Day One Complete
Most of you watched what I watched today, so there’s no real need to recap. Ben Sheets is pretty darn impressive and that’s going to happen from time to time this year, so we’ll chalk it up as a tough loss and start anew in the morning.
Opening Day is always special, but it’s definitely different when you’re on the road than when you’re at home. It seemed mellow today — usually we’re crazy busy and running around, but with less media, less fans and less work to do on the road, I’ll anxiously await the home opener next Monday.
To answer the question about what’s planned, there’s actually quite a bit coming your way. Taylor Swift, who is one of the most popular up and coming country music stars, is going to perform a short concert as well as the national anthem. Steve Sax, who was my favorite player when I was growing up, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch in honor of the 25th anniversary of his rookie season. There will be a flyover and other military involvement and several other interesting elements to the pregame ceremony, so be sure to get there early. And, if at all possible, try to carpool, as everyone knows that Opening Day is the toughest day of the year to park. That’s because everyone is coming from work, so there are far less cars that carry entire families and more people driving just themselves.
In response to the question about Dodgers Live and the Scully/Uecker interview, it was definitely a treat to see those two together on the screen, but that won’t be able to be put on Dodgers on Demand, as FSN doesn’t send their content to Time Warner on Demand. All of what you’ll see on Dodgers on Demand is original content from Tony Kinkela and his crew, who have worked incredibly hard to bring you original programming all spring and will continue to do so throughout the year.
Speaking of Bob Uecker, someone drew the comparison to the movie "Major League" from today’s game. It started with the first play of the game, the dribbler in front of the mound for a hit. And then someone joked in the end that Charley would turn to Rick and say, "Two hits? All we got was two @#$%! hits?" Like I said, it just wasn’t our day.
But, in classy fashion, Ned Colletti took the entire traveling party to dinner tonight at an Italian restaurant near the hotel. All of the baseball operations staff, coaches, trainers, broadcasters, PR guy and photographer were treated to a very nice dinner to celebrate the start of the season.
And speaking of the photographer, I’m assuming most of you realize that the photo album is updated almost every day by Jon SooHoo or one of his great photographers. We are basically the only team in baseball whose site has a daily photo album, so please be sure to take a look after each game.
Inside the Dodgers 
Josh: Could you find out if Wednesday’s game will be shown in HD on Directv? I just learned today that they ship the game to one of their supplemental HD channels because they don’t carry Prime Ticket in HD on their regular channel. As it looks right now, they’ve got the Angel game on that channel and the Dodger game won’t be shown in HD. Thanks.
Good to hear about Sax throwing out the Opening Day first pitch. He was my favorite player growing up too.
I worked for a collegate-level summer ballclub, owned by Bob Bavasi at the time, and Steve Sax was doing an autograph session one day (mind you, this was in the heart of Giants country in the heat of the season). I was excited to hear he was comming to town, and even though I worked in the parking lot, away from any action, my supervisors made sure I got to meet him.
I had him sign a book for my dad, whose birthday was comming up. I was so shocked to meet him, I just stood there speechless (I must’ve looked pretty stupid, heh). I had all these questions I wanted to ask (like how it felt to shut the sportscasters up by beating mighty Oakland in ’88), but said nothing, even forgot to shake his hand in awe of the moment.
But it was great to have the oppurtunity to meet him, and I hope he does better than whoever threw out the first pitch in Cincinatti earlier today.
To Say I’m shocked at the outcome would be a lie. When I heard Lowe was gonna start it off I already knew it was gonna be bad.Not Knocking him at all but he is not a Season starter nor are the Dodgers a before Late afternoon team even here on the west coast not to mention the whole closed roof thing…. If you add up Lowe Starting a season Dodgers playing in a closed enviroment and starting before 5pm PST and I don’t have these numbers but I’ll bet its less then a 40% chance of winning. The Brewers looked good today and they took full advantage of the Dodgers to the best of their ability. But they are the Brewers and KC knocked the snot outta Boston today too as well as alot of clubs that will not see a chance in hellshalfacre come sept.However we now have 1 less loss to give and need to get it going in the right direction.Team needs to stop this firstball fastball swing and wear into the pitchers same deal as lastyear. They allowed a pitcher to get outta spring training into a complete game and that is not what this team does to win games.Wearout the starter and bangup the relievers.Team is pumped up and is in a hostile arena.Gotta slow em down and wear them out.
My deepest gratitude for Jon SooHoo and his companions for their photographic contributions. And whoever decided to keep paying them for their services, thank you for seeing beyond simple bottom line revenue – expenses.
A big thanks to Jon SooHoo from me as well. I really enjoy the photos.
