Team Travel
As many of you have been reading, one of the regular contributors to this blog is Scott Akasaki, our manager of team travel. Some of you know about him, but now the whole world does, as he was featured in recent article of Forbes magazine.
His latest post is below…
For a couple of years, our team would not stay at The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee because of rumored ghost visitations to our players’ rooms. I recall hearing a story about a former third baseman on our team who left the hotel in the middle of the night because he woke up after all the lights in his room were turned on. Problem was he distinctly remembers turning all the lights off before falling asleep.
On our most recent trip to Milwaukee, we checked in to The Pfister Hotel once again simply because hotel is probably the best hotel in Milwaukee. At the end of our brief stay there, I did not hear of any visitations from the supernatural but there might have been a few player pranks in the works. One player who did not make the trip told me yesterday that if we stayed there again next year, he already wants a room in a different hotel.
There are actually enough ghost stories in baseball that there is a book titled “Haunted Baseball” and a website that shares the same name. Some of our players have stories themselves from their minor league days to urban legends that they have heard over the years.
UPDATE
Today’s lineup is the same as yesterday’s, but since I never got around to posting that one, here it is…
Pierre, LF
Ethier, RF
Martin, C
Kent, 2B
Loney, 1B
Kemp, CF
DeWitt, 3B
Hu, SS
Kuroda, P
Inside the Dodgers 
From the previous post – as to Conte’s contention that AJ’s extra weight has no bearing on his knee damage, my own contention is that Conte is the least credible of all our management people. Taking any medical opinion from Conte at face value is ludicrous in the extreme, and I’m almost inclined to take whatever the opposite view is from Conte’s opinion.
Think you hit the nail on the head there bear!
messagebear: maybe this is old stuff, but I’m still miffed they let Stan Johnston go. He had been our trainer for years, and the fact he resigned after a year as an assistant for not only the Giants trainer, but the trainer who turned the other way when Barrys head inflated to match the size of his ego, is puzzling. I didn’t read the papers, so I don’t know the story, but why this happened is beyond me.
Then again, this is the front office that has consistently spitshined the trash from San Francisco (not to mention the fact that they treated Joe Amalfatano and Ross Porter like a couple of panhandling transients.)
To respond to underdog8’s post from the previous thread, I can’t see why anyone at the Stadium would boo Griffey. From the times I’ve seen him at Dodger Stadium, the guy was all class.
This is a guy who, when a beachball fell onto the warning track between innings, he picked it up, tossed it to the air, and hit it back up to the Pavillion with a huge smile I could even see from the Loge section.
Ken Griffey Jr. is class, and together with Tony Gwynn, I feel that they’re the two great players of the past 20 years who didn’t have to take a shot in the butt to compete.
Not (really) wanting to join in on any conspiracy paranoia, but perhaps Conte is here because he can be controlled by the front office.
rintinjim310@yahoo.com from the previous thread is absolutely correct that Votto made the smart play by passing on the force at first to keep force at home intact.
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Agreed that Ken Griffey is a class act. I loved that he wanted to play for the same team his father played for. (Similarly, I really respected Barry when he made the decision to go to San Francisco where his dad starred). It’s just a shame that Griffey was so much lesser a player in Cincy than he was in Seattle. Problem was Junior relied on his natural talent too much and while not abusive did not take care of himself as well as he might have.
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Going to the game tonight. Woo-hoo!!
Any new cheers, mlk?
Our newest cheer is a chant for Blake DeWitt. “Do it, DeWitt! … Do it, DeWitt! …”
Works for me…….bring home a winner, will ya?
Will do, D-Eric. I’m 4-0 so far this year.
MLK, I’ll be cheering and booing from Sec. 7.
Furcal going to be back tonight?
scurtis
Furcal will not be back tonight…Best case scenario is Friday, but they want to be sure he is 100% before they let him play……I sure hope Andruw has the surgery, otherwise our team will not be as good as it can be….other than Andruw, my only concern is our starting pitching….except Bills and Kuo…and maybe part time Park……but Penny and Lowe have been awful all year…Anyone know what’s wrong with them?
Okay, totally off topic and selfish, but since you are all baseball fans, you will appreciate my efforts. I have Open House tonight for my class, and I have to admit my best wall is the baseball wall. It looks totally awesome! You would all be very impressed. It is the most educational and fun wall I have ever done. I have all the current standings listed. I have action shots of players from around the league from the past few weeks (I focused on the top two teams from each division), and each photo has captions for reading purposes. I also have recent news articles from around the league – Piazza’s retirement, Lester’s no-hitter, etc.). Plus, the table by this wall has a sample of my baseball cards and baseball books that I have collected. Just wanted to share for those of you who have been following my efforts into getting the sport of baseball into the lives of 1st graders, whether they are playing the sport or not.
Have a great night everyone!! I will check in later after the festivities. The game will be in it’s early innings when I am finished.
GO DODGERS – SWEEP EM!!!!!
P.S.
sorry, I hit enter too soon
P.S. The Dodgers are very well represented as most of you know – Andre, Russell, Matt, James, and now Blake are very prominent so any gnat fans know exactly where my loyalties are.
