So long, Manny

Two years ago last month I was definitely not happy at news that Manny Ramirez was probably going to be leaving the Boston Red Sox and going to the Los Angeles Dodgers as the trading deadline approached. As someone living in Boston I was glad to hear he was getting out of town and I could finally stop hearing news reports about what a jackass he was on an almost daily basis but as a fan of the Dodgers since my junior high days back in the 70′s the Dodgers were the one team I didn’t want him to join. Much to my disgust the rumors were true and he put on Dodger Blue to much fanfare. As he arrived in LA he said how happy he was to join the Dodgers and by the end of the season he was saying he wanted to play out the rest of his career based in Chavez Ravine.

Of course the season ended and it was time to sign a deal for Manny to continue playing in Dodger Blue, only to have Manny and his agent hold out for a better contract offer. Granted, the sticking point was that the Dodgers wanted to defer paying most of the money to Manny to future years and I could understand the concern that Manny might not get all of his money if it was deferred too far into the future but even then we were in a recession and everyone was having to count their pennies. Personally I felt it showed that all of Manny’s love for the city and the team to be just so much waste that needed a Sha-poopie to pick it up. (Thanks to NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me for re-airing Tony Shaloob’s appearance on the show over the weekend that reminded me about the Sha-poopie.) Manny did eventually get a one year contract with an option that would allow Manny to choose to play a second full season for the Dodgers, an option that I figured Manny would jump at since probably no team would be willing to pay him what the Dodgers would have to shell out.

As the 2010 season began Manny made it quite clear that he knew this would be his last season in Dodger Blue, and while many fans were unhappy at the news it turns out that I was in fact part of a growing number of fans who couldn’t wait to get rid of da bum (as he probably would have been referred to if he had played for Brooklyn). The 31 July trading deadline came and went without a trade for Manny but the Chicago White Sox made it quite clear that they were interested in taking him off our hands. As the 31 August waiver deadline approached Manny was put on waivers, allowing other teams to try to claim him, and the White Sox put a claim on him, as did the Texas Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays. Since the ChiSox has the worst record of the three teams they were awarded exclusive rights to get Manny if he would waive the no trade clause of his contract. It was by no means guaranteed that the trade would go through, especially since the Dodgers could use his bat as they try to bridge the now 6-1/2 game gap between themselves and the Philadelphia Philles for the wild card. (Being ten games behind San Diego for the NL West title may not be impossible but I have to be honest and say I seriously doubt we’ll repeat as division champions.) Manny was definitely wanting to go to an American League team so he could audition for a job next season as a designated hitter, the role he usually played in Boston when he wasn’t Manny Being Manny.

I figured the deal would go through tomorrow if at all, just to let the Dodgers try to get the benefit of his bat this evening as they face the Phillies in PA, but I suspect that after yesterday’s game the Dodgers front office got tired of his shtick and opted not to put him on a plane on their dime. Why not? Because in yesterday’s final game of the series against Colorado in Denver Manny went into the game as a pinch hitter in the top of the sixth inning for Ronald Belisario, who had been ejected in the fifth inning. With the bases loaded and only one out in the inning Manny took a pitch from Jason Hammell that was called for a strike. Manny was so certain that it should have been called a ball that he argued the fact with the home plate umpire, Gary Cederstrom. He argues with Cederstrom so much that he was thrown out of the game after seeing one lousy pitch! Even Vin Scully was amazed at that, as you can see in the video. Reed Johnson came in to bat for Manny but ended up hitting into a double play to end the inning. The Dodgers would go on to lose 10-5.

Finally last night the news came out, Manny is Chicago bound. While it’s not a done deal, Manny should be joining former Dodger Juan Pierre, who got a lot more time on the bench when Manny went west two years ago. If the deal doesn’t fall through Manny will visit his old haunts as Chicago goes to Cleveland, Manny’s first team, and Boston.

