Carl Reginald Smith was born on the 2nd of April 1945 in Shreveport Louisiana, His parents were Lonnie and Nellie Smith. His dad had played one year in the Negro American League as a catcher for the Jacksonville Red Caps. Both of his parents were capable musicians. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. Their new neighborhood, known then as Zone “61”, is now South-Central LA….
I was wondering the other day how many players who took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers are still living. According to what I have read, there are only nine. The most prominent is Sandy Koufax. Sandy is in his 80’s and when seen at the playoffs, he looked pretty good for a man his age. A couple of the names on the list would be completely foreign to most…
One thing an early exit always means is that the next few months are going to be very long. At least it will feel that way. I will have the weather to deal with as we get real winter weather in Colorado. But once the World Series ends, I will check the baseball news daily. Free agents and non-tenders will be the main news those first few days. Trades and…
Fred ” Dixie ” Walker won a batting title, played in two world series, and won an RBI title, and yet he is most remembered by fans for being charged as the man who tried to keep Jackie Robinson off of the Dodgers. He was born in Villa Rica, Georgia, on September 24th, 1910. He was the firstborn son of Ewart and Flossie Walker. Villa Rica is a small factory…
If I were to write AF, the following is probably what I would say. Mind you, I pull no punches, and I am pretty blunt. Don’t get me wrong, I think Freidman took a rebuilding organization and infused it with even more talent. And he did that while drafting low. But he has also had the luxury of pretty much-unlimited resources at his disposal. You cannot argue too much with…
I have many memories of Maurice Morning Wills. Most of them involve his stealing a base. He was one of my favorite Dodgers in my childhood. He inserted energy into an aging team and helped them towards a pennant, and World Series wins. And the journey to that first year was a long one. He was born on October 2nd, 1932, in Washington, D.C. He was the seventh of thirteen…
Orel Leonard Hershiser. Tommy called him “Bulldog.” Born in Buffalo, N.Y., on September 16, 1958. His name is etched in Dodger history alongside many of their greatest pitchers. Most of that praise comes from one magical season when the stars aligned, and he was the best pitcher in the game. His performance in the regular season, the playoffs, and World Series carried the Dodgers to their fifth title in Los…
Coming in at #23 on the all-time WAR list, 35.0 is one William Park Kennedy. William came into this world on October 7, 1867, in Bellaire, Ohio. Today it is a town of less than 5,000 on the Ohio River and is considered part of the Wheeling, West Virginia, Metropolitan Statistical Area. In Kennedy’s day, Bellaire was known as “The Glass City,” but it lost that title in the late…
We are going to take a look back at all the former owners of the Dodgers. Not in depth, but just a glimpse at the evolvement of the team. Most of them, you know at least something about; others, not so much. Ferdinand Abell and Charles Byrne were the two main owners that formed the 1883 team that would one day become the Dodgers. Abell was a casino owner, putting…
In 2004, the first season under new owner Frank McCourt, the Dodgers won their first division title in 8 years. The 1995 Dodgers won the division after the strike was over in a shortened season. But they were ousted out of the playoffs in the NLDS. The new GM was Paul DePodesta, a strong advocate of analytics when teams were just starting to use that kind of data. He traded…