"We didn't score until my boy, Andre Ethier, hit a solo home run into right-center field. I love his sweet, left-handed swing."

Tommy proves he's still "with it," using such slang as "my boy."

Right on, my man.

My dad called me "my boy" when he was proud of me. When he wasn't, then he talked to my mother about "your son."

I thought all parents did that.

Pitbull? I guess you can't teach an old dog a new animal.
vr, Xei

4
Would you prefer "Staffordshire Terrier?"

"Pit Bull is a term commonly used to describe several types of dogs with similar physical characteristics. Its use in media is often vague and rarely descriptive of specific breeds. There are several physically similar breeds that are often termed "pit bull" in English speaking countries, including the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Perro de Presa Canario, Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino, Alano Espanol, Japanese Tosa, Dogue de Bordeaux, Cordoba Fighting Dog, Bull Terrier, Antebellum Bulldog, Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, American Bulldog, Boxer (dog), Valley Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge, Renascence Bulldogge, and Banter Bulldogge. These breeds are usually not included by name in any Breed-Specific Legislation (see below), but are sometimes included because of a broad definition and confusion as to what a pit bull actually is."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_Bull

Chad Billingsley, Dogue de Bordeaux?

5/7. I prefer not to call him a dog (not very original). Unless it's a famous one like Clifford, Benji or Old Yeller (Bowa).
vr, Xei

9 How about Snoopy?

10. Snoopy is fine.
vr, Xei

Actually, I'm quite happy that Tommy is an Ethier fan, and I hope he's made that clear to the McCourts.

Last night I had to try and explain what the deal was with Stanford's mascot, my friend asked me what is that supposed to be, I said a tree, he then asked why a tree and I said well, their old mascot was an Indian (I believe) and that all changed so now they are a tree.

He seemed to take my explanation and we moved on.

ken don't say anything about how loaiza is pitching today.

i am encouraged about loaiza. hopefully he can keep it up so kershaw and schmidt aren't rushed.

Does anybody have any good insight on a sleeper pick for a catcher? It was a position that I largely overlooked on draft day and now I'm stuck starting John Buck (I'm beginning to think his power surge last year was a fluke). I still have the option of picking up the following backstops: Yorvit Torreabla, Yadier Molina, Kurt Suzuki and our old friend Paul Loduca. What should I do?

3 I'm sure they do, but now you have me picturing Tommy Lasorda on Cloud City telling Andre that he is Andre's father in what would be an incredibly shocking revelation.

Keep Bills away from Michael Vick.

15. Draft a new team. :)
Probably best to wait a few weeks into the season and pick up whichever available catcher is the hottest. It's pretty much a lose/lose situation for improvement.
vr, Xei

13 Palo Alto = Tall Tree.

Well, the Kerhsaw video has been officially removed from YouTube for copyright infringment. Congratulations, MLB. You win this round of own-foot-shooting.

18 Thats what I thought but in a keeper league I'll take the rest of my young talent including: Loney, Kemp, Bills, Pence, Wright, Kendrick, Cain. I'm figuring I probably won't win this season but should be a force next year. BTW do we have any further insight into the OF situation? Are Kemp's ABs going to be compromised in a platoon with Ethier?

20 i meant to ask you about that today

nice to see russ get off the schnide, and dewitt draws a walk. i'm slowly become a dewitt fan, i hope he starts in AAA

20. It was left up a pretty long time, right? I think they got plenty of pub out of it. win/win situation. They got some publicity and still kept to their copyright principles. Kind of frustrating from a fans viewpoint, but if it were our copyrighted material that was out there without permission...
vr, Xei

Apologies if this question has been offered before, but....

Does anyone have any preferences/thoughts about fantasy baseball rankings? Which site has the best? What websites are regularly consulted as the season progresses?

I'm in a fantasy league for the first time, and don't want to make a fool of myself.

14 I've learned my lesson, thanks.

21. According to Tony Jackson they will, according to almost everyone else not much.
Good luck with your league.
vr, Xei

if we get get a 4.24 era (combination of '06 and '05) of loaiza, you may argue that 7 million is actually a bargain.