Tough loss. I spent a couple hours away from work to watch it on the bog screen at a local BJ’s restaurant/bar. Early on it looked as if Sheets was just dealing and that the Dodgers would have trouble putting together a rally.
No worries, let Milwaukee fans have their Opening Day win. Here’s to hoping the Dodgers still win the 3 game series.
Granted, the Dodgers lineup was scrubby. But Sheets was lucky nonetheless.
See why on my super cool new blog……
http://www.joeyp190.blogspot.com
Josh, next time Ned takes you guys out to dinner you should have him take James Loney along. I think he deserves that unless you have to be a washed up veteran to do that too.
i could never understand that move. it makes no sense, i love JP as a player, but that clogged up our farm system. i didnt think his arm was that bad, but that 1st to 3rd weeks pulled on us brought a glaring weakness to the forefront. if were gonna try to win on pitching and defense, than we need some better defenders. that routine fly ball over gonzos head was so pathetic and it really looked like he needs to be a dh somewhere on some mediocre al team. he is a liability out there , at this rate its gonna be a long season. i hope grady has the cajones to make some drastic moves if bs like that keeps happening. and gonzalez needs to settle down on that first pitch nonsense, hes looking desperate.
Lets hope grittle cakes puts out a talented lineup today. It will be hard considering most of our talent is in triple A and the bullpen. But HEY! veterans know how to lose the right way.
does anyone know if gonzo can be traded mid-season. I mean, obviously they would never trade a proven veteran, just young, talented types, but i wonder if he proves to be a complete liability whether he could be dealt. Not trying to jump the gun or say the sky is falling, Im just wondering if its a possibility.
if he becomes a complete liability he can be released. As long as it concerns baseball and their play on the field they can be cut. It’s just the players union would probably file some sort of grievance.
Grady’s best bet is to sit him down and tell him he will be on the bench. Obviously that makes too much sense so the odds of grady doing that before it’s too late are slim to none
Hey Max… why don’t you try being a glass half-full kind of guy for a while. Your pervasive brand of pessimism is getting really old. The season is only three days old now, if you count Sunday’s game, and we’ve yet to even play our second game. You’re entitled to your opionions, but at this rate you’ll be seeing your cardiologist in no time at all.
Gary… she’s not a doctor. My wife is an SLP (speech, language pathologist) and works with many types of disorders that affect a person’s speech, language, cognition, voice and swallowing. Although not a doctor, she’d be just a couple years of schooling away from her Ph.D.
The red pill didn’t help much last night. I had nightmares of the first-to-third variety.
Also, I’m curious as to the decision to play Ramon Martinez over Wilson Alvarez thus far. Alvarez had the better spring, even hit three homers and played solid defense. Since they added him to the roster, why not play him? Martinez’s time was last year when Kent got hurt, but Julio Lugo was chosen instead. Why is it now that they decide to play him? If he’s good enough to sub at shortstop, then he was good enough to sub at second base long enough to get Kent healty in 2006. I’m just not understanding the logic behind this latest development.
Go Dodgers!! Go Raffy’s Rehab!!
Here’s my problem with Grady. He’s a veterans coach. He likes veterans. If he could get Ernie Banks out of retirement and come play for the Dodgers he’d be happy.
We have surplus of young talent that can make us contend for years and years but we aren’t using it. It’s like being a doctor with a cure for cancer but still telling your patients you are still gonna use chemotherapy.
You know whats even worse. I bet at the trade deadline we won’t haev this problem because i bet Loney and another young kid are traded for some veteran.
Honestly how hard is it to see that a Kemp/Loney platoon would out produce Gonzo and how hard is it to see that Billingsley will put up better numbers then Tomko.
On a side note… having now seen the road uniforms closer, the single layer tackle-twill looks really cheap, including the numbers on the back. The three-layer “Los Angeles” script of recent years (blue, gray, white, top to bottom) looked so much classier. I’m sure this was done to cut costs, but the Dodgers are an MLB flag-ship team and their uniforms deserve better treatments and not look like a sunday league look-alike uniform.
I wonder how the home uniforms look. Did they use a single layer as well? They’ve always been two-layer tackle-twill, blue on top of pure white, with the numbers of course being red on white.
Max, you’re probably right. Complaining about it ain’t gonna make it go away though.
I love u maxpower.
http://www.joeyp190.blogspot.com
I couldn’t watch yesterdays game but the highlights look pretty good.
Hey, I heard Grady is looking to finally get that big bat we need. He is going to sell Loney & Kemp, to get the money we need to offer Wally Joyner a return to baseball.
We need our rookies playing, and I agree with ksspark, why did we start Martinez over Alvarez?? If we have him, play him!
