Watching Ray Allen throw up what will certainly be a record, I am struck by nothing else but this… “How good is Kobe?” Knocking down that three, keeping an outplayed team in a game, good job!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
How best to deal with loss?
Dodgers 3 Tigers 0 (Series)
Perhaps we allow our hopes and dreams to last too long, and with their dissolution we are left lacking. As though we were only an embossment bearing a decal that never arrived or was left out.
This was the figment that shadowed the Arizona Diamondbacks for three days. Each game seemed to have moments of déjà vu, extra innings, last minute heroics, pitching successes and grave errors. I found myself at two of the three games, but after the fourteenth inning marathon finally ended my cabinet of advisors were very satisfied, and who wouldn’t be? Three wins and half a game out of first…at least until the San Diego game is over.
Perhaps a pessimist might look at the coming schedule and say that extra innings and near failures and errors like the one Arizona second baseman Kelly Johnson made to allow two runs to score in the eighth inning are all signs that the Dodgers are in fact finding themselves winded and faltering at the end of a great sprint that has left them looking hungry and mean, and some of them are! But not all of them. In years past Garret Anderson would have just crushed that looping line drive to center field that won game three of the series, Manny Ramirez would be playing the last game of a home stand against a basement team just because he felt like swinging a bat, and Joe Torre would have the presence of mind to know that even if Arizona manager Jim Leyland isn’t going to try the squeeze play he’s better off with Belisario pitching to an eight armed monster that bats left and right at the same time. But these are all conjectures made on imperfect incomplete and horribly inarticulate logic.
The truth could be that in fact Garret Anderson, or any hitter at all might have been lucky to get wood on that fourteenth inning pitch, and Manny is actually nursing a bruised hand after colliding with the wall on that fabulous catch in game two of the series, and Torre may know that Belisario stubbed his toe on his patio in Silverlake the other day and every thrust off the pitchers plate is pure agony, but we’ll never really truly know.
What we do know is that Armando Galarraga has learned something about loss. On the verge of being a big part of baseball history, on the verge of being the third pitcher in a month to pitch a perfect game, something that has never been done in one season much less a single month of baseball, and yet we are left wanting. Jim Joyce feels bad, no doubts there, but do we know what we’ve missed? It’s not as riveting as watching big armed boys beat baseballs out of the park, but it’s something. Perhaps it’s not so vile a thing that the Dodgers had to have two extra-inning games that ended in 1-0 scores two games in a row given the apparent level of pitching expertise. On the other hand all this hub-bub about steroids may actually be paying off and high fly balls may actually be just that, fly balls. Either way, I’m glad to watch it all go down because I’ve certainly learned something about loss.
Would we play the game if it didn't but annex for us at least one microscopic second in the infinitum of that which we will lose more of than any other thing, time?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Time, death, and misdirection
Tigers 6, Dodgers 2
Sitting there watching the Dodgers flail and gasp for air as Garret Anderson shows the first signs of life we’ve yet gleaned off him this season, I am struck by two powerful themes, time and death.
It was not just the vicious Tigers who battered Hiroki Kuroda through six innings, or the death of former Dodger playoff hero Jose Lima that gave me this ominously excessive revelation, but rather it was a fact. It was a Dodgers pitcher who first won the Cy Young award in 1956, Don Newcombe in fact. And it was given in honor of Cy Young, who had died in November of the previous year. This award honors the best pitcher in baseball, but the best pitcher in baseball’s history up to that time was not at it’s first awarding. Denton True (Cy) Young might have known he was going to get an award named after him, perhaps if he were alive he would have kicked and screamed at the honor, bemoaning the idiot commissioner and all the sports writers who’d one day vote on the pitcher who would carry his name sake off as a trophy. Chances are, he wouldn’t. Chances are that in the wake of Cy Young’s death baseball learned it was loosing a true legend, and it missed him all the more for it. Baseball and the Dodgers have a similar story.
Missing three of the biggest stars on the Dodger roster, Ramirez, Ethier, and Furcal, they already appear to be showing signs of wear and tear that shouldn’t even be thought about before the all star break. Despite this, there are reasons to remain optimistic. Russell Martin has continued to play well, and along with Casey Blake and Matt Kemp there is little doubt that the Dodgers recent success will come back around once they get healthy.
I must admit that watching the Dodgers was a lot more fun when they were winning. The Latino’s sitting in front of us who had rolled two rows deep were shouting and whooping at every rally. Now, with a loss in the cards there’s only a mild mannered collection of upper middle class families who seem to have nothing interesting to say, and worst of all they don’t watch the basketball game on their phones and tell me the score whenever I ask it.
