeds and other motorized vehicles all had the right of way. It's like an organized chaos. On top of that he'd probably get lost and worn out because the city is huge and the Olympic stadium is far away from a lot of the good stuff. He could probably get to the Summer Palace in 2-3 hours. Just go to the Great Wall with the rest of the guys. Before my first trip, I thought about doing the same thing, but once you are there, forget it!

vr, Xei

We cancelled our Dish Network subscription to free up the budget for the baby, but when Dish sent me the box to return the DVR, it included instructions saying I must remove a component of the satellite too. Has anyone encountered this in the past? It seems odd that they would have a technician install the dish on the side of my house, and now they want me to climb up on the roof to fiddle with their product.

Can't seem to find today's Florida line-up.

26
What they're really telling you is that you shouldn't have had a baby and kept your satellite dish.

Priorities today!!!

I'm trying to picture Rick Monday staring down a tank in Tiananmen Square.

wanted to run it by the irony police before i make fun...

old lady is going on a cruise next month, she found out last night that my ex will be on the same cruise and found out this morning that her ex will be on the cruise and just claimed it to be ironic.

i'm pretty sure that is not ironic at all, am i right?

30 - I don't think it's ironic, but it sure sounds strange.

28

I know; I definitely wasn't thinking ahead on that one. The funny thing is that when I called to cancel I asked about the satellite and they said I would not have to touch it. But then the customer service guy said it was in the contract. I came back with, "that is an interesting customer service move to have your customers go up to an expensive piece of product that you had a professional install" Then again I guess the key is that I am an ex customer...so who cares about me?

30

That just sounds like a horrible coincidence and a setup for awkward circumstances

Is this a tv plot?

Oh, good interview with Michael Schur

http://royalsblog.kansascity.com/?q=node/35

1 you don't think that's really andruw blogging?

finally 2 games i can watch this weekend, i'm giddy.

35 underdog was subtly pointing out the typo in the post. But by calling attention to it, I have now made it obvious.

"Disk Error Read Occurred"

I now loathe that phrase

33 ya really weird

you're not going to believe this one, there are 5, 6 team leagues leagues on friday nights. every team has to start in the lowest and work their way up (winner of each "round" moves up, worst record moves down) we got up to the top league after 5 rounds. our first game in the top league we lost 16-0, that's the first time i've ever been witness to a shut-out on either side of a softball game. have you ever seen one?

Nope, never seen a shutout. I have seen the weird tie breaker where you choose your three batters for the inning and it is total bases against total bases.

I just found out yesterday that the Softball league in pasadena through MLS has a free agent listing where you can post your info to play. The managers can look at it throughout the season and can draft you if they need someone. I am tempted.

40 through MLS?

I will get to see the Padres' broadcast of the China game tonight, followed by the Dodgers' broadcast tomorrow night.

Should be an interesting compare & contrast.

38 Last year my team was pretty dominant. We won every game and by a lot of runs. We beat a team 36-0 (the umpire said for some reason that the mercy rule didn't apply, or that there wasn't one, I don't remember). Then this team beat us in the championship game. Horrible memories.

Anyway, I've only played softball for one year, but guys who had been playing for a lot of years told me it was the first they'd been involved in.

3. You can thank Nowak for not bringing Bradley or Feilhaber who are regulars with the senior team.

30 It's a "Love, American Style" vignette! "Love and the Ex-es".

43 ya i've been playing for almost 5 years, first i saw even in co-ed.

anyone who plays softball will enjoy this (sfw)
http://tinyurl.com/37eeds

42 From Josh Rawitch's blog:
Friday night at 10:05 p.m., turn on KCAL and Saturday night at the same time, tune into FSN Prime Ticket. As it currently stands, Friday will be the audio live from Rick Monday and Charley Steiner, while Saturday will be Steve Lyons and Kevin Kennedy from the studio in LA.
Kevin actually emailed me a bit ago to say that he was one of the coaches that came over here in 1984 when the Dodgers conducted the first clinics in China.

Guess we'll get a variant of the "when I was a manager" shtick (schtick?).

26 When I moved to grandma's house a few years back, I did the dish mover thing. I took my boxes but left the actual dish at my parents house. The Dish Network folks put a new dish up at my grandma's house.

A couple of months later, my brother moved in with me and we decided to switch to Direct. The guy who installed our direct system took down the dish. I was kind of shocked that they wanted the piece back that you are talking about.

The Dish network dish is still up at my parents house (which is actually now my house), including the receiver part of the dish.

Well, those of you who had the over in your Jason Schmidt pool can double down, as far as I'm concerned ...

http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/prosports/2008/03/about_schmidt_and_his_disabled.html

47
That's classic. I think references to his coaching/managing career to Kevin Kennedy is like oxygen for the rest of us.

As much as I don't like Rick Monday, I'd rather listen to Monday/Steiner than Kennedy/Lyons.

49 sounds like fresturation.

46 I'm a mixture of angry young guy and fat guy, except I never thought I was good in (never even played until after) high school, and I don't hate my wife. Essentially what I'm telling you is that I'm a fat jerk who really likes to play softball and really wants to win.

3 Well, since you were kind to ask, I scored a goal! Which is pretty rare for me, a backer who stays back much of the time. And I almost scored another. Just call me Jozy Underdorg. And we still lost. First game of the new season. vs. probably the best team in the league. Unfair scheduling.

