Baseball 2016

[Brian]

2016 will be Vin Scully's final season announcing Dodger games. He began in 1950.

Time begins on opening day. This is the eighth annual baseball thread on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board.  Please feel free to post here about any team or topic.

And this is the third season that most Southern Californians cannot see Vin Scully because of the exclusive 25-year, $8.35 billion deal that the Dodgers signed with Time Warner Cable.  If the Dodgers ownership is capable of any shame at all, it will allow at least some games by Vin to be broadcast on public airwaves.  I don't think you have to be an old socialist to feel that Major League Baseball has a duty to provide free television -- especially for people who can't afford cable or satellite service -- as a price for its unique anti-trust exemption under U.S. law.

Pundits who believe that the Dodgers will win the National League West assume that all of the many players currently on the disabled list will return in top form, or that the team will trade its long protected top minor league prospects for marquee pitchers come July.  That's too over the top for me.  I'm picking the Arizona Diamondbacks while fearing the San Francisco Giants, as usual.

The Cubs are heavily favored for the National League pennant -- and in the Fall Classic.  As Los Angeles Times baseball writer Dylan Hernandez predicts, "The Chicago Cubs will win the World Series by taking down the Astros in six games.  With the Cubs claiming their first championship in 108 years, the Dodgers will inherit the title of baseball's lovable losers -- without the lovable part."

[Brian]

As the seventh week of the season begins, I'm surprised at how mediocre all of the teams in the National League West have been and simply flabbergasted about the Chicago Cubs.

No team seemed destined to lead the division as consistently as the Dodgers did last year, but I didn't expect to find all five teams hovering around .500 with the last place team as few as four games out of first place over the past couple of weeks. At this rate, it's safe to say that the wild card team will not come from the West.  However, one team could put together a ten game winning streak and break away from the pack.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying Vin Scully on the home telecasts and, every five or six days, Clayton Kershaw defying physics and making history on the mound.

The Cubs have slipped in the standings lately, from an .800 record to .750 this morning.  Only three other teams since 1950 have started their season as well -- the 1984 Detroit Tigers, the 1958 New York Yankees and the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, all of whom won the World Series that year.

[Brian]

After losing two out of the three games in San Francisco this weekend, the Dodgers are five games back in the National League West, giving the Giants their biggest lead of the season.

Both the Dodgers and the Giants have not been hitting well for weeks, and their starting pitching staffs have nearly identical earned run averages.  Both teams have suffered injuries to key players.  But the Giants pulled away from the Dodgers in the standings over the past few weeks because of timely hitting, winning more one-run games by coming from behind in the late innings.  Neither team seems poised to run away in the West before the All Star break.  In July, the Dodgers will have to decide if any of their three long injured and highly paid star pitchers will be able to make it back and contribute this season -- or if they need to trade for a decent starting pitcher.

Anni and I are often tempted to buy tickets to a game in Chavez Ravine -- Anni wanted another Dodgers license plate frame for the front of her car, and I would have loved to attend the tribute to Don Newcombe -- but then we realize that we'd miss the broadcast by Vin Scully.  I soaked up his annual tribute to D Day, knowing it would be the last.  Give him some more cute baby shots after the commercials -- maybe he will stay!  Only 50 home games remain before he retires.  This season, I find myself wondering how many games I'll watch next year without him.  I confess that I don't remember the name of the play by play guy on Time Warner Cable's road games, but I do enjoy Orel Hershiser's commentary.  A better pair can only be heard on the radio, Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday.  Vin is not only the last of the old fashioned solo baseball announcers, he will always be the greatest ever in the booth.

[Brian]

The Giants remain the hottest team in baseball.  On Sunday, they won their 27th game out of the last 35, the team's best stretch since moving to San Francisco in 1958.  The three clubs that won the World Series since then didn't have such a great record, and neither did the team that won an amazing 103 games in 1993.

I try to pretend that I'm not as superstitious as most baseball fans.  Perhaps Bruce was pulling my leg at last Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil when he contended that the success of the Chicago Cubs this season is a bad omen for our nation.  The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908, so long that if they become world champions right before election day, it will be the end of the world as we know it.  Therefore, Trump could become president.

But my superstition says that the Giants could stop the Cubs.  After all, they've won the last three World Series in even years -- 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Anyway, the Dodgers are five and half games behind the Giants in the National League West.

[Brian]

I'm old, but I can still remember when I looked forward to the All Star Game.

Not that the exhibition game mattered.  But the hottest players in both leagues -- as voted by the fans and chosen by the previous year's World Series managers and the Major League Baseball organization in New York -- usually took it seriously.  I even enjoyed watching the introductions before the game, sometimes more than the game itself.  What the hell -- it gave the rest of the players in baseball a much needed three day break in the middle of the season.  I still remember Vin Scully calling the 1983 broadcast on NBC with Joe Garagiola, a very sloppy 13-3 blowout for the American League, which looked like "a fat man's picnic, with a six pack of beer at every base."  Meaningless -- just plain fun.

