Touring the stadium…
Thanks to those of you who made it out today…it was a fun afternoon tour and given that we only had about 20 total people on hand, we took some detours into areas that we’re not normally permitted to go. A peek inside the clubhouse, inside the weight room, up the clubhouse tunnel and into the area where Kirk Gibson got loose before his big homer in ’88. We even ran into a few different Dodger folks who were kind enough to say hello, including Manny Mota, who spent a good amount of time with the group.
Series finale is tomorrow night on ESPN, so it’s a 5:10 game…hope we’ll see some of you out here again.
Inside the Dodgers 
What a great tour! Thank you so much!!! It was awesome to get to parts of the stadium us “regular folk” aren’t normally allowed. Wonderful time! Even got to say hello to more players as they walked from their cars. THANKS YOU!!! Go Dodgers!!!
Glad the tour was fun…sorry I had to miss it this year.
.
As for tonight’s game……It was a fishing embarrassment!!!!!
One word: uggggghhhhhhhh!
When it not your year, you know thing are really bad like we didn’t know this before.
I know this season we have had games that have went downhill fast, but this was excruciating to watch because it was the gnats who we allowed back into this game.
I am glad those of you who went to the ITD Tour had a good time. Sorry the game didn’t turn out to be as good as the tour.
Thanks for a great tour Josh. In all my travels and taking tours at Fenway, Wrigley, old Yankee Stadium, AZ, and SD among others, Inside the Dodgers was far and away the best tour. Glad I finally took the opportunity and toured my home team’s ballpark.
While a W is always the preferred and desired result, not even the loss can put a damper on what a fun day it was.
Thank you very much again for your time.
Lucas May made his major league debut tonight and goes 0/3 but had 2 PB charged to him on defense.
Thanks for a great time Josh! It was definitely more than I expected. I’ve taken a mini-tour of the Stadium during the Holiday Event, but this was way cooler. I can’t wait to write about it and post my pictures on my blog. Unfortunately, it may not be till Monday or Tuesday
http://fallingleaves02.mlblogs.com
Josh,
Thank you so much for a wonderful tour! Don’t forget my question about the picture in the Vin Scully Press Box eating area. Thanks!
.
Saw Fernando who works in the dugout level and he said he was surprised to see Josh Rawitch doing the tour. I told him it was because we are a special group.
.
After the tour I was walking to my car when someone yelled “Emma” It was fansince53 who was in the Bluetopia movie. His son is now as tall as him or taller! He said he was going to the gift shop and staying until the game started so I decided to stay too so I grabbed my book (Confession of a she-fan by Jane Heller) and stayed there relaxing reading and enjoyin the view and the cool breeze. I noticed then that they were setting up to take the team picture. I caught a couple of pictures but then they asked us to move away while they took actually took the picture
.
Saw Josh Suchon come in and while he waited for the elevator Fansince53 and I went to say hi to him. He asked me what I was doing so early. I told him I took the tour. He said “you don’t need a tour” but you know taking the tour again is like re-watching a favorite movie, you noticed other things that you did not noticed before. I also got to talk to Manny Mota and had a chance to tell him what a wonderful job he and Pepe are doing with the TV broadcasting in Spanish. We saw Kuo while we were in the inside batting cage.
.
I saw Booster Club members come in getting ready for the give-away (Sports Authority card for $25 gift card if you spent100). We talked about the upcoming Booster Club meeting. Anyway, they needed help with the giveaway so I was put in the Club level where I worked from two hours before game time till the 3rd inning. During that time a fan gave me a club level ticket so I watched the game from there from the 4th inning. Saw Arsenio Hall come thru the club level. He looks the same since the last time I saw him on the screen.
.
Too bad the outcome at the end was not what we wanted. I was frustrated that we had to lose it in the 9th. I had two Giant fans sitting in back of me.
.
TrueBluewill!
I finally heard you on Dodger Talk! Like Ken Levine said, you sure stay late! Hey my friend Lore and I are going to New York next year and now it seems like another friend wants to join us.
.
I got lots of pictures to post. I even have a video when Josh was answering our questions in the dugout restaurant but I am not sure if I should post it. Josh and those that were there, what do you think?
.
Emma
http://crzblue.mlblogs.com
The whole ninth inning last night was a microcosm of the entire season, and exactly why this team sucks.
.