This fan is tickled pink to see Manny take off Dodger Blue for the last time and sends his condolences to the White Sox fans. While I still love Juan Pierre I wouldn’t wish Manny on any team’s fans. Now the Dodgers will hopefully be able to prove that they don’t need Mr. Ramirez to win games, especially since it’s been my contention all along that any team that can’t win without Manny doesn’t deserve to win at all.

Go Dodger Blue!

The NL finally wins another All-Star Game!

Congrats to the National League players for winning their first All-Star Game since 1996. The credit goes to catcher Brian McCann from the Atlanta Braves, whose bases-loaded double in the seventh inning brought in the NL’s only three runs. The only run for the AL, the host division for this year’s mid-summer classic in Anaheim, was brought in by the Yankee’s Robinson Cano,  who’s deep fly out to left field allowed Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria to come home.

The seventh was an unfortunate inning for LA Dodgers’ reliever Hong-Chi Kuo, a late addition to the All-Star roster when Braves right fielder Jason Heyward was injured and became unable to play last night. Kuo started his inning with a leadoff walk to Longoria and allowed the Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer to safely reach first when Kuo took Mauer’s come-backer and almost threw it into the stands behind first base.

Other Dodgers fared much better as the two players voted to the roster by the fans, Andre Ethier and Jonathan “Ox” Broxton, as Ethier lined a single to deep right field in the fifth in his first All-Star appearance and the Ox earned the save in the ninth. Broxton allowed Boston slugger David Ortiz, the winner of this year’s Home Run Derby, to single to right field for a single, blew away Ortiz’s teammate and former Dodger Adrian Beltre with a 98-mph fastball, gets Toronto’s John Buck to hit a weak fly to right field that results in Ortiz being caught at second for out #2, and gets Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers to fly out to the Diamondback’s Chris Young in center field.

The other Dodger to make a late substitution was shortstop Rafael Furcal, taking the place of Jose Reyes from the New York Mets , who entered the game in the bottom of the  sixth and went 0-3 at the plate with a walk in the top of the seventh but took a grounder by Toronto’s Vernon Wells and caught Kinsler at second base for the second out of the inning.

Congratulations to all of the National League players on a very well played game. Since the tie of the 2002 All-Star Game made the winner of the mid-summer classic the home team for the world series (a decision I’m still not happy with) this year’s NL Champs will get the home field advantage in deciding who will be the season’s top dog. Of course I’m hoping my beloved Dodgers, 49-39 and two games out of first place at the mid-season break, will finally make the series this year after getting knocked out in the National League Championship Series two years straight.

You can read the coverage of this year’s All-Star Game from the LA Times, along with a live article with play-by-play coverage, as well a complete coverage from MLB.com.

Spring is in the air

The weather may still suck where you are, and while we have some nice sun today it’s going to be about a week before we see it again, baseball fans are rejoicing that if their pitchers and catchers haven’t reported to spring training yet they will soon. The Dodgers pitchers and catchers reported yesterday, along with some of the other players, and the position players are due at Camelback Ranch on Thursday. If you love a team other than the Dodgers you can get their Spring Training reporting dates over at  Spring Training Online.

The Dodgers website already has the countdown to the first spring training game in about 11 days, and they’ve added a great new site for the fans. If you were in the LA area last year you probably noticed their My Town billboards that went up all over the city. Now you can make your own My Town billboard. Just head on over to http://www.dodgers.com/2010, enter your name and your favorite jersey number, click enter and voilà! You will have your own billboard to share with your friends.

