I don't see how anybody would buy that logic, after all the Angels have had success "out here" and they play their home games in SoCal.

I was in out near the outfield along the first base line for the padres series on a saturday night, and I hadn't seen that many fights or ejections at any dodger game in a long while. On top of that the Sox fans where getting lit into at the coliseum for an exhibition game.

And lets not forget that we pull int he second highest annual attendance. If I thought our players felt laid back, and just here for entertainment, I'd be furious.

After living the first 20 years of my live in southern california, I've lived the last 10 on the East Coast. You have no idea how common that mentality is among people. Californians just aren't that ambitious. They don't work too hard. etc., etc. What they are really saying is that since they don't live in (or were born in) California, they somehow have superior work ethic and intellect.

Nothing makes me more angry than seeing people propagate this stupid mentality. I sometimes comfort myself with the fact that only stupid people would really believe that what they see on TV is really what Southern California is all about. But then I get frustrated with how many people are willing to accept an obviously stupid generalization. Maybe it makes them feel better?

However, I don't think the first part of his quote here is that inflammatory. Everybody knows that Southern California has a different vibe than the East Coast. That's what makes it Southern California.

Of course, the only post-'88 Dodger general manager born on the West Coast was Kevin Malone. Now there's a man who wanted to get things done.

"It's not my fault? It's not my fault....It's Mac's fault!"

A little more to the scouting report I provided yesterday on Cory Wade from HQ.
"April 26
Cory Wade (RHP, LAD)
To give them some depth and length in the bullpen, the Dodgers recalled the 24 year-old control artist from Double-A. Wade isn't blessed with any above average offering, but he has outstanding command and control. He was drafted as a starter, but converted to a reliever in '06. He isn't a strikeout artist, though his K rate has increased in the bullpen. Wade's fastball usually sits in the high 80s and his breaking ball and changeup are average at best. His best traits are his command, control and durability. Wade rarely allows walks - career 2.1 Ctl. Because he gets ahead of hitters consistently with his fastball, his secondary pitches seem that much more effective."

"They make their wives rise out of their beds early in the morning, at the same time that they lie and snore, till the sun has risen one third of his course, and dispersed all the unwholesome damps. Then, after stretching and yawning for half an hour, they light their pipes, and, under the protection of a cloud of smoke, venture out into the open air; though, if it happens to be ever so little cold, they quickly return shivering into the chimney corner. When the weather is mild, they stand leaning with both their arms upon the cornfield fence, and gravely consider whether they had best go and take a small heat at the hoe: but generally find reasons to put it off till another time...To speak the truth, it is a thorough aversion to labor that makes people file off to North Carolina..."

Now THAT is the American history HBO should be dramatizing for you guys, instead of tired stuff about John Adams.:)

This is the comment that pisses me off the most. What a weak cop out. Either buck up and admit this is how you feel, or don't even bring up the topic at all. What a lazy way to express something you think to be true without owning up to the opinion.

This is like the good ole days when P. Diddy shot Tupac. Can we just have some drive-by baseball beanings to resolve this. I've worked on the West coast hand sign for years; I'm still better at the Vulcan hand sign, but I'm dying to bust out the new one.

That reminds me so much of how Charles Barkley, with his knee shot, came back for one game in Houston to finish his career on his terms. It was funny, but in a way, I'm glad it made Charles happy.

-- but really, it wasn't necessary.

The 1960s Dodgers had fairly laid back and introspective Brooklyn native Sandy Koufax and Van Nuys hothead Don Drysdale.

I'm not opposed to it - I just would hate to see a roadblock to giving thanks to Nomo because of the Dodgers don't want to start a new precedent.

I tried to answer Jon's question yesterday but ran out of time. Reading El Lay Dave's answer made it more crystal for me. Other then the child he has, our lives are eerily similar but his having a child changes everything. My biggest hope is that no one close to me ever loses a child again. I can barely deal with it, I don't know how they do it.

Most of my conscious dreams have passed me by but my self conscious still feels I'm only 15, 20, 40, 24. So I guess I'd hope that my self conscious never gives up my dreams and continues to entertain me while I sleep. I hope this doesn't sound pathetic but man I have some great dreams. I attribute it, to the life I've lead and the books I've read and the fact I didn't have children killing my sleeping schedule. Between 04:00 and 04:10 this morning all 68 inches of me was kicking butt in an NCAA tournament game. I have no idea what team I was on but I hope it was Gonzaga.

I do expect the Dodgers to win a World Championship before my brain melts down but I'm not losing any sleep over it. If they don't win one in real life, I'll just dream one up for them. As much as I follow the Dodgers I don't really care that we haven't won a world championship. Probably because I already have two in my lifetime so my bag is full but I do understand how it grates at those of you who have not witnessed any.

