DD, Being bad with typo's, I normally compose messages in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste them to a message here on The Skybox after spell checking. If something happens that the message does not show up, I can re-paste it and try again.
Dodgers lost today 6-3, playing a lot of rookies. They've played 11 rookies this season, with 8 on the current roster. (Out of 24 players.) The starting lineup now has 4 rookies in it, with another, Jonathon Broxton, becoming their top setup man... re: Golden Child Matt Kemp has a hit in every game, so his hitting streak is now at 7 games. He had also homered in 3 consecutive games going into today. On the other hand, he came up in the 7th inning today with the bases loaded and grounded out on the first pitch against a pitcher that he had never seen before...that's rookie-dumb. re: All Rookies Dodger rookies are batting a combined .320 the last time I looked, with Broxton in the bullpen having an ERA of 0.93 in more than 20 appearances... re: Russell Martin The Dodger loss today puts Martin's record as starting catcher at 20-5. He hit another HR in the game and the pitchers believe in him...even the veterans. Today's LA Times contains Russell Martin's life story. He was basically raised by his dad...just the two of them. His dad is a street musician in Montreal. Every day the two of them would go down to the subway, where Russell would board the train to go to school or to play baseball, while his dad would pull out his saxaphone and play Misty or other tunes for donations. If Russell had a game, his dad would rollerskate all the way across Montreal to go watch him. They lived this way from the time Russell was 2... His mother ran away to Paris (Ah those French!) and would have Russell visit her there sometimes. He claims that he learned to speak English from his father and French from his mother. The Dodger clubhouse speaks more languages than the United Nations, with Martin often chiding Gagne to "Lance le changement de vitesse!" (Throw the changeup!) They went to the same high school. His dream for the moment, is to buy a car for his father, who hasn't owned one in twenty years. He's also trying to arrange for his dad to come here and see him play in the Bigs. His hope is to have his father play the National Anthem standing beside him as the starting catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers...a moment they could always share, as they've shared everything else. The only hitch at the moment, is getting dad a new instrument. His current saxaphone is broken... ........................DD
I admit that I had to read that story twice this morning, before it really sank in. I normally won't even read human interest stories, but this was a jaw-dropper. Big Russell and Little Russell, abondoned by mom when the going got tough just two years into the marriage. Other boys would take the subway and tease Russell about his father, but he always defended his dad and was proud of him. The father taught Lil Russell about trying your best, winning and never giving up, even when things looked horrible, and I'll bet things were unbearably horrible for him during those cold winter nights in Montreal, when his son, the only thing he had in life, was off visiting his mother in Paris... I knew there had to be something! This is the sport of fear and this kid (23) didn't have any fear walking in the door. He was totally unafraid of his surroundings or the veteran players. Derek Lowe speaks in amazement about Russell Martin. After just a few days in The Show, Lowe was having control problems, so Martin calls time and goes out to speak to the 33 year-old all-star pitcher and announces "I'm not leaving this mound until YOU calm down." Are you kidding? The vets don't even shake him off any more. They TRUST him! I guess when you've spent years kissing your dad goodbye in the subway every morning, little things like crowds and cocky veterans are a piece of cake... Russell Martin was the original nobody from nowhere. When Gagne presented him with a bottle of the finest French-Canadian champagne after his first HR, he admitted that it was the first time he'd ever SEEN a bottle of champagne! No teams drafted him out of high school. Nobody had ever heard of him. Montreal, Canada is probably the last place in the world that anyone would look for a baseball player, but luck...and his dad played a role. An assistant coach from some junior college in Florida called the apartment and asked Big Russell for the phone numbers of two of Russell's high school teammates. While he had the coach on the phone, the street-guy made his sales pitch for his son, explaining that his son had been the best player on that team, not the other two that he was looking for. The coach bought it and told Big Russell to send his son down along with the two others, so he did. After that, Russell was drafted on the 17th Round as a 3rd baseman, but when he got to Vero Beach, a bright coach there noticed his incredible quickness and moved him to catcher. Three years later, he's the starting catcher for the Dodgers in Los Angeles... He currently lives at Brad Penny's house and drives a rental car. His other dream may come true any day now. No two French-Canadians have ever formed a pitcher-catcher battery in the history of MLB. If Gagne comes in to pitch with Russell Martin Jr. behind the plate, it will be the first time... This really is one of the most remarkable things I've seen in this town. Street people and their children aren't supposed to have big dreams. Obviously, Russell Martin and his dad are cut from some pretty tough cloth. What's most amazing to me, is how this kid seems to have such a good heart and still believe...and dream. His dad may have been a failure at many things, but he might just be one of the greatest fathers of all time. Watching this unfold is like watching a movie...only its real. .........................DD
Russell Martin Sr. was in the stands last night and saw his son play in the Bigs for the first time. He stopped in the booth for a chat with Vinnie and he was escorted around by Dodger reps. It looked like his son had bought him a new camera and he was having a great time learning how to use it... Is this a great country, or what? Now that he's in Hollywood, he'll probably have his own TV show before this story gets old...