Now the lowly Dodgers slink away with their tails between their legs, even hitting in to a double play to end the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. The only salvageable moment of the game was the perfectly executed suicide squeeze to give the Tigers their fourth run of the game. The ferocity of the Tigers manager Jim Leyland as he switched pinch hitters in order to gain a slight advantage, reminded me what it would be like to be Joe Torre, only he’s my grandpa’s declawed cat because he just switched pitchers to avoid pitching to…another pitcher? If Joe Torre doesn’t feel like a nance for running to the bullpen when a pitcher came up to bat then nobody ever will.
My cabinet of trusted advisors who accompany me to every game had a good laugh after the game in the smoking room about that one, what a joke good ole’ Leyland had played on him, except that in truth it could have very nearly been the game. When Manny Ramirez came up to pinch hit in the sixth inning we were all sure that the Dodgers were about to blow the game wide open. One chance wasn’t enough though and the Dodgers would pester the Tigers until the very last.
Like a fly they were simply swatted away.
How did I get here though, miles from time and death, or am I? If we only remembered the value of those near and dear to us while they were alive then perhaps we would put them to better use. Of course the Angels across town could better themselves if they heeded that counsel every off-season. More than one star has been lost to an administration unappreciative of their services. Still, time and death, the love of life as Jack London put it. If you’ve not partaken in that harrowing story then I advise you to read that, AFTER you’ve finished reading this.
Ethier and Manny Ramirez were sitting on a bench on a Los Angeles front porch. Manny turned his head and glanced over at Ethier and said, “Hey, did you hear they’re building a new stadium in Detroit?”
“No.”
“But they aren’t telling anyone where it is. They’re worried that the Tigers will try and play there.”
Sitting there watching the Dodgers flail and gasp for air as Garret Anderson shows the first signs of life we’ve yet gleaned off him this season, I am struck by two powerful themes, time and death.
It was not just the vicious Tigers who battered Hiroki Kuroda through six innings, or the death of former Dodger playoff hero Jose Lima that gave me this ominously excessive revelation, but rather it was a fact. It was a Dodgers pitcher who first won the Cy Young award in 1956, Don Newcombe in fact. And it was given in honor of Cy Young, who had died in November of the previous year. This award honors the best pitcher in baseball, but the best pitcher in baseball’s history up to that time was not at it’s first awarding. Denton True (Cy) Young might have known he was going to get an award named after him, perhaps if he were alive he would have kicked and screamed at the honor, bemoaning the idiot commissioner and all the sports writers who’d one day vote on the pitcher who would carry his name sake off as a trophy. Chances are, he wouldn’t. Chances are that in the wake of Cy Young’s death baseball learned it was loosing a true legend, and it missed him all the more for it. Baseball and the Dodgers have a similar story.
Missing three of the biggest stars on the Dodger roster, Ramirez, Ethier, and Furcal, they already appear to be showing signs of wear and tear that shouldn’t even be thought about before the all star break. Despite this, there are reasons to remain optimistic. Russell Martin has continued to play well, and along with Casey Blake and Matt Kemp there is little doubt that the Dodgers recent success will come back around once they get healthy.
I must admit that watching the Dodgers was a lot more fun when they were winning. The Latino’s sitting in front of us who had rolled two rows deep were shouting and whooping at every rally. Now, with a loss in the cards there’s only a mild mannered collection of upper middle class families who seem to have nothing interesting to say, and worst of all they don’t watch the basketball game on their phones and tell me the score whenever I ask it.
Now the lowly Dodgers slink away with their tails between their legs, even hitting in to a double play to end the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. The only salvageable moment of the game was the perfectly executed suicide squeeze to give the Tigers their fourth run of the game. The ferocity of the Tigers manager Jim Leyland as he switched pinch hitters in order to gain a slight advantage, reminded me what it would be like to be Joe Torre, only he’s my grandpa’s declawed cat because he just switched pitchers to avoid pitching to…another pitcher? If Joe Torre doesn’t feel like a nance for running to the bullpen when a pitcher came up to bat then nobody ever will.
My cabinet of trusted advisors who accompany me to every game had a good laugh after the game in the smoking room about that one, what a joke good ole’ Leyland had played on him, except that in truth it could have very nearly been the game. When Manny Ramirez came up to pinch hit in the sixth inning we were all sure that the Dodgers were about to blow the game wide open. One chance wasn’t enough though and the Dodgers would pester the Tigers until the very last.
Like a fly they were simply swatted away.
How did I get here though, miles from time and death, or am I? If we only remembered the value of those near and dear to us while they were alive then perhaps we would put them to better use. Of course the Angels across town could better themselves if they heeded that counsel every off-season. More than one star has been lost to an administration unappreciative of their services. Still, time and death, the love of life as Jack London put it. If you’ve not partaken in that harrowing story then I advise you to read that, AFTER you’ve finished reading this.