I should be excited that the 2016 All Star Game is taking place so near to me, especially since Dodger Stadium has not hosted since 1980.  One of Bud Selig's final acts as commissioner was awarding San Diego the All Star Game this year (instead of Baltimore).  Bud's the guy who made the All Star Game count for something perverse -- the league that wins gets home field advantage for the next World Series.  Previously, the leagues alternated.  To make things even worse this year, the American League will bat in the bottom of the inning as the home team in a National League park, because it was the American League's turn.  What used to be just an exhibition game has turned into some kind of weird burlesque of baseball.

Jun 20, 2016 23:20:02 GMT -8 Brian said:

The Dodgers are five and half games behind the Giants in the National League West.

This morning, nearly three weeks later, the Dodgers are six and half games back.  They've been winning without Clayton Kershaw, but they still cannot keep up with the Giants.

[Brian]

Jul 9, 2016 23:35:55 GMT -8 Brian said:

This morning, the Dodgers are six and half games back.  They've been winning without Clayton Kershaw, but they still cannot keep up with the Giants.

Since then, the Dodgers have won about two thirds of their games, while the Giants have mostly lost.  At one point in late June, the Giants led the Dodgers by eight games in the National League West.  Last weekend, the Dodgers pulled within one.  This morning, the Dodgers are two games back, but they lead the league in the wild card race by two and half games.  Not bad on August 3.

Needless to say, I feel much better about the Dodgers' chances to make it into the playoffs, even without Clayton Kershaw.  I thought the team made good deals on the deadline for non-waiver trades at 1 p.m. on Monday.  I was so anxious that I checked for news at work online, something I rarely do.

Then I picked up the paper Tuesday morning -- the Giants did even better with their trades.  It's going to be a gut wrenching final two months of the season, staring at the standings and willing the Dodgers to overtake the Hated Ones, one of the very best teams in baseball.

[Brian]

Aug 2, 2016 23:00:07 GMT -8 Brian said:

This morning, the Dodgers are two games behind the Giants, but they lead the National League in the wild card race by two and half games.  Not bad on August 3.

Now the Dodgers are two games ahead of the Giants in the National League West, and the Giants lead in the wild card race by two and a half.

After taking two out of three games from the Giants in Chavez Ravine last week, the Dodgers went on to take two out of three from the Chicago Cubs, the best team in baseball.  Both remarkable achievements.  Clearly, the 2016 Dodgers -- whoever they are on any given day -- are serious contenders.  The team has already set a major league record for the most injuries on a team in one season.  The front office makes changes almost daily to the 25 man roster, rotating players in and out of its minor league teams.  Dave Roberts deserves to be chosen as Manager of the Year.

On Sunday, the Dodgers starting shopping Yasiel Puig before the revocable waivers deadline of August 31.  That means that another team can buy his big contract through 2018 outright, the Dodgers can negotiate a trade deal with another team or the Dodgers can withdraw the waiver.  Since he was sent down to Oklahoma City at the beginning of the month, Puig again resembles the player we met in 2013.  Could he contribute to the playoffs?  His replacement in right field is batting .139.

Only 32 games remain this season.

[Brian]

Tonight the Dodgers won again in Arizona. The Cardinals came from behind to defeat the Giants in AT&T Park in the ninth inning.  The Mets also won in the 12th in New York, tying the Giants for the top Wild Card spot in the National League.  Most importantly, the Dodgers lead the Giants by five games in the National League West with 14 games left in the season.

Nothing focuses my mind like baseball in late September. The Dodgers will host the Giants in Chavez Ravine for three games starting Monday. It's too soon to be smug -- I may have to wait until Wednesday. Meanwhile, I will be watching the scoreboard to see how the Mets are doing.  If they eliminate the Giants from the Wild Card, I can relax and enjoy the rest of this month.

It's also too soon for me to care much about the American League. But I cannot help but notice that six teams are in the running for the Wild Card, versus only three in the National League.

[Brian]

Apr 3, 2016 23:00:08 GMT -8 Brian said:

This is the third season that most Southern Californians cannot see Vin Scully because of the exclusive 25-year, $8.35 billion deal that the Dodgers signed with Time Warner Cable.  If the Dodgers ownership is capable of any shame at all, it will allow at least some games by Vin to be broadcast on public airwaves.  I don't think you have to be an old socialist to feel that Major League Baseball has a duty to provide free television -- especially for people who can't afford cable or satellite service -- as a price for its unique anti-trust exemption under U.S. law.

Maybe it wasn't shame that motivated the cable company to license Vin Scully's final six games to KTLA Channel 5.  Certainly, a lot of money is being made on advertising.  I'm glad that everybody in Southern California, for one last time, can see and hear Vinny for free.

I was born in Los Angeles, two weeks after Vin called his first game here.  I wasn't much of a fan when I was a child, and even less so in my teens, but his voice was always in the air six or seven months a year.  In my early 20's, I starting listening to Dodger broadcasts on the radio to figure out the best route to drive between my home in the hills and a job south of downtown at various times of day, then I kept listening because of Vin.  More than anybody who ever played the game, he made me a baseball fan.

Vin passed retirement age more than two decades ago.  As I've grown old, I have spent every season feeling blessed to hear him.  His good health and our good fortune has allowed Vin Scully to leave us in the classiest possible way.