The Dodgers beat the Mets tonight. The Mets are the best looking team that we've seen in here this year. They have speed, power and pitching. I especially like David Wright. This looks like the team to finally end the domination of the Atlanta Braves in the Nat East... re: Golden Children Matt Kemp hit another HR tonight; this one off Pedro. That gives him 4 HRs in the 10 games he's played. He has hit safely in 9 of those games too... Willie Aybar has a 10 game hitting streak... re: Nomar Its incredible that Nomar Garciaparra is currently 4th in the All-Star voting at 1st base. He's the second best player in the National League after Albert Pujols. He hit another HR tonight and went into the game batting .369. He's also batting .432 at Dodger Stadium and more than .800 with runners on base in the final 3 innings... re: Russell Martin He played well again tonight and he's now 21-6 as the Dodgers starting catcher. Dad had moved to a better seat behind home plate... re: The Return of the King The Mighty Gagne came in tonight for his first Save opportunity since June of last season. It was the first all French-Canadian battery in history and it was quite a show. The sound system blared Guns&Roses "Welcome to the Jungle" as he jogged in and warmed up. The crowd was laughing, cheering, screaming and jumping like a rock concert, and no rock star in this town was ever hailed as a greater hero than the rumpled former BMX bike champion from Montreal. Even Mr. Martin was laughing and shouting at the appearance of the most famous French-Canadian in America. He struck out Carlos Delgado on an inside fastball clocked at 91mph, after dazzling him with jaw dropping forkballs clocked as slow as 66mph that dropped two feet. Then he took young David Wright to school; buckling his knees with curveballs that began at his head and landed in the other batters box, clocked as slow as 59mph, and finished him with fastballs at 92. The kid almost fell down when he struck out. The last batter flied weakly to Lofton in shallow centerfield and that was that. Easy stuff. Game over... The post-game radio shows were filled with paranoia about Gagne. The boys who spy over the bullpen for us said that Gagne was massaging his elbow and forearm and grimacing in pain. Two guys speaking in French told another guy on the elevator down from the Club Level that Gagne is done...his career over. Fans everywhere were more worried about Gagne's health than they were the outcome of the game. In fact, he's the first person to have his own PENNANT sold at the souvenir stands to affirm his God-like status here. But speaking after the game, Gagne said that he was fine... re: Odalis Perez Perez gets his first start in weeks tomorrow. I hope he does well so that someone will make us an offer. In fact, I think thats why he's getting the start. We will gladly take a pack of Topps baseball cards and a player to be named 10 years later to get rid of this Bozo... .................DD
The season is now 3/8 over and the Dodgers are: 5-5 -- 10-10 5-5 -- 13-17 3-7 -4 20-20 7-3 -- 28-22 8-2 +6 33-27 5-5 +6 Last year at the 60 game mark the Dodgers were: 32-28 +4 George in Ct.
:shock: The Dodgers take 2 of 3 in Colorado and head home in first place... re: The Golden Child With two more HRs today, Matt Kemp becomes the first player in major league history to hit six HRs in his first 15 games. He is the most special player that I've ever seen come out of the Dodgers farm system. He's 21... re: Gagne Eric Gagne felt an "electric shock" in his elbow on the day after his last appearance. He'll probably return to the DL as it looks like our spies were right... re: pitching Two Dodger starters are failing to get the job done: Odalis Perez and Brett Tomko. If they can't get their act together, they will be replaced either by trade, or by bringing up more super-rookies from the minors. The Dodgers have Chad Billingsley and DJ Houlton at Las Vegas and a kid at Jacksonville who's only given up one run in his last 20-some appearances... re: Garciaparra Nomar now has enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title and he went into today batting .370 ............DD
re: Golden Child II The other shoe finally dropped today, as the Dodgers finally brought up der wunderkind of their farm system: Chad Billingsley. At barely 21, Billingsley becomes one of the youngest starting pitchers in Dodger history, along with such names as Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale... He was clocked consistently at 94/95 mph, with a huge curve and quick slider. In size, mannerisms and pitch movement, he reminds me a lot of Denny McLain, right down to the way he wears his cap. He also brought along his gorgeous girlfriend, Tiffany Klemmer, who is already a hit with the camerman, who kept zooming in on her... Billingsley pitched 6 very good innings, which was a tremendous improvement over the latest outings of Odalis Perez, Jae Seo and Brett Tomko, who've been getting bombed out of games as early as the first inning for the last month. The kid also knocked in two runs with his first MLB basehit and he was hit by a pitch to welcome him to the National League as the camera zoomed in on Tiffany, who struck a dramatic pose for the occassion... - With the call-up of Billingsley, the Dodgers have turned a corner. This marks the first time that the starting lineup was mostly rookies, with 5 of the starting 9 being newbies, with an average age of 22. All I know, is if they have any more down there like Kemp or Billingsley, I want them brought up now! Dodgers 7 _ Padres 3 ............DD
Fernando???? You mean that kid who undeservedly got the 1991 Cy Young just because he was Mexican??? Tom Terrific was robbed that year!
