It is Padilla time

This is awesome.

I like the Dodgers, but...

...this is easily one of the worst parties I've ever seen. It's just, like, 20 dudes in a room awkwardly pouring alcohol on each other while everyone else stands around and watches.

Life is pain

A very good post at Memories Of Kevin Malone that channels the damaged psyche of the generation of Dodger fans who were traumatized by the continuous failures of the 1990s. There are lots of good comments, too, including one from Megalomaniac that I'll quote at length:

Sure enough, in 1991, the Dodgers had a very good team and played very good baseball. It was a great summer. They had the best record at the break, 49-31. For 18 years, that record at the break has been a benchmark for me. I measured this team against it. Weird. And then heartbreak. The Braves, 7 games down at the break, caught them, and then passed them. I was devastated. I still hate the Braves because of it.

In 1992, I watched or listened to nearly every game. And that was before all games were on TV, so it was a lot of listening. 99 losses. And with each one of them, the elation from '88 and that awesome summer of '91 felt another hundred miles away.

And then it just got weird. Five rookies of the year, the rise of Piazza, knocking the Giants out in '93. Rather than winning anything, that stuff became the measure of a good season. And when the playoffs did happen, the goddamn Braves just swept the Dodgers right back to reality.

That really, really nails it. As I think I've written before, 1991 was the year I first achieved baseball consciousness (I was only 7 during the 1988 Series), and it was heartbreaking. And then, the next year, which was really my first year of being a bonafide, stats-mongering baseball fan, I had to endure 99 friggin' losses (on TV sometimes but mostly radio). It's the sort of thing that builds a lot of character. And ingrains in you a life-long hatred of the Braves. (Actually, it was a bit of a trip going up against John Smoltz of all people in the last series...gave me flashbacks to the bad old days.)

Anyway, the point is, it's really nice discovering that there's this whole Lost Generation of Dodger fans--folks who were too young to really experience the 1988 World Series, and who have grown up with the bizarre and disappointing experience of rooting for a franchise that was on the one hand one of the most storied in baseball, and on the other, completely unsuccessful. In other words: we're completely unaccustomed to success, and yet we're steeped in a tradition of success. It's a weird place to be. And it will continue to be that way until we get a Dodger championship that we can call our own.

(Photo from this site of Jose Offerman, who hit a homerun in his first career at bat--which was exciting, until we all realized that he lacked the ability to throw a ball to first base.)

UPDATE: It is worth noting that in that 1991 season, it was still the old playoff format where only two teams from each league went to the playoffs (and for some reason, the Atlanta Braves were shoehorned into the NL West). These days, the Dodgers simply would have made it in as the wildcard.

3 and 0 do it again go cha cha dodgers

A very satisfying Dodger victory. One or two things:

• The last few weeks I've been walking around town with my Dodgers cap on, and, man--Bay Area people really hate the Dodgers. And, you know, that's fine. But then it turns out that every Bay Area person's favorite basketball team is--you guessed it--the Lakers. Everybody here loves the Lakers! I'm never sure whether to hit them over the head with this consistency or graciously accept their love for at least one LA team.
• A guest blogger for Ackerman has a really good Moneyball-style pwn of LaRussa, explaining why reliever Ryan Franklin's ERA made him look a lot better than he actually was. This is satisfying, because I got really sick of everyone saying how LaRussa was going to out-manage us in this series.

On to the NLCS.

UPDATE: Harinder sez,

I think the Lakers love is because so many Bay Area residents are SoCal transplants. I just wanted to state my "Fuck the Lakers!" here for the record.

Nope! All the Bay Area Laker fans I'm talking about are born-and-raised Bay Area-ers. The reason why they love the Lakers is because they are weak-ass bandwagon fans who just couldn't commit to an abusive, no-championship relationship with the Warriors.

Your "fuck the Lakers" is hereby noted. Also: I've sent Kobe to rape you.

Your Dodgers come-from-behind-craziness

If you're any kind of Dodger fan at all, you'll want to just sit back and watch every single one of these video clips.

It's time for Dodger baseball!

Tomorrow is opening day! We're taking on Barry Zito and his ornery, Bondless Giants...

Ridiculous image

On the front page of ESPN's MLB page today:


Yes--that is new Dodger manager Joe Torre in a scally cap and sunglasses photoshopped in front of the Great Wall of China.

What's double-weird is that, even though he has that cap on, he's still wearing the Dodgers jersey.

UPDATE: It turns out he wasn't photoshopped in front of the Great Wall--he was actually there:



It was too strange for fiction, I guess.