Ethier and Manny Ramirez were sitting on a bench on a Los Angeles front porch. Manny turned his head and glanced over at Ethier and said, “Hey, did you hear they’re building a new stadium in Detroit?”
“No.”
“But they aren’t telling anyone where it is. They’re worried that the Tigers will try and play there.”
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Lies, Loyalties, and a Mountain
Colorado 0, Dodgers 2
A pitcher’s duel is a game that is tough to appreciate for the average sports watcher. It is a game of defense and subtlety, one seldom marred by the sort of explosive offensive displays that have become synonymous with the modern era of baseball. A pitcher’s duel relies on the chess-like mental fencing that goes on between the catcher and the batter, the pitcher and the catcher, the manager and his hitter, and the big man behind home plate who ultimately will decide if the margin of inches that separates a strike from a ball goes for or against any given player involved. A pitcher’s duel is as stunning as a waterfall delivering a haphazard swimmer to its maker; the threads of water so thin you can see through them, thin like those the pitcher hangs from while fighting the tide of pain and mental fatigue that is measured only, and inadequately, by the last eight innings.
I will never forget the waterfalls of New Zealand, shooting off the side of a cliff, and me standing at the top of them looking down into the cloud cover as they disappear before they hit the ocean below. The sound of the rushing water was the only reminder that I did not stand on the very clouds of heaven itself. I will never forget today, but it’s mostly because of what I didn’t see. Dallas Braden of the Oakland A’s, the town I just moved away from, threw a perfect game up north. The saddest part is that the media have been goaded into talking about Alex Rodriguez in the same article as Braden’s perfect game, and A-Rod wasn’t even involved in the game, A-Rod wasn’t even on the same coast as Braden when his moment of glory occurred. The Braden A-Rod conflict is about as lopsided as the Alamo, and now I will put my foot in my mouth for throwing the first stone.
Clayton Kershaw was coming off of his worst pitching performance in the big leagues, and when my companions and I were headed towards our seats for the first time we all felt a sense of stifled dread, not wanting to admit the almost certain defeat. We were, after all, facing the best pitcher in baseball today, and what’s more is that even after today everyone in the league would probably still peg him as the best. Jimenez did pitch well, despite having lost. Perhaps that is an understatement, Jimenez pitched nearly flawlessly…nearly. The terrible truths of the world that every young child has to experience are these: bedtime is not negotiable, and sometimes your best isn’t good enough. There are probably some other things that go on that list too but I don’t give a damn right now, we’re talking baseball. Jimenez gave his best and we were all just about as riveted to the game when he was pitching as when Kershaw was, but in our hearts we wanted the twenty-two year old Dodger to redeem himself, we were not disappointed.
Still, the Lakers have dominated my mind for the last week, the seemingly endless spiral that both LA baseball teams found themselves in had not yet ended and basketball provided a fitting diversion from the depression of two basement ball clubs. Kobe continues to put up thirty plus point games in the post season, and if the Lakers go all the way he will undoubtedly capture the MVP mantle of the playoffs, and the finals. It is hard to picture a finals without the Cavaliers and LeBron James though, and it is equally hard to picture a finals trophy being hoisted by anyone but James as he sits atop the shoulders of Shaq.
Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal is currently the oldest active player in basketball at thirty-eight, not a number he’s quick to flaunt. Perhaps he’d rather give you the total he was paid in 2005, the year he made over twenty-seven and a half million dollars and was the NBA’s highest paid athlete. Of course now he’s trimmed the fat of his contract down to twenty million in hopes of making room for the player that will give he and James the power to take the NBA title this year. Here we are getting off subject though, the important part is that the only Laker who has more than a chance in hell of guarding him is Bynum, who’s right knee is already trying to deal with torn cartilage, and doesn’t need another three hundred and twenty-five odd pounds of man flailing all around it.
The Lakers, and all NBA fans will get their final word when the championship is played, and I’m sure I’ll be there to shout obsenities at the referee and curse anyone standing in my teams way. For now though, we will have to be happy with the small success’s we have. The Angels and the Dodgers are both in the valley after rolling down a long hill and now they are looking up at the next mountain and saying, “Hey! I can make it up that.”
p.s. If you would like to receive e-mail notifications from yours truly every time this blog is updated then please e-mail adamsolomon1@gmail.com and put "Dodging Angels and Finding Angles" in the subject line, thanks!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
History is doomed to repeat itself
Milwaukee 11, Dodgers 6
…and what’s amazing about that score is that it doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. As scores often do, they inform quickly and mostly inadequately. If they were the only important statistic then we’d not have a multi billion-dollar T.V. contract for Major League Baseball and revenue for the league in excess of six billion dollars last year. Still, it doesn’t make every game fun to watch, and this one is proof.