The number 9 on the back of the jersey is in honor of Juan Pierre, who did a pretty nice job filling in for Manny Rodriguez when the Mannster got suspended for 50 games last season for taking meds he should have known better than to take. Of course when Manny came back Juan was sent back to the bench, but after the season ended he asked to be traded so he could play every day. Fortunately for him the ChiSox were willing to let him play just that often. I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of Juan’s a few seasons ago when his arm couldn’t seem to reach all the way to the infield, but Juan is one of the very few players who left the Dodgers that I want to continue rooting for. He showed himself to be a true professional last year in that no matter what, he reported to the stadium ready to play, even if he knew he’d probably spend the game riding the pine. When Manny got off suspension I wished he’d get to sit every now and then to let Juan get out there and show what he can do. He may not be as splashy as Manny is, but you can depend on him to get the job done.

I do end up with one question about the 2010 site that I hope someone can answer. I love the song that plays in the background and would love to be able to get it to put on my media player but I have no idea what the song is or who’s doing it. If you know please tell me in the comments.

Captain Torre, I trust you know what to do with a broom

Way back when on an old blog of mine (it definitely wasn’t last year) the LA Dodgers swept a very important series and I referred to the naval tradition of submarines lashing a broom to their mast to signify that they have returned to port having defeated every enemy vessel they encountered. (I have to agree with a blogger who feels that a sub’s completion of their first sea trials isn’t the same thing defeating enemy vessels.) I wasn’t able to find a link to the old post of mine, but I did save the image I posted with that article so I could include it in this post. (Click to see the image full size, which will open in a new tab/window.)

While nobody died in the National League Division Series (NLCS) battles between the Dodgers and the Cardinals, the Dodgers the what probably nobody, including this writer, thought was possible, especially since the Cardinals so easily won the season series against the boys from the Ravine, regardless what stadium they played in. After taking both NLDS Game 1 and Game 2 at home, which wasn’t all that surprising, Dodgers skipper Joe Torre gave the ball to Vincente Padilla to start the game. Before the Red Birds could even come to bat Manny Ramirez plated Matt Kemp with an RBI double, and Mr. Walk-off, Andre Ethier, pretty much put the game away with a two-run jack to right field in the third. Only an RBI single by Albert Pujols in the 8th avoided the shutout, and a perfect game was avoided in the bottom of the first on a single by Ryan Ludwick. When all was said and done, the Dodgers won 5-1.

Why didn’t I post after the first two wins?

I didn’t blog the last two wins for two main reason. The first is that this blog is primarily a tech blog, and Dodgers baseball doesn’t really fit that classification, although I do post from time to time about what the Boys from Chavez Ravine do. But there’s also a very good reason I didn’t get to post about the wins, namely that I flat out didn’t have the time to write the posts. As I mentioned in passing twice before, I got an iriver E100 digital media player (DMP) as a belated birthday present from my mom and thanks to the wonderful open source app iriverter I am able to convert any video I can download to enjoy on my DMP. While I can enjoy some of the games on TBS, I end up missing some pretty sweet play so I either head over to the MLB.com Media Center page and use the Highlight links from the particular game or I go to the MLB.com Video Highlights page and catch the videos from there. The beauty of the Video Highlights page is that I am able to see not only highlights from a specific game, but also video content such as their FastCast of a day’s games, the Top 5 Plays from a specific day, as well as some content from the new MLB Network. On most occasions if I can see the video in my browser I can also snag the file in MP4 format and convert it to view on my E100, which makes a subway ride more enjoyable.

I had to say “on most occasions” because Friday I discovered a clip that I can see in my browser but for some unknown reason I’m unable to get it to download. If you saw the end of Game 2 of the NLDS, or at least heard about it, the Dodgers made an incredible comeback  with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. I was able to snag a video clip that includes Vin Scully on the Dodgers radio broadcast, as well as Mike Shannon on KTRS’s St. Louis radio broadcast and Dick Stockton on TBS, all calling the bottom of the ninth from Matt Holiday lost James Loney’s line drive in the lights all the way to Mark Loretta’s walk-off single. What I can’t seem to snag, even today, is the clip of just Scully calling the last five batters. I’d kill to be able to save that particular bit of multimedia to my hard drive, but for some reason the MP4 file isn’t coming up properly for saving off the MLB.com servers, so if anyone has a link that will help me snag this much desired MP4 please post it in the comments.