3. Ned Colletti, Dodgers. This baseball lifer waited a long time to get his dream job, and it was a hire applauded in many circles. Sabean's right-hand man during the Giants' heyday also previously worked as a PR man and sportswriter (not a bad Dodger formula, as Fred Claire, another ex-writer, did a decent job as L.A.'s GM).

Colletti's first year, 2006, brought some wise deadline deals, including one for Greg Maddux that helped pushed L.A. into the playoffs. But the Dodgers have done a lot of disappointing lately, perhaps partly because of a lack of clubhouse cohesiveness. A few notable free-agent missteps haven't helped, though, especially the signings of Juan Pierre and ex-Giant Jason Schmidt, whose arm has bothered him practically since hitting L.A.

I don't think we have anything to worry about unless the Dodgers are still below .500 by the trading deadline. What are the odds of that happening?

I deal with this stuff all the time as a hockey fan, especially the ideas that ice is worse in warm-weather cities and people won't watch hockey because they didn't skate on a pond when they were little.

0 Lowe's, or Jackson's, premise is faulty. Except maybe 1994, the Dodgers haven't had the best team in the National League since the 50s. I'm a fan, but I can't think of a year when I looked at a Dodger team and said, aha! flawless! Even in the 70s heyday, I feared the Reds because I thought they were a little better.

We could've gotten lucky like '88 another time or two, but it's not like we've been cursed, or really even underachieved. We've just had a series of weak GMs who overrated their own judgment -- a universal trait, not a West Coast specialty.

More info on the event tonight here:

http://www.wfuv.org/gala/
http://tinyurl.com/6anqd2

The interview was classic Scully. Wonderful, melodic delivery, overly humble. One of the Mikes asked him how he would like to be remembered, and Scully (perhaps echoing yesterday's theme) said roughly the following:

"I hope I'm remembered first as a good father, a good husband, and a good man. And, oh yeah, he used to call sports for a living too."

Maybe his comment is just projection. He regrets the split and has to blame some abstract force for it.

He probably drives around listening to the Eagles, muttering to himself, "You got that right" whenever "Hotel California" comes on.

"D'oh! I mean, Moo!"

The only West Coast teams since 1981 to be matched up against a team not from the West Coast were the 1990 A's and the 1984 and 1998 Padres.

Only the A's loss was a surprise. The Padres had the misfortune of making it to the World Series to play two of the most dominant teams of the 20th Century.

I believe in Derek Lowe's mind though, the Rockies are "laid back", but not the Diamondbacks.

Pete Carroll has been extremely successful at USC despite the fact that Carroll is very much a typical West Coaster.

Sometimes I wonder if Derek Lowe is DT's Goldstein.

So is coach Larry Brown in some sort of a sequel to Groundhog Day? Where he keeps getting hired and fired and hired and so on as coach ad infinitum until either he finally figures "it" out or basketball teams finally figure it out and stop hiring him.

I grew up in Las Vegas. For grad school, I moved to New York City. I listened to the Mets lose on Opening Day 1989, after the playoff loss to the Dodgers last year, and of the first 10 calls on WFAN's post-game talk show, seven demanded that Davey Johnson be fired for losing on opening day. I don't call that dedication or commitment. I call that insane (notwithstanding that Johnson may have been the most overrated manager of his time).

Anyway, to the related point. At the time, the Mets hired a psychologist, Allen Lans, if I remember the name correctly. Don Imus used to do these hysterical skits, "interviews" with Dr. Allen "Sparky" Lans, where Lans would explain how the Oedipus complex explained why Strawberry was picked off or whatever. It was hilarious.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) on moving to LA: "I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light."

I lived in DC and Boston for 10 years in my youth and the constant put-downs and condescension towards LA is just a way of life there. It's not the active hatred that San Franciscans have for us, it's a smug sense of superiority that is ubiquitous in the media there.

I always figured that it stems from two things. First, most people there only know LA from the media, so they actually believe that everyone here is a vapid, shallow, air-kissing production assistant. Second, so many people from the East Coast cities have moved to LA that it is natural that the ones remaining would want to put the city down as a way of defending their decision to stay in place.

Have you noticed that the most stereotypical LA types -- the guys doing Pilates on the beach at dawn and then eating organic bean sprouts at the raw foods restaurant for breakfast etc. -- are very often newly arrived New Yorkers who have gone native in a big way? My apologies to DT readers who do Pilates on the beach and eat sprouts for breakfast.

When I read the Lowe article last night it brought back my swing shift days at KFWB and having to wade through the reams of AP and UPI features for East Coast papers that seemed to highlight every odd ball story and sterotype with a dateline from California cities. Regionalism while I think weaker today still is very strong in this country, and it is an easy over lay to cover many complicated issues.

I think the article on a deeper level was trying to draw out Lowe a bit, since he maybe our best chip at the trade deadline, wondering if he was hinting to get back to the Sox....maybe we see if we can get Manny for a year!