Nice L.A. Times article on Wallach including this from the AAA batting coach:
.
“Very patient,” Moses says. “Shows a lot of poise under pressure. Handles the pitchers well. Handles the press well. He gets the most out of his players.”
.
Of course, according to that baseball wizard Ned, Donnie Baseball is the leading candidate to take over for JoJo The Clown even though he has no managerial experience, and even though Wallach is ranked as the minor leagues #1 candidate to manage in the bigs. Ned also acknowledges that if he doesn’t get the job that he’ll lose Wallach to another organization.
.
Last guy that played for the Dodgers and honed his managerial skills at Albuquerque, then was spurned by the Dodgers was some guy named Scioscia.
I honestly have to question if I’ll even follow the team next year if JoJo or Donnie is at the helm, Ned is still the GM and Frank’s still the owner. Seems a waste of my time and energy that could be put to better use elsewhere.
JOSH!!!! Thank you so much for getting the group in on the tour!!! I know they all really appreciate your efforts.
*
I’d send Broxton home now to go fishing (for real, not a play on words) with instructions not to pick up a ball until spring.
I don’t get how the guy could turn to doo-doo like this. The whole team, for that matter.
Tough season all around. verypo’dbear is right where I’m concerned. This whole season had a different feel to me from the beginning. Had to go to AZ for a week and I made sure to were my Dodger hat everywhere, I’ll never change teams. It’s just tough to get enthused.
*
Anybody have any ideas on how to get my sisters-in-law to shut up and leave? And still have a wife?
I don’t think Brox wants to be traded per se. He generally slumps at the end of the year, maybe not this badly, but slumps none-the-less. I think he’s developed a horrendous case of the yips and Bunnynutts hasn’t the wherewithall to get inside his head and straighten him out. Its obvious BN hasn’t the wherewithall either to teach the guy a change-up, which would probably make him devistating.
How is it too that night after night after night if this team gets a guy to third and less than 2 outs they NEVER score? I can’t fathom that every single one of these guys sucks so bad to where they can’t even have a 25% success rate. Donnie Baseball’s the hitting coach, shouldn’t he shoulder much of the blame? But hell no, let’s anoint him manager without one iota of experience.
I got to thinking again last night too, our pitchers have got to be the absolute worst hitters in the national league. Is Bills the only one even above .100? Ever since Jansen said he hadn’t taken batting practice since he became a pitcher, that statement was rolling around in my head and wouldn’t go away. Then it dawned on me that JoJo’s totally an AL manager, so of course he has no concept of having pitchers take regular BP and instruction, hence our pitchers are pathetic “hitters” and rarely if ever help their own cause.
This franchise and team are broken on so many levels its become the 90’s all over again for me. From about ’92 to ’02 I disengaged following this team other than sporadically. I feel another decade’s upon me.
Bear,
Besides the Dodgers, I root for the Rays. I just love how they have a small payroll and compete well against the Yankees and Red Sox. I started recruting Rays players in my fantasy teams since I started playing.
.
Just finished reading the nice article on Tim Wallach. I also finished reading the obituary on Paul Conrad. Rest in peace Mr. Conrad.
Emma
http://crzblue.mlblogs.com
I attended the tour, too, (thanks Josh) and Manny Mota was the highlight. He spent about five minutes with us in the indoor batting cages, explaining he works with the players there to get their mental thoughts together, while BP on the field was for the physical part.
Stayed for the game (my first of the year…sorry, Frank) and watching the 9th inning didn’t even hurt…it was more comical. I’ve had no illusions about this team since they broke from the All Star game with a giant thud. In watching Jonathon “Botched-It” incur his latest meltdown last night, something dawned on me. This guy is as big as a house. Remember Goose Gossage? He wouldn’t resort to the stretch until men got on base. He was like a big, ol’, windmill out there, flinging it 100+mph and scaring the hell out of hitters. “Botched-It” is SOOOOOO methodical, precise, slow…it’s almost like he’d rather do ANYTHING than throw the ball. He ought to just wind up and fire the damn thing. He doesn’t hold runners on, anyway, so what’s the big deal? Come to think of it, ALL our relievers start from a stretch, thereby giving up velocity and psyche.
“Botched-It” also said he threw one bad pitch last night. Ummmmmmm, he started the first two hitters 2-0, so that’s four more bad pitches by my count. Again, he’s subliminally telling the opposition I’m afraid to play hardball.