As it is, I was able to get 40 or so clips from the game, which took a good bit of time to download and then convert with iriverter. Game 1 of the NLDS only had a dozen clips I wanted to put on my E100, but last night’s game has another 40 clips (including postgame coverage) for me to see what I want to put on my DMP. Luckily I can snag the 38-second clip of Scully calling the final out and the Dodgers’ sweep of the 2009 NLDS.

What about the other teams still playing?

Yesterday’s NLDS Game 3 between the Rockies and Phillies was snowed out yesterday in Denver so it will have to be played tonight with the first pitch scheduled for 10:07 pm Eastern Time. That series is tied at a game a piece, but it won’t matter that much to the Dodgers who already know that there next game, Game 1 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS), will be on Thursday, with a start time to be announced. As with the NLDS, TBS will be carrying every game of the NLCS while the ALCS will head over to FOX. FOX will also be carrying the World Series when it starts on Wednesday, 28 October. You can see the entire postseason schedule on MLB.com.

Who would I like to see the Dodgers face in the NLCS? The Dodgers lost only four games out of 18 to the Rox, and against the Phillies they went 4-out-of-7, taking one series in May in Philly and splitting their series at home in June. Of course the Dodgers also met the Phillies in last year’s NLCS, with the Phillies beating the boys in Dodger Blue four games to one enroute to beating Tampa’s Rays four games to one to win the ’08 World Series, and this past season doesn’t mean much of anything, let alone last year’s results, so I’m going to have to go with my gut on this one. I’m hoping for a Dodgers-Phillies NLCS, followed by a Freeway Series to start three days before All Hallow’s Eve. The rest of the country may not like an All-California Series, but I’d love to see the Dodgers beat the team that is so bad at geography that they doesn’t even know what city, let alone which county they play in (another item on my old blog that I’m not able to find archived to share).

It took a week, but they got it done

[Updated Monday 5 October to include the time for the first game of the Dodgers/Cardinals series and provide a link to the MLB.com site for this year's postseason play. -Peng]

A week ago I had the pleasure of writing that the Los Angeles Dodgers had clinched their place in the postseason. For the past week Dodger fans around the world have waited for one more win by the boys in Dodger Blue or one more loss by the guys from the mountains to be able to celebrate Joe Torre’s boys being the National League West Champions for the second year in a row.

The game went way past my bedtime last night so one of the first things I did this morning was to grab my cell phone and get the results from last night. Dodgers 5, Rockies Zip.

Of course that’s not all the good news Dodgers fans get this morning, as they also have home field advantage through the National League Division Series. While we know the schedule starts Wednesday in Chavez Ravine against the Cardinals, we don’t have times yet nor which network is carrying the games.

We do know that TBS will carry the last game of the regular season with the Dodgers trying to beat the NL Wild Card team one more time before the postseason kicks off. The coverage will begin at 4 PM Eastern Time.

Update 5 October: The first game will be on Wednesday, 7 October at 9:37pm Eastern Time on TBS. You can get info on all of his year’s postseason games on Major League Baseball’s newly refreshed WorldSeries.com site. Dodger fans will also want to make sure you check out the latest Inside Dodgertown video on the Dodgers Media Network. If you haven’t been to the DMN lately there are some great videos that you’re missing.

Last year when the Dodgers clinched the NL West title on the road I posted a video of what has to be one of the favorite songs, although I see now that the video has been removed from YouTube. I found an “official” version of the video and fixed that post, and in honor of the Boys from Chavez Ravine I’m going to post it here as well because the song is so fitting on this last morning of the 2009 regular season.

I look forward to having three more rounds of good news to post as the Dodgers hopefully will go all the way to be not only the NL West champs, or even the National League champions, but the winners of the 2009 World Series.