I apologize in advance for some of the “rhymes”.
Mike Piazza, baseball player.
Mike Piazza, baseball player.
Mike Piazza, baseball player.
Nothing can come between us,
When you got traded it tore our hearts away.
Standing by and watching BP,
When I caught a glimpse of Mikey,
Crushing balls over the big blue walls.
Drafted last as a favor to Tommy,
He took you in and fed you salami
Said to head south and learn how to catch.
Mike Piazza, baseball player,
May I inquire discreetly,
When are you free,
To take some bows with me.
You took over for Michael Scioscia,
Hitting baseballs to Nova Scotia,
Couldn’t go to the bathroom ‘cause we’d miss you hitting one.
O’Malley sold and News Corp bought ‘em
Traded you and we hit bottom
Like to catch those ba$tard$ in a really dark room.
Oh, Mike Piazza, baseball player,
Cooperstown is waiting for you.
Give us a visit and let us cheer for you.
Cool thanks. Hope he is back Friday or at least Monday for the Cubs series. Got great seats for all 3 games in Wrigley.
Yes, there were a few boos to Ken Griffey Jr. but oveall there were more cheers than boos, especially when he made a great catch.
I am ready for the game tonight as opposed to last night when I was cold. It was 10 degrees cooler from the night before according to Vin.
big props to Chad for the win and also for his hit! I thought it was funny when he mentioned on his interview that when he was coming to bat, D.Lowe stopped him and told him to go the opposite way.
Also, another thing I noticed during the game when Hu was getting ready to catch a high popup, Kent signalling (and probably yelling), “two hands”.
please someone tell me how to get spaces between lines? I am off to the game! thanks -emma
Just thought I’d share these numbers from Baseball Prospectus regarding Stan Conte, these numbers are from last year.
~
Head Trainer: Stan Conte
Player Days Lost, 2007: 951
Dollars Lost, 2007: $20.4 million
Three-Year Rank: 30
~
How many teams are in the league again?
Oh yeah; 30—way to go Stan!
I am glad to see that the lineup is identical to yesterday. Has that happened yet this year? Hopefully Joe’s getting a clue.
dnelson:
you think you could take a picture of your wall so we could see it.
Anyone see Spencer and Heidi at the game last night? Some or most of you might not know, but they are on an MTV show and have become pretty popular. He is a total dbag and was in all Dodger gear last night which was cool, and she was in LA gear too and looking hott as usual! mmm
I would have thrown something at Spence though lol
Heard Nick Lachey got booed pretty goood!
Hey, bigkace – that’s a great synopsis of Conte’s accomplishments and ranking. I wonder what Ned’s ranking is compared to his peers. Probably no better than Conte’s. Does McCourt ever note those type of statistics.
I just learned an interesting side note. Stan Conte had a nickname in SF; Hac Man. Fitting to say the least.
If you have the time (it’s a pretty long read) please visit this link. There’s a poll on who is the worst GM in the game. The play one against each other in a bracketing system. The synopsis that was given on Ned Colletti is absolutely nails, the best article I’ve read on the ineptitude of our GM. By the way, Ned beat J.P. Ricciard in the semi-finals as far as I could tell, something like 63% to 37%. I didn’t see who won the title however. My money’s on Ned.
http://www.bucsdugout.com/2008/4/21/447053/worst-gm-poll-j-p-ricciard
mfc, I have pictures, but not sure how to get them sent.
I had sent some earlier to Dodger Stadium through Andre Ethier. Since my class is fully aware that Andre and Russell are my favorite players, my class wanted to write Andre a letter for his birthday back in April so they made a birthday poster, and I wrote a letter (from a teacher and fan point of view) about how I was using Dodgers baseball (and mlb) in the classroom to teach geography and math, among other things. I have added a great deal to the wall since then, and it has been an eyeopener on how to keep boys (and girls) interested in learning through things they already know about, and most are very impressed that I am a girl (and a mom and a wife) and still love baseball this much. It allows the girls in my class to enjoy a sport that they consider a “boy sport.” It is also great for the boys to see that girls can like to watch and play baseball, too. I know that is probably too much information for you, but I thought I would share.
An update to the worst GM poll—
Finals—
Ed Wade beat Ned Colletti~
Brian Sabean beat Bill Bavasi~
Championship—
Brain Sabean beat Ed Wade as the worst GM in baseball.
Ned Colletti can’t even win at sucking.
That’s awesome dnel – wish I had a first grade (or any grade) teacher like you when I went to school.
emma – try triple spacing your paragraphs. Don’t know what the glitch in the system is, but that works for me. Have fun at the game!
Speaking of going to games, does the drunken “let’s go Dodgers” chant annoy anyone else besides me? I can take it for intense situations, but over and over for the final 3 innings does begin to get tiresome for me.
emma: the way I get spaces is by typing (minus the underscores), hitting enter, and typing again, then pressing enter again and then type the next paragraph. It ends up looking like this:
and the result is a line break. I just put the underscores in there because since that tag is HTML, if I entered it as it is, it’d just be a space.
