Many years ago, 1973 in fact, when the Mets were fighting the Cubs for the division title, a fan showed up with a sign that said “You gotta believe” The phrase itself was coined by Mets reliever, Tug McGraw. Fans picked up on it, and it was seen throughout their run to the World Championship. Dodger fans rarely have used catch phrases when the team is gunning for a championship….
Hitting for the cycle happens at about the same rate as no-hitters. Although with pitch counts the way they are, it is going to take a special effort by a starter to notch a no-hitter. Many of the cycles in baseball, are not accomplished by power hitters. There have been to date, 349 times. 42 of those were done before 1900. The first one occurred on June 14th, 1876. The…
Combinations of brothers in major league baseball are pretty rare. But there have been several cases over the year. Brothers on the same team are much rarer. There have been 461 sets of brothers play in the majors. Some have pretty famous last names, others, not so much. One page I read did mis-identify Barry and Bobby Bonds as brothers when they are actually father-son. The record for most home…
At a very early age, I loved to read. When I began to love the game of baseball, I read every book in the school library I possibly could on the subject. Some were novels about the game like John R. Tunis’s series about the Brooklyn Dodgers. Others were biography’s written specifically for young kids. One of the first I read was about Lou Gehrig. No, I never got to…
He isn’t a product of the Dodgers system; he was actually drafted by the Astros in the 6th round in 2009. He started his pro career in the Gulf League, a rookie level team. He was 17 years old. He showed versatility from the beginning playing SS and 2B primarily. He played in 53 games his first-year batting .295/1/27. He had 8 steals, 12 doubles and 3 triples. He struck…
Last week when the Dodgers faced the Giants, their all-time record against each other was tied at 1,288-1,288. What you did not see were the 17 ties that they have had. So, I thought it would be interesting to see how they have fared against the teams in the National League. Arizona: The Diamondbacks joined MLB in 1996. Since then, they have played 478 games against each other, not counting…
On the Dodgers last road trip, they first went to Colorado, a team with the worst record in the majors. They got a stellar starting performance from Tyler Glasnow who went 7 innings and allowed just one run on two hits and two walked. Dreyer then came in and pitched two innings striking out 3 and walking just one. Glasnow struck out 7. On the offensive side, in extreme cold…
It seems like every season lately the media talks about the depth of the Dodger organization. It also seems like every season that depth is tested. The beginning of this season seems to be no exception. The depth of the starting rotation is already under scrutiny because of the performance of Sasaki and Sheehan, To his credit, Sheehan has looked better his last couple of starts. His ERA after 4…
I got to thinking about this earlier today when I was watching an old Miller beer commercial on Facebook. The player in the commercial was none other than “The Penguin”, Ron Cey. Back when I first began following the game, there were so many players with nicknames. Some were always identified by that nickname on their baseball cards. Duke Snider, Yogi Berra, Smokey Burgess. The Dodgers first Babe was Babe…
Over the years several players could be counted on to be in the lineup on opening day. In my last post, I chronicled the foursome of Garvey, Lopes, Cey and Russell. The infield that was together longer than any other foursome in MLB history. In this post, we will look at the players who were in the lineup the most on opening day. Catcher For 10 seasons, the Dodgers opening…