36 Yep.

52

The only time I get angry is when the umpire calls me out on a close play at second from his vantage point behind home plate, or when he misses a play at home because he is talking it up with some spectator. Hilarious!

41

Major League Softball, basically an org that handles the fees, registration and rules of the game for a particular city.

Good to see that Saito is ready to pitch and on track - barring setback - for opening day. And Abreu is going to play a bit, before Jeff Kent does even!

25 I guess everyone's experience is different but when I lived in China I felt safer on a bike there than here. It takes a little bit of getting used to but they have bike lanes (I did see a cement mixer in the bike lane once but at least he was going the right way) and lots of people riding them. You have to be alert all the time and forget about traffic lights (aka suggestions) but a professional athlete should have no trouble. I think he would have a great time.

Speaking of the Olympic qualifying soccer games, what's with those sparse crowds in Tampa? It's like watching a closed practice or something. Pretty sad. Very different at the Home Depot Center in LA, of course, especially when Mexico plays. Too bad the US isn't playing their games there. Maybe Nashville will be a better environment, for the semis.

56. What year and what city. Beijing has tons of cars now. Even in my wife's hometown of ~1Mil (considered a small city) I would be worried about riding a bicycle in town. The hard part is knowing the rules of the road. Perhaps if you lived there and got use to them it would be better. I've seen some really wierd stuff pedestrian and bicycle wise. I've seen whole families on one bicycle riding in the middle of the street with cars wizzing by on both sides and they think nothing of it. I only saw one head slit open and that was a moped rider. And there's no car insurance, so good luck getting your millions if you end up being the road kill. The only place in Beijing I would feel half way safe riding a bike is in the Hutongs (old alley ways), which are an amazing place by the way.
vr, Xei

25 "organized chaos"? It sounds like just regular old chaos, disorganized by definition. I'm having a hard time understanding what "organized chaos" would be.

59. haha, "organized chaos" is my own terminology to describe the traffic patterns in China. To an outsider like me, it is complete chaos. But to them there is an organization to it. It's amazing that so many cars, bicycles, pedestrians, motorized vehicles and sometimes even animals can share one road without having more serious accidents. Therefore, the term "organized chaos". Now if you go to Manila it is just plain old "chaos".

vr, Xei

58 Tianjin in 04-05. Beijing is so close (70 minutes on the train for about $4) I visited there alot. My daughter (she was around 10 then) and her friends would ride in Tianjin. I never heard of anyone getting hurt.

BTW, years ago the Dodgers built a baseball stadium (seats maybe 3,000 on concrete benches) in Tianjin. I went to see a pro game (playoff game) between Beijing and Tianjin. They were not very good.

60 There really is a pattern to the traffic. It's different than here but once you "get it" it's pretty safe.

Should the be called the "St. Louis Cardinal" from now on?

http://bensonpebbles.blogspot.com/2008/03/whats-in-name-mlb.html

63
The team quickly switched to the bird moniker and they have had the "birds on a bat" logo since Branch Rickey started working for the team.

I wonder how Beijing will manage to get rid of all its smog/pollution for the Olympics. Bring in the world's largest vacuum cleaner?

I have to admit, "The Gothams" would have been a pretty cool name, since I'm a Batman fan.

62. "Pretty safe" is a relative term. My strategy was, wait until a couple of other people were going to cross the street and then just stand in the middle of them and cross with them. That way if I was going to be road kill, I was going to take a few of the locals with me. I think it would make a better news story that way. If the Dodgers let their $33Million dollar superstar roam the streets of Beijing on a bicycle I would be shocked. All traffic has patterns, the patterns in Beijing and most of China is not very safe. For example if traffic is clogged the cars will create their own lanes. They will drive on the shoulder or the median, or even on the other side of the road if they think they can dart through quick enough to avoid head coming traffic. One time I was crossing the street in a cross-walk, with a green light. Traffic was all clogged up and cars were blocking the cross-walk. I was carrying my 1-1/2 year old at the time. I had to weave in between the cars, as they were stopped. I started to walk in front of one car, with a young couple in it. The car in front of them moved up about 5 feet as I passed in front of them. The guy darted up and almost hit us. He quickly became accustomed to a popular American hand gesture. It's just not safe, even to cross the street. Andruw Jones riding a bike in that environment is just a dumb idea imo.
vr, Xei

65 Like in Spaceballs?

65. Temporarily close down all/most of the coal factories (good luck with that, there are tons of them) and limit the number of (non taxi, bus) cars on the roadway. I will believe it when I see it. I've seen the blue sky maybe once in all my time there. Usually it is so dirty you can barely make out the skyline from a mile a way. It's a shame because it makes taking pictures at some of the outdoor venues not even worthwhile. I hope they can do it, and hope they make some of the improvements permanent.
vr, Xei

The Astros also went from Colt .45s to Colts because the people who made Colts were threatening a trademark infringement suit. Astros was just easier all around.

Pierre LF
Furcal SS
Sweeney1B
Martin C
Dewitt 3B
Young RF
Repko CF
DeJesus2B
Loiaza P

Watch behind you, infielders!

NPUT

Every single thing I read about Andruw Jones--from playing RPS with Matt Kemp to the excitement of visiting China even though he's (gasp!) a veteran--makes me think whatever money the Dodgers gave him is worth it.

In addition to the possibility that he may hit 40 home runs this year, I believe he could also serve as a crucial link between guys like Kemp and Loney to Kent and Garciaparra.

I don't see too many Braves fans wishing JD Drew well...