WAR, what is it? Simply a tool used to judge a player’s value to the franchise. It stands for Wins Above Replacement. WAR simply meaning how many wins this player is better than the guy who has replaced him. No Dodger in team history has a WAR higher than Kershaw’s 71.8. That was almost 72 games better than his replacements. There are currently 31 players who finished with a WAR…
At the request of one of our readers, I shall endeavor to bring back some not so good, and some good moments in Dodger history, the close, but not close enough games, and the ones where we snatched victory from defeat. And we will go back a few years to do so, and bring back some good, and not-so-good memories. The Dodgers won pennants in 1916 and 1920. They played…
Since the deadline is just a few days away, I thought it might be fun to look back on some of the trades the Dodgers have made over the years. Some were significant in helping the team win, others, well they just were not all that good or popular. Winter: 1958 On the 4th of December, the Dodgers sent Gino Cimoli to the Cardinals for OF Wally Moon and P…
Earlier this year, the Dodger family lost 2 Hall of Famers, Tommy Lasorda, and Don Sutton. To be truthful, I never was a huge Sutton fan. And in all the times over the years that I saw him pitch, no one performance stands out. He never threw a no-hitter, but he had 5 one-hitters and 10 two-hitters. He had 58 shutouts over his career. He never finished higher than 3rd…
Some of you posters on here are too young to remember Fresco Thompson, but those of us who were brought up with the Dodgers of the 19’50s and 1960s were treated to his handiwork for many years. And so were some fans in the ’70s. When he died of cancer in late 1968, his last draft class would make a huge impact on Dodger teams for the next decade and…
By the way, if it’s any consolation to those of you who are worried, Clayton Kershaw gave up 15 runs in 14 2/3 innings in spring training of 2014. Fans were wringing their hands. He then went out and won the MVP.
1959, start of the season – A young 11-year-old boy reads about his heroes in the daily sports page. A right of passage in those days. Games on TV were few and far between, especially Dodger games. The only televised games were those from San Francisco on KKTV channel 11. Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett did the announcing. Doggett would do the 3rd and 7th innings, Vinny the rest….
Last week, Joc Pederson left the Dodgers as a free agent to join the Chicago Cubs, and prior to that, Kike’ Hernandez signed with the Red Sox. Both were very popular with Dodger fans. Kike’, the Banana Man to many, and a versatile player, had enthralled fans with his energy, and his sometimes flair for the dramatic. His best day as a Dodger was in game 5 of the 2017…
This season, our long drought ended, and the Dodgers brought home the trophy. What a great feeling. And over the last few years we have come close, and just fell short. But in the days before the present system was set up and league expansion, there were only 2 winners. No second chance at a title. Just two teams battling it out for MLB supremacy. Four times in their history,…
Today’s post is about the longest tenured Dodger manager. Walter Emmons Alston. Smokey to his friends. Alston was the manager when the team moved from Brooklyn. He was just 3 years removed from guiding them to their only World Championship in their long history. His team was a mixture of old Brooklyn stars, Reese, Hodges, Snider, Furillo, Erskine, and some new blood just beginning to make some noise on the…