It was somewhere around the third inning that I gave up all hope of having a truly engrossing ball game to watch, when the Dodgers had a light single into right field and Narveson had what was until then a perfect game spoiled. Down 9-0 at that point I was ready to find a large soda and some ice cream to drown my sorrows in since I was the designated driver. I was astonished by how at the beginning of every inning the players faithfully donned their caps and gloves to field and bat in this game whose end was wholly over and hardly in doubt. Of course, the Dodgers combined team salary of 96 and some odd million is probably a big part of why they’re still chipper after an embarrassing showing by Kershaw, their starting pitcher. He walked one batter, hit two more and then gave up two home runs, and all in the second inning. I will leave it there so that we don’t have to usher the women and children out of the room before continuing to read the article.
Somewhere in the eighth inning Loney hit a home run to give the Dodgers their fifth and sixth runs and the drunken dad in front of me stood up sloshing his beer on the seats and the aisle shouting we’re not done yet. My grandfather slapped him a high five and with an obvious tint of sarcasm shouted, “Yeah! We’ve really got Milwaukee on the run now.” The game was over, but everybody loves home runs.
What I can say with unequivocal certainty is that the odds of this game turning out the way it did and me being there under these circumstances were even less than the chances of a Dodger come back in the bottom of the ninth with two outs as Garret Anderson took up his first at bat in the game as a pinch hitter. When I was thirteen my grandpa took me to a Dodger game, and my middling teen aged body was more awkward than a dirty joke in a nunnery. Still, we went and saw something that will probably never happen again in my lifetime; Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams off of Chan Ho Park in the third inning. What sort of sadistic manager would let a pitcher sit through the entire line up again after one grand slam is beyond me, someone who’s into some real dark stuff at least? We’re getting off topic here, the important part is that that was the last time anyone scored nine or more runs in an inning against the Dodgers, shoot, that was probably the last time anyone scored nine runs in an inning in Dodger stadium at all, and eleven years ago me and my grandpa were there to see it.
On the drive home we tuned in to the last minutes of the Lakers game and all I can say about that is at least L.A. has one team that’s not a loser tonight.
…and what’s amazing about that score is that it doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. As scores often do, they inform quickly and mostly inadequately. If they were the only important statistic then we’d not have a multi billion-dollar T.V. contract for Major League Baseball and revenue for the league in excess of six billion dollars last year. Still, it doesn’t make every game fun to watch, and this one is proof.
It was somewhere around the third inning that I gave up all hope of having a truly engrossing ball game to watch, when the Dodgers had a light single into right field and Narveson had what was until then a perfect game spoiled. Down 9-0 at that point I was ready to find a large soda and some ice cream to drown my sorrows in since I was the designated driver. I was astonished by how at the beginning of every inning the players faithfully donned their caps and gloves to field and bat in this game whose end was wholly over and hardly in doubt. Of course, the Dodgers combined team salary of 96 and some odd million is probably a big part of why they’re still chipper after an embarrassing showing by Kershaw, their starting pitcher. He walked one batter, hit two more and then gave up two home runs, and all in the second inning. I will leave it there so that we don’t have to usher the women and children out of the room before continuing to read the article.
Somewhere in the eighth inning Loney hit a home run to give the Dodgers their fifth and sixth runs and the drunken dad in front of me stood up sloshing his beer on the seats and the aisle shouting we’re not done yet. My grandfather slapped him a high five and with an obvious tint of sarcasm shouted, “Yeah! We’ve really got Milwaukee on the run now.” The game was over, but everybody loves home runs.
What I can say with unequivocal certainty is that the odds of this game turning out the way it did and me being there under these circumstances were even less than the chances of a Dodger come back in the bottom of the ninth with two outs as Garret Anderson took up his first at bat in the game as a pinch hitter. When I was thirteen my grandpa took me to a Dodger game, and my middling teen aged body was more awkward than a dirty joke in a nunnery. Still, we went and saw something that will probably never happen again in my lifetime; Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams off of Chan Ho Park in the third inning. What sort of sadistic manager would let a pitcher sit through the entire line up again after one grand slam is beyond me, someone who’s into some real dark stuff at least? We’re getting off topic here, the important part is that that was the last time anyone scored nine or more runs in an inning against the Dodgers, shoot, that was probably the last time anyone scored nine runs in an inning in Dodger stadium at all, and eleven years ago me and my grandpa were there to see it.
On the drive home we tuned in to the last minutes of the Lakers game and all I can say about that is at least L.A. has one team that’s not a loser tonight.
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