24. For simple cheat sheets for a beginner I'd look into the ADP (Average Draft Position) rankings from...
1) Mock Draft Central, 2) ESPN, 3) Yahoo
and keep up with the latest news from RotoTimes and RotoWorld and some of the fantasy forums like Fantasy Baseball Cafe and Roto Junkie. I would even try giving my Draft Software a stab.
MLBMockDraftSoftware.blogspot.com
for free download.

vr, Xei

26 thank you good luck in yours as well, are you going with roto or h2h, keeper?

23 - True, true. But for the record, MLB has my permission to excerpt 25 seconds worth of Dodger Thoughts on all its broadcasts.

30
Ross Porter used to read whole entries on the air.

Lasorda also praises Andre Ethier, among others. And you can see a lovely picture of his wife... here.

Drat! I thought you meant we'd be seeing a pic of Ethier's gymnastics-star wife.

---

I had a lot of fun with the Lakers Road Trip Preview graphic on Lakers.com.

See how they came up with pictures to represent New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, and Utah?

http://www.lakers.com

if you take him at is word that he was really uncomfortable during his first ST outing since than
0.90 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 9 K and 3 BB in 10 IP

and if you take his word that his knee was bothering him last year.

i'm optomistic he can be a low 4's guy this year, or i'm just setting myself up for disappointment

33 Probably jut setting yourself up for disappointment, but if you can't be optimistic in March, when can you be?

It's a good thing the Kershaw video was pulled--people need to get the message that baseball is cool from Nomar vans, and magic toast. Maybe the creepy bobblehead family can come back for a spot in which they all tell us how awesome Kershaw's curveball is. That way, the message gets out without anyone's having to actually look at baseball.

ToyCannon's favorite player in this photo is the one on the right:

http://tinyurl.com/2qmvbj

Andy LaRoche's favorite is in picture #5.

Oh,Chiball!

Glad to see a positive comment on Tommy on here! :)

Broxton and Martin are the scouts pick.
http://tinyurl.com/2nbyll

I despise Larry Bowa which is why I wish he wasn't wearing a helmet. The fact he's wearing Dodger Blue just bugs me. My only hope is that he and Jeff Kent go off on each other but I'm sure the likely scenario is him going off on the kids. I'm sure his comments on D Young did wonders for D Youngs confidence.

41 I'm with you on Bowa. His comments about Young really rankled me.

41 42 Techincally, Bowa was right -- Young is not an everyday player. But I would agree that he was a little harsh.

43 It wasn't the "everyday" part; it was the implication that he wasn't doing his part. He basically called him out.

So if Russell Martin hits a 3-run homer and we don't comment on it, did it really happen?

44 - For me, it was a complete lack of acknowledgement - at least in the part that got printed - that up to this year, Young hadn't been playing second base in two or three years.

But my guess is that Bowa was trying to light a fire, not destroy confidence. Whether that works or not, I guess, depends on Young's fortitude.

I have renamed Tommy Lasorda the PastaDog®.

45 see 22

48
Existential crisis ended.

the picture makes me laugh (SFW)
http://tinyurl.com/ysk8sq

I'm thinking Yhency Brazoban's not doing much to help make his case for the opening day 'pen.

50 Nice 'stache.

And neither is Mike Myers, for that matter. I wish they'd given Meloan more of a chance this spring. Guess they want him to get more work in, including some starts, down in the minors.

40 There is another Dodger in first place in the complete list.

54 Didn't Juan Pierre have a bad bunting year or something last year?

Jon's video of Kershaw has fans in the right places.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/03/post-6.html

I'm beginning to get accustomed to the story-line Dodgers lead, non roster pitcher loses late in game. At least thats unlikely to happen in the regular season.

55 When you can bunt bloop doubles over the 3B's head, how bad can you be?

Seriously, JP lays down good sacrifice bunts, but he doesn't appear to be very good, from what I've seen, at attempting bunt hits.

Memphis' John Calipari unleashed the stream-of-consciousness: "You have North Carolina because they've got the inside-outside game. Kansas, who I think is off the chain. Kansas is ridiculous. We played Tennessee; talk about a ridiculous team because of how they play and shoot threes. They could make 15 threes in a game, and I'm talking bad threes. They shoot it and it goes. Georgetown, because of [Roy] Hibbert and [Jonathan] Wallace. Then Louisville, they play that zone to perfection and have [David] Padgett, who I think has had an All-America year. I'm leaving out UCLA. I just hope they don't get calls in the tournament like they're getting now. If they get calls like that they're going all the way. Then Texas, because of guard play. That combination of guards may be the best in the country. And it could be Stanford because of the two big kids [the Lopez twins]. Connecticut is playing better, too. There are probably eight or nine teams [to beat]."