Oh, and I agree…give us Wallach!
The 90’s were different. We had people running the team for its own intrinsic value, not as a piggybank for their self-indulgent, hedonistic nihilist pleasures.
And if we did have owners in the past who used money in such ways, they didn’t go flaunting it to every stray paparazzo in a mile’s vicinity. Somehow, I doubt the O’Malleys were so extravagant. And I’d rather not know.
Losses like last night, although harrowing, are somewhat stomachable when you have ownership that’s trying to win, instead of ownership that’s trying to win with whatever money they can spare from their Pamper Fund, which, as we all know, comes from the money fans pay in hopes of funding a Championship team.
Not a Competitor. Not a Contender. A Champion.
Of course, McCourt has been as far from “Champion” as heaven is wide, unless he’s championing his own inflated ego.
I still root, root, root for the Dodgers. I never want them to lose. I just fear that with this ownership in place, my interest will wane away.
Whatever this True Blue fan’s interest wanes away to, though, I can guarantee that it’s going to be at least 10 fold more than the interest the owner has in the team.
And how ’bout this trial? Usually people go out with guns blazing before the bitter end, not before a 30 year run as owner of a team after you’ve thrown all your family’s skeletons from the closet into the bright lights of Hollywood.
Even if he wins, Frank’s gonna have a hard time making the future-attendance projections he took out loans against. And even when 2013 rolls around (when the Dodgers regain TV rights), he doesn’t have a GM who knows how to spend money (Jason Schmidt, anyone?), and do you think White and Ng will still be hanging around by then?
He doesn’t have a training staff that can properly diagnose injuries (Jayson Werth, anyone?), as we bring in PVL after PVL with their higher propensity for aches, twinges and such.
All he has is Tommy Lasorda at his right hand, Manny Mota in his coaching staff, Jon Soo Hoo behind the lens, Nancy Bea on the Ivories, and the crown jewel, Vin Scully in the press box. Vin, the great artist, can only paint what he sees, he can’t change what he sees (that’s the Giants’ announcers job, with their “I think that was a ball” “Russell Martin didn’t charge the mound :: 65 seconds later :: This all started after Martin charged the mound” antics).
To be a successful Dodger, you have to understand what it means to be a Dodger, a star-crossed franchise that, come hell or high water, always fight it out ’til the end, with more pennants in tow than most clubs, yet never rest on that as the crowning achievement.
But Frank’s a tax dodger, and that’s a start.
Hi emma, I’d like to see the pics, but I wouldn’t post the video until Josh hears it. Afterall, he’s the one talking!
Hi Emma…the only reason I say let Josh hear it first is that we peppered him with some pretty pointed questions and he didn’t duck any of them. I didn’t hear him say anything off base, Dodger-wise, but I’d still allow him the courtesy.
I grew up on the south side of Chicago and love what the Sox are doing. I’m watching them sweep the Bosox and it’s ironic that JuanP, Andruw, and Manny now all wear black. I remember recent Dodger history had a 2006 outfield of Ethier (LF), Lofton and J.D. Drew (OK, I had to look that one up). Ned signed JuanP to replace Lofton for 2007 (not trusting in Kemp or Repko, thus ushering in the onset of PVL madness). Just prior to the start of that season Drew bolts for Boston, upsetting Ned’s apple cart. His solution? Certainly not Kemp or Repko, but GONZO. Ouch. Gonzo turns out to be a selfish pill, so Ned signs Andruw (again, ignoring Kemp), until Andruw is so awful the team has no choice but to play Kemp. And Pierre is eventually replaced with Manny. So thanks again to JD Drew for Gonzo and Andruw.
NSB,
You have a way with words!
.
Khali,
I remember Gossage. I rememer when he beamed Cey. I was looking for something and happen to run into a 1981 Championship Series ticket. It does not have a date, it only says Game CC. I paid $10 back then for that when I had season tickets in the Loge aisle 103. Thanks for your advice Khali! I won’t post it.
.
Oh I posted the first set of pictures. I’ll have more but it will come on a second post.
Emma
http://crzblue.mlblogs.com
Josh, what an amazing tour. Thank you so much for taking the time – we’re still giddy from the day. Clubhouse tunnel! Manny Mota! I still can’t believe it!
I and my family cannot thank you enough!
-Jen