Wally Joyner? hrmm i heard it was Kemp, Loney, Billingsley and Broxton for Jay Buhner and a 1975 issue of playboy.
Wilson Alvarez playing shortstop would be pretty funny, but maybe you do that in september if we’re out of the race. Alvarez, Kent, LuGo…you could have bloopers day, the fans would love it.
or for that matter loney kemp and bills for heck …..fred mcgriff. i heard hes still swinging the bat.
I got a better one max, whats up with Delino DeSheild’s?? We should go after that slugger.
i believe you guys are talking about wilson valdez..although i bet wilson alvarez could do as good a job as ramon martinez, if he lost that gut.
drinkinmercury79 – I had a similar version of your Steve Sax story. Quite a few years ago Duke Snider was at Dartmouth Chrysler-Dodge as part of a promtion at that dealership. I drove the one hour drive in great anticipation of talking with Duke. I arrived and he was behind a desk with his wife Bev close by knitting. I was the only one there with them. I asked him to sign my copy of the Boys Of Summer, thanked him and left. I absolutely couldn’t talk and I simply wanted to thank him, still my all time favorite player, for the years of enjoyment he put into my life. About five years ago I phoned Dodgertown during the fantasy camp, asked for Duke, and he came on the line. I thanked him and spoke briefly about his being my childhood hero and still my favorite player. I still collect his cards. He was obviously appreciative for my call and thanked me more than once for it. Maybe you could still do the same with Steve Sax. GO DODGERS!! Big win tonight. I see the SI scouts have picked a Dodger-Angel World Series. Just one mistake. They picked the Angels to win. GO DODGERS!! Let’s start putting our nervous norvous types at ease.
Graffiti, you are correct!
Hello brain fart, yes it would be funny to see Wilson Alvarez playing short.
I believe Wilson Valdez would do a better job.
Brain cramp here as well. I meant Wilson Valdez. Too many Wilson’s on this team…
I have the hots for Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta.
Well joeyP, I’m not even going there ???? To each his own.I knew there was a reason
that i didn’t like you. That must be it ???
Kirk, if Ned had any kind of brain he s hould pull the trigger on that Delino Deshields trade
I’m going to reserve judgement on this team until May, because by then what you see is what you have. That said did anybody else notice the young pitcher for Seattle yesterday 12 strikeouts in 8 shutout innings. That’s what we need , not Bills rotting in the pen waiting for Tomko to implode which we all know he will. Also if Gonzo were still any good Arizona never would have let him go.I hope he does the honorable thing (retires).
gonzo is not a quitter. unlike those stat driven rookies who “don’t know how to win.” nevermind that this team would have been in the cellar last year without their rookies. i guess they knew how. futhermore, he will become the new steve finley, floating around from nl west team to nl west team, no matter how pathetic he was the previous season. Bank on it.
Taylor Hicks? A country music singer on Opening Day seems fitting if we were in Atlanta—but in L.A?? Weird choice. At least last year had a rock group. Oh well, I guess there’s probably some country music fans in the city and you can never please everyone. Just seems like a weird choice…but as long as the Dodgers win, I’ll put up with any music.
“And speaking of the photographer, I’m assuming most of you realize that the photo album is updated almost every day by Jon SooHoo or one of his great photographers. We are basically the only team in baseball whose site has a daily photo album, so please be sure to take a look after each game.”
Jon does a fantastic job! I agree, I’ve been a fan of his work for many seasons! Thanks Jon for your great work!- Eva
I went to Game 2 of the Freeway Series, and the Home Uniforms look the same–a script Dodger Blue “Dodgers” on a whiter than white uniform, with a red number on the front, and a Dodger Blue letter on the back (and the players last name, back again after a 2-year absence).
I don’t think that there is any cost break on the road uniforms. They did change–eliminating the double-piping, although they kept it on the pants (which does not seem to fit). In a way, this goes back to the simpler, more traditional uniform that they used to have. In fact, when they went to the new uniforms back in 1999 or 2000, I wrote an very angry e-mail to the old ownership, because they had strayed from having “Dodgers” on the front, and actually got several responses.
I am curious about the changes, because I had actually grown to like the uniforms. And if they were going to change, why not go back to the old road uniforms, which are basically like the current ones, but with a script “Dodgers” on the front.
leekfink – I have always felt that “Dodgers” should have stayed on the front of the away uniforms. If there is one MLB team that is known by its name and logo and not by its location, it is the Dodgers. No one ever asks me, “How is LA doing?” It is without fail, “…the Dodgers”. Glad to hear the home uniforms have not changed. The best in baseball. Of course I like the uniforms without names on the back too. GO DODGERS!!
Go Dodgers!! Go Russell Martin!!