I hate Calipari even more now, which I did not even think was possible.

I'm with several of ya'll about Bowa's comments today. The media makes it like he's just some wonderful guy, but as usual, the media misses most of the story.

Here's a young guy trying to impress the coaching staff, being asked to do something he hasn't done in several years (play 2B) and he does it well for a while, but the first time he messes up, his jerk of a coach hammers him in the media. How does that help anything?

This organization continues to do everything it can to stunt the growth of our young players. They play them up big when they are miles away from helping (Dewitt), but once they are ready, they put veterans ahead of them, bat them in front of the pitcher so they won't get pitches to hit or do whatever else to make it hard on them to succeed. It's a wonder our young players overcome it all as well as they do.

I'm leaving out UCLA. I just hope they don't get calls in the tournament like they're getting now. If they get calls like that they're going all the way.

I still haven't been convinced that Stanford has the depth to make a long run. But Mitch Johnson nearly had a triple double last night and didn't get a mention in the Times or AP stories, so maybe it's all about perception. Gutty little Cardinal, indeed.

58 If I remember the BP article from last sumer when they were talking about Wily Taveras amazing bunt hit % they showed that Juan Pierre was having a down year percentagely speaking compared to his historical percentage. If true it either means he was very unlucky or he has indeed lost the 1/2 step he needs to turn those bunts into hits.

60
I'm never quite sure if they succeed because of this approach or in spite of it.

Gaaaack

In case anyone's tracking this sort of thing, tomorrow's pitchers for the Dodgers (vs Nationals): Penny, Proctor, Jason Johnson, Saito. Not sure about the order of the 3 relievers. And they will be followed by another NRI pitcher who will lose the game somehow.

Haha that last line pretty much sums up the entire spring.

"Publicity-maven-turned-documentary filmmaker Dan Klores' ode to basketball players and coaches from historically black colleges and universities is obviously a labor of love, but at four commercial-free hours, it's also a somewhat disjointed, overtime affair that would clearly benefit from a tighter focus and a stern editor. There are powerful moments scattered throughout this exhaustive endeavor, chronicling hoops history through segregation, the civil rights movement and nearly until the present day; still, looking over the stats, "Black Magic" too seldom lives up to its name."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117936492.html

66 Ah, I was just borrowing from Gen3's 57 .

looks like tiger's streak is coming to an end this weekend. that's why it's so absurd when people say they'll be surprised if he DOESN'T win the grand slam this year. it will never happen in our lifetime.

69
I would argue he has already won the grand slam, since he held all 4 majors' trophies at once. In most sports I wouldn't think that way, but golf is almost a year round sport so it doesn't have nice little 6-month "seasons" to parse.

69 - It basically already did happen.

I've never liked calipari, either. Always too chewy and rubbery for my taste.

Looks like he's only seven strokes back. Is that not up to date?

72
And calipari from New Jersey never tastes good anyway.

69 i agree with you that should be considered the grand slam, but most people don't. it's hard enough to win the masters, than to follow with 3 more. you have to play perfect golf, get lucky, and hope no one has the tourny of their life.

73 ya if he can cut it to 5 by the end of the round than my cargill ratings put him at 28.2%

Why didn't anyone tell me Spin City was a gateway game? :-)

56

It is the common theme of "tradition" fearing the "contemporary" method of things. It happens in so many facets of life and culture, but we never seem to learn. This seems like an avenue that you could really embrace and use to develop more fans to come out to the ballpark. But enough with the youtube thing, take it off, don't let people get too excited about baseball.

He's got to be deep fried just right.

61
Very bold statement!

78

Just to pose an example of how baseball doesn't "get it" with promotion. I'll tell you folks a quick story.

The other day I was talking with some kids who are students here on campus where I work and somehow the topic of basketball came up. Everybody was talking about how exciting this dunk was or how this team was winning X games in a row.

Now what makes this interesting is the NBA's embrace of technology; you'll notice that a lot of the highlights end up on youtube. Remember when Dwight Howard made that Superman dunk? That set youtube on fire. Did the NBA go in and try to take it off? I don't think so.