[UPDATED] Forget scheduling a tee time for next week

[Updated 5:05pm to reflect the final score of today's game. -Peng]
[Updated 28 Sep 7:50am because I realized the Magic Number graphic was wrong before yesterday's game started. -Peng]

After waiting for over a week, let alone all season, I found one of the nicest images on the LA Dodgers website I’ve ever seen.

Granted, it’s not clinching the division championship again (yet), but after last night’s win they have a magic number of two that bit of news could come by the end of tomorrow afternoon’s game against the Pirates. That is unless the boys from Chavez Ravine win this afternoon and a loss by the Rockies in their late afternoon game against the Cardinals (who clinched their division last night).

What about the local nine? The Red Sox are six games ahead of Texas in the Wild Card, but the Yanks have already locked up the AL East so the best the Sox can do for now is to be able to keep playing when postseason play begins on Wednesday, 7 October. Of course the Bombers aren’t making things easy for the Sox with wins Friday night and last night with a sweep very much a possibility in today’s finale.

Now if there were only some way to get two items the team is giving away in the final games of the regular season, this tee and the calendar that was shot during this video that will be given out on Fan Appreciation Day. Some days I really hate being stuck on the wrong coast.

Updated 5:05pm: I was all ready to update the magic number graphic as the Dodgers were getting ready to beat the Pirates 6-2 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. Unfortunately Ox Broxton didn’t quite have his A game today. After allowing one run to score before even the first out was recorded Ox filled up the bases with Pirates as he loaded up the bases with one out at the bottom of the ninth. Ox didn’t lose the game though. Lastings Milledge smacked a fly to Andre Ethier out in right field and after a fielding error the three Pirates all crossed home plate as Milledge settles for an RBI single. The final score: Pittsburgh 6, the Dodgers 5. (The official recap is being written as I write this update, but that link should get you a link to the recap as soon as it’s written. The link has been updated to get you directly to the game recap.)

The St. Louis/Colorado game is in progress, and as of the top of the 5th inning the score is tied at 3 all. Hopefully when I get back to my comp tomorrow I’ll be have some good news to share from the Rockies game.

Updated 28 September 7:50am: Last night I was hearing that the Dodgers’ magic number was wrong on this post, and after reading this morning’s coverage of yesterday’s loss in the LA Times I saw that my boys got a boost toward clinching yesterday morning. Which just makes yesterday’s loss even worse since the Cardinals ended up losing their game. At least the series against the Bucs still has one more game to play, so maybe we’ll be celebrating by the time I sit down to dinner.

[UPDATED] [OT] The Dodgers make history

Before I post the promised links, which will hopefully come this afternoon, I had to extend my congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers who have a broken modern day record with their 13th consecutive win at home with their 10-3 win over the Nationals from Washinton, D.C. (LA Times story)

As Ken Gurnick from MLB News points out the actual Major League  record is quite a way’s off at 21 wins, but last night’s win tops the former modern day record for consecutive at home wins to start a season, a mark that was last set by the Detroit Tigers with 12 consecutive at home wins to start the 1911 season.

Granted, the now 7-18 Nats own the worst record in baseball, and the Dodgers have yet to face a team with a winning record, but hopefully we can keep winning through the games in Philadelphia and New York (Mets) next week, as well as to the at home Interleague games against the Angels right over Memorial Day weekend.

Congrats to winning pitcher Clayton Kershaw and to the rest of the team. Hopefully we’ll have a number of other milestones to celebrate as we wind our way to October and the postseason.

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Updated 2:30 pm: Alas, the news from Chavez Ravine isn’t all good today. It turns out that Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games due to a positive test for performance enhancing drugs. Manny says it was due to a medication a doctor gave him for a “personal health issue”, although I don’t quite believe him when he says he thought it was okay to take since it wasn’t a steroid. Sorry, Manny, at this level we not only play with sleeves and caps, you’re also responsible for knowing if a medication prescribed by a doctor is okay to take.