ARGH, the tags disappeared. Here, I’ll try it like this:
{ is really .
to cause a break, you type {br}, hit enter, type {br} again, then hit enter again, and type the next line or paragraph. So, it should look like this (with
and you end up with the space.
This looks like algebra. And I thought I had just finished finals, heh.
It made it disappear again! The brackets you need are the ones found on the comma and period keys when you press space. So it should look like this, except with the other brackets.
{br}
{br}
Yet another reason Normar is not welcome back…
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080521&content_id=2743359&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
emma – I put triple spaces, too.
thanks, enchanted – my baseball center is a big hit with the dads (some moms, too)- plus I have a baseball game on in here (Braves and Mets) so that is just perfect!!
Go Lakers…Go Blue later. Aw tonight is gonna be beautiful….(hopefully)
So now Nomar is not welcomed back because he wastes too much time during his plate appearances? No, his problem is what happens when he finally gets in the box. Nomar has enough real issues without having to manufacture ones, IMO.
dbacks loose
Liked DNelson’s comments on her baseball wall. I’d like to see a picture of it. Anything that helps kids enjoy learning while sparking interest in the game is a plus. Anyone else read the story about the Branch Rickey biography? Sounds interesting for those into the history of the game as well as Dodger history.
why dioes pierre take so long to throw the ball.
Good DP. Lets get some runs. Loney & Dewitt should be able to drive it to right up into the wind.
gotta love it
The kids are doing the job again, and doing it well.
Beautiful squeeze by Hu, helps a lot when the guy on 3rd (Kemp) has so much speed. Bison!
Sweet play by Blake on defense.
Dewitt came to play and he’s going to be here awhile
Kuroda’s pitching well again, let’s get him another run.
Blake, good hit again.
We need some production from HU
Will they keep DeWitt when Nomar comes back? Whenever that is.
We’ll take 3 runs anytime.
They better keep DeWitt when Nomar comes back.
If DeWitt is no longer the starting 3B on an every day basis after Nomar returns from the DL, there is going to be a revolution. This revolution will not be televised, it will be LIVE.
O.K. KURODA
Scully said Juniorgriff picked the wrong time but it was the right time for us.
If he stays who goes? I think that Hu should go. I mean Nomar can play 3 positions. He can play ss 1st and 3rd. Does Hu play anywhere else besides ss and 2nd? I also think that Nomar should be the back-up to DeWitt. I think that Blake deserves to be the starter. He has earned it. Nomar is to accident and injury proned to be the everyday starter.
Nomar will get a hangnail or a blister and be out 4 to 6 weeks.
Hu needs to go to Vegas and get lots of hitting practice.
Another starter in the 7th, two days in a row.
How far can Kuroda go.
Who is pitching Friday?
If we win this game we will trail the D-Backs by only 3 games. They lost today. Webb finally lost a game.
The Website shows Lowe/Penny/Billz vs Wainwright/Lohse/Pineiro over the weekend. I guess they’re using the offday tomorrow to skip the 5th starter.
If Nomar’s return gets DeWitt benched, there should be 56,000 empty seats at Dodger Stadium.
I would be elated if we could sweep the Cardinals. All my family (except me) are all Cardinal fans.
Great goin’ KURODA
Threw a lot more balls
May continue
Let’s get another insurance run with Martin/Kent/Loney.
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Any guesses on how effective Lowe will be on Friday? We’d have to go back to April to find a game where he gave up less than four runs.
Good Job Loney
L_O_N_E_Y Ties Furcal with 5 HRs
Retakes RBI lead.
My Loney has a first name, it’s J-A-M-E-S
LONEY has 29 RBI
WHO’s PITCHING?
IT’s KURODA
When is the last time one of our starters has gone into the 8th inning?
My Loney has a second name, it’s L-O-N-E-Y
When’s the last time we had someone go 8?
Ya beat me to it, jegiboney!
Very funny crash24
Can KURODA DO IT?
CAN HE GO ALL THE WAY?
Last time someone went 8 was Lowe on April 12, 8 innings, 4 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 6 K’s. Seems like eons ago the way he’s been pitching lately.
Nahh not with 98 pitches.
If he does when is the last time we had a complete game?
Oh no, it’s Sweeney the Weenie. What’s wrong with Delwin Young? Is he sick? Or is JoJo sick for sending up a .128 hitter?
Sorry, .118 (couldn’t believe it)
Good job Kuroda.
Sorry, .114 (correction again)
great start from Kuroda. Much needed.
The Reds have been Kurodaized.
LET’s GO SAITO
Maybe Ned and Torre will be compelled to DFA Sweeney once he gets below .100, or maybe they’ll just DL him and save him for October.
Come on Saito?
Most recent complete game was July 23 by Billingsley.
Broom Time
Bear, then we need to suffer through 6 more ABs from Sweeney?
Good night!
HAVE FAITH
Only three games out. And the Snakes travel to Atlanta tomorrow.
that sucks for Kuroda. He should easily have atleast 4 victories maybe in 5. Good job guys all the way around.