A tough loss tonight, no doubt.  But standing in the clubhouse after the game, wearing a Las Vegas 51s t-shirt, Andre Ethier showed what a class act he is after hitting his first big league homer. He said he wears the minor league shirt to remind him where he comes from and that he wished his first big league homer could’ve come in a victory, the way he always dreamed about it as a kid.

That says a lot about a guy who won an award in the Fall League for good sportsmanship. On a bad night, at least there’s one good thing to be going home thinking about.

Running a little late today and by now you know the lineup…it was the first day back in town, so things get a little hectic during pregame. Since a few of you mentioned that you find the inside view interesting, here’s a little sampling of what we had going on today:

– Had to touch base with Cesar Izturis about casting the official first ballot for the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium. The ceremony took place tonight during pregame and voting is underway (just another not-so-subtle reminder).

– Set up interviews with Sandy Alomar Jr., Dioner Navarro and Danys Baez for Telemundo tomorrow

– Got the MLB ID cards for Ethier, Beimel and Broxton so that they can get into the stadium when they’re on the road (believe it or not, guys get stopped if they don’t have IDs).

– Set up J.D. Drew to receive the first Player of the Month Award from Three-Day Blinds during pregame tomorrow (shh, it’s a secret until then)

– Set up three interviews with Eric Gagne regarding his upcoming charity Bowling Extravaganza on Monday.

– Search for a replacement for Saturday’s clinic at Evergreen Recreational Center, as Odalis Perez was scheduled to go with Grady Little but unfortunately, had to return to the Dominican Republic to visit his sick mother.

These are just a few of the things that our department deals with from day to day…

Also, on a humorous note, when I walked into the clubhouse today, Brad Penny had me mortified. He saw the picture of him, J.D. Drew and Saturday’s favorite in the Kentucky Derby, Brother Derek, in this week’s USA Today Sports Weekly. It’s a great shot that was taken on an off day when Penny went to see his horses at Santa Anita, so I sent it out in a photo release. Well, Penny calls me over and tells me that he’s in big trouble with the trainer, who made him promise not to let anyone use the photo until after the Derby because he didn’t want any photos taken of Brother Derek.

Brad had me convinced that I had broken his promise and that I was going to have to call the trainer and apologize for ruining the horse’s karma heading into the biggest race of its life. Just as he realized I was a tad nervous, he told me he was just messing with me. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Grady’s switching things up a bit today…

Lofton, CF

Furcal, SS

Garciaparra, 1B

Drew, RF

Kent, 2B

Ethier, LF (big league debut)

Robles, 3B

Navarro, C

Perez, P

Furcal, SS

Lofton, CF

Drew, RF

Kent, 2B

Garciaparra, 1B

Mueller, 3B

Alomar, C

Repko, LF

Penny, P

Just to let you all know, the Dodgers recalled Jonathan Broxton and purchased the contract of Joe Beimel today. Optioned to Las Vegas were Lance Carter and Hong-Chih Kuo.

I had intended to post a blog about the start of All-Star balloting on Friday, but given the day’s events, I thought it was inappropriate. While it still pales in comparison to what happened to Steve Howe, I did want to let our fans know that the online voting has begun for this year and much like the past few years, will likely determine how many Dodgers make it to the All-Star game in 2006.

As many of you may remember, last year it was you guys that helped get Cesar Izturis the recognition he deserved and his first selection to the All-Star Game. When balloting results first came out, he was in sixth place among National League shortstops despite have some of the league’s best numbers for any player, let alone those at his position.

We reached out to Dodger fans to help get Cesar to Detroit and sure enough, you turned out in droves, sparking a national (and believe it or not, international) outpouring of support. Stories ran all around the U.S. and Venezuela and before long, Cesar was on top of the voting. Though he wound up finishing second overall, the ensuing coverage was just what he needed for his peers around the league to see the injustice and vote to send him to the All-Star Game along with Jeff Kent, who was voted as a starter by the fans.

Every vote really does count. Tell your friends, family and the people in the online community to take a few minutes and use their 25 votes to help support the Dodgers.  It’s about fan pride and showing the rest of the world that, as Tommy Lasorda says, "the Dodgers have the greatest fans in all of baseball."

See what happens when I don’t post a lineup? The team wins two games in a row. Today they’ll go for a three-game sweep and their first three-game winning streak of the year. They haven’t lost more than two in a row either, which has kept them around .500 for most of the first month.

Great piece on J.D. Drew in today’s Daily News. Plus, that paper has asked their beat writer, Tony Jackson, to do a blog, too.

And, though it wasn’t about the Dodgers, I thought Tim Brown’s Sunday column today was a very interesting read.

But, the best news so far is that Eric Gagne is throwing again, which means he could be back in about three to four weeks. Add that to the seemingly unhittable Danys Baez, Takashi Saito and Tim Hamulack and the bullpen could be pretty impressive for the final four months of the season, if these guys can keep it up.

I’m sorry to pass along the news that former Dodger All