Somehow this doesn’t surprise me, though, especially since Manny has already shown me that we can’t take his statements at face value. After all, last year he was all about loving playing in LA this season but when it came time to sign on the dotted line he had his agent make things hard on the Parking Lot Attendant and the Dodgers. He’ll be eligible to play again on 3 July. Hopefully the Dodgers will show that we have a pretty damned good team without him for the next 50 games.

MLB grants Silverlight it’s unconditional release

Last year I displayed my severe displeasure for Major League baseball’s decision to use Microsoft’s Silverlight technology for their online video, a move that essentially cut GNU/Linux users out unless they wantedto jump thorough a number of hoops. Last night I was reading some news from Cnet and I got some delightful news. It turns out that back in November MLB decided not to continue to use Silverlight technology for their online videos, going back to relying on Flash technology that a very large majority of computer users already have installed.

It seems that MLB realized that to install Silverlight a user needs to have administrative privileges, something most users won’t have on their work PCs. There were also a number of glitches that made viewing the video content from Netflix (and I assume MLB) even harder.

All in all it’s a nice win for fans to start the season with, regardless of which team they root for. To make things even better, while fans in Boston have to wait an extra day for the start of the season thanks to some rain in the area yesterday, I saw this morning that the team I root for started off their season with a win yesterday. Hopefully we’ll get another win in the home opener next Monday.

For more on why MLB found Flash to be a better solution for their online video you can read the article I found last night from Cnet’s News.com. I love being abletoread the news on my PDA.

HOLY CRAP!!!

A lot of you guys, and girls, know that last night the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Cubbies from Chitown, but I can finally celebrate it as I just watched the last out on the DVR, although probably not the way ‘Dre did. Of course the crowd went wild, and I had to immediately fire up the same tune played at the game last night, although I probably played a longer version. (Before they played another tune, which I’ll have to fire up next.)

Kuroda was excellent over his six and a third innings and Broxton shut the Cubbies down completely the last four outs. And with the bats from Furcal, Martin and Loney we got the lead and never let go. (They were so scared of Manny they intentionally walked him twice, and he still got a hit and a run.)

Last night’s win was the Dodgers’ first postseason series win since 1988 and their first sweep of a postseason series in 45 years. Unfortunately this also means that the Cubs will have to wait at least 101 years before winning another pennant. Sorry about that, Chicago. Had it been against anyone else other than the Dodgers I would have pulled for you. But now we get to sit back and wait to see who wins the Phillies-Brewers series.

As Joe Torre told the fans after the game, “Just don’t go away, we’ll be back next week. ‘Cause we still have eight more games to win.” Game 1 of the NLCS will be on Thursday, 9 October. If the Phillies win their series we’ll open in the City of Brotherly Love, but if the Brewers take it they’ll head to Chavez Ravine.

Dammit! I wish I could get to LA for them.

WE LOVE IT!

Around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, the quiet around Chavez Ravine was broken with a song that is always welcome in the neighborhood.

Even though the Dodgers lost 5-7 to the Padres to close out their season at home last night they’re still the NL West champs thanks to yesterday’s Cardinals drubbing of the Snakes 12-3.

The Dodger’s opponent for the NLDS will either be Phillies or the Cubs, depending on who wins the NL Wild Card race, with the Dodgers doing the traveling. Either way, the team isn’t done playing this season, and this fan is hoping they can play for several more weeks. Out of the four teams going into the ALDS, I’m leaning toward either the Angels or (I can’t believe I’m typing this) the Red Sox. I wouldn’t mind facing the Angels in a Freeway (World) Series because then hopefully we can settle who is Los Angeles’ true team. If it were the Sox and the Dodgers, then we can see if Bill Shakin’s column on Sunday was prophetic or not.

Either way, I love this game, and I love the fact that I don’t have to cheer for some other team in the NLDS.