The season is now 7/16 over and the Dodgers are: 5-5 -- 10-10 5-5 -- 13-17 3-7 -4 20-20 7-3 -- 28-22 8-2 +6 33-27 5-5 +6 36-34 3-7 +2 Last year at the 70 game mark the Dodgers were: 35-35 +2 Not a good segment. George in Ct.
The season is now 1/2 over and the Dodgers are: 5-5 -- 10-10 5-5 -- 13-17 3-7 -4 20-20 7-3 -- 28-22 8-2 +6 33-27 5-5 +6 36-34 3-7 +2 41-39 5-5 +2 Last year at the 80 game mark the Dodgers were: 38-42 -4 George in Ct.
8) This year's Dodger team is still a work in progress. At this time last year, they were fading away with holes appearing everywhere and beginning to slip beneath the waves. This year's team is still headed upward and should be a pretty darn good team at the end, but whether or not they could go further than the Division Playoffs is very doubtful. There are three main areas of concern; starting pitching depth; too many rookies at the same time; and no closer. Mark Hendrickson, a 6'9" former NBA basketball player obtained from Tampa Bay will help, but at least one more is still needed. Odalis Perez is still sitting on his arse in the bullpen for $8 million per year and the great fear of Dodger Dogs is that Jeff Weaver will be taken off the waiver wire or signed after his release from the Angels. He's better than Perez, but we would rather see them recall DJ Houlton from Las Vegas than to continue down that path... There's no way to obtain a closer. Nobody trades them, so Saito will have to do. He's actually pretty good, but after decades of Gagne and others and a tradition of baseball's greatest closers, this is pretty tame stuff by comparison. Jonathon Broxton is the closer of the future, but he's still at least one year away and in the meantime, at age 20, he's their only consistently effective set-up man... The rookies are looking like rookies to the point of being embarrassing. In today's game against the Angels, Chad Billingsley pitched another outstanding game, but he forgot that he had a man on third base. Orlando Cabrera had doubled to rightfield and took 3rd base on JD Drew's error. Now errors happen, but what happened next was unforgiveable. The kid, Billingsley, stood out there moping on the mound about the error. He completely forgot about the runner, Cabrera, at 3rd base! While his head was down, the old-pro Cabrera stole home! The kid didn't even make a throw! By the time he looked up, Cabrera was already laughing his way to the dugout. He had stolen home unopposed. That was the first time that anyone had stolen home against the Dodgers in nine years... Other outstanding rookie moments today included Matt Kemp striking out three times and Andre Ethier striking out four times. All together, 13 Dodgers struck out, all but one of them swinging. They made Jon Lackey look like Nolan Ryan... The night before was similar. With a play at 3rd base, centerfielder Matt Kemp airmailed a throw over everything into the souvenir booths on the loge level. As it passed over the Angel dugout, their players actually ran out of the dugout and stood in front of it as it passed over their heads to see how far it would go. Making the call up in the broadcast booth, Rick Monday said, "Kemp threw that ball from centerfield to Knotts Berry Farm!" Every day is different. Sometimes the rookies beat the tar out of an opponent so badly, that they look like contenders. Then the very next game looks like a three-ring circus that's all clowns and no elephants. Things are looking mighty good for next season, but right now, being a Dodger fan is an adventure... .................DD
The season is now 9/16 over and the Dodgers are: 5-5 -- 10-10 5-5 -- 13-17 3-7 -4 20-20 7-3 -- 28-22 8-2 +6 33-27 5-5 +6 36-34 3-7 +2 41-39 5-5 +2 46-44 5-5 +2 Last year at the 90 game mark the Dodgers were: 40-50 -10 George in Ct.