Baseball, sometime down the line, is going to have to swallow its pride and try to market the game to the youth of America. Stop starting World Series games at nearly 9pm Eastern Time. Put in a few promos during Sports Center. Show some highlights on youtube to increase publicity. Heck, encourage teams to do their own version of "Baseball Boogie," if you want to.

...but something! Baseball can't simply sit there and chant "If we have baseball they will come."

he's got 5 holes left (no par 5's) still 7 back, and he played those 5 yesterday at +1, i'm sure he'll make me eat my words but 7 shots back going into the weekend looks like a long shot

81- The NBA didn't take it down. They put it up under their own YouTube account.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO3c8EaxsxQ#

Tony Jackson is getting snarky about Delwyn.

Oh man. Apparently anyone can write a newspaper sports column these days. I stumbled across this piece in the Detroit News about Brandon Inge:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/OPINION03/803140439
>>The Dodgers, frankly, are silly not to deal for him. This is a team that could win the National League West, but they aren't going to get any help, offensively or defensively, from playing Rich Aurilia at third base.<<

Two wrongs in a column definitely don't make a right.

So when did the Dodgers merge with the Giants?

85
November 16, 2005

85
Maybe he knows Rich Aurilia will be playing 3rd base for us soon. Great PVL, ex-Giant during Ned's heyday, pals with Kent who is probably lobbying for his old double play partner as we speak.

85
LOL while crying at the same time.

Joe Lunardi has UCLA matched up against Morgan State in the first round.

The Todd Bozeman-coached Morgan State. And when I was on vacation in Europe, I was reading a story about the UCLA basketball team on my BlackBerry and I read "Michigan State" as "Morgan State" and wondered when UCLA had played Morgan State.

I find this all quite disturbing.

85

That is his job to know things like that man oh man

It's a little known fact that when he was younger, Nomar Garciaparra had a part-time job moving sets for the Metropolitan Opera.

read this in one of the linked-to articles from the previous thread:

"The Padres were 189 for 209 throwing out base stealers last year."

Is that somewhere near ridiculously impressive, or is it a typo?

Probably the opposite.

92- The Padre's threw out 20 of the 209 runners who attempted SBs, last year.

Josh Bard - 121 SB, 10 CS
Michael Barrett - 40 SB, 7 CS
Rob Bowen - 23 SB, 3 CS
Pete LaForest - 5 SB, 0 CS

Pitchers of note -
Tall Chris Young - 44 SB, 0 CS
Greg Maddux - 37 SB, 2 CS
Jake Peavy - 21 SB, 2 CS

Brett Tomko - 2 SB, 1 CS

Don't mess with The Tomko!

ahh, so a typo. Something near historically bad huh? No wonder they haven't bothered to fix it.

Bob gets slapped in Tony Jackson's comment section.

I'm surprised the Pac-10 gets any notice. Stanford and Washington State, ranked #11 and #21, are playing tonight at 11:30pm EDT.

98
I'm almost as famous as El Lay Dave now!

Bob you're uber-funny! At least he didn't accuse you of being a sleeper Nazi agent.

99
The game likely start closet to 11:40 pm EDT if tonight is like the first two nights.

What did I ever do to overkill94 that he hates me so?

98 - King of Bad Puns?

104 I expect to see Bob dressed as the Westside Rentals guy with the goofy hat screaming I'm the King, I'm the King, at tonight's Pac-10 games.

81 Umm, the NBA shows almost all of their playoff games on cable, they generally start them at 8:30/9:00 p.m..

In addition to other crimes, Elliot Spitzer was caught on video tape carrying some a pair of large white birds down to Sea World in San Diego and he left them by a dolphin tank.

He was charged with transporting gulls across state lines for lewd and immoral porpoises.

106
There's also the matter of the Pac-10 wanting fans to be able to come to the games in person.

Even with the 6 pm start for the USC-UCLA game, I'm going to miss the first few minutes.

I don't get it - what did Bob ever do to Uli Kunkel?

100 Look at it this way, Bob...at least your last name doesn't rhyme with fungus.

NPUT

There are so many puns I could use here but I would hope that the young lady in question will give him another chance.

http://tinyurl.com/2me58s

Bob also uses the word "complicated," flippantly. I question Mr. Hungus's devotion to insulting Bob.

107
(wince)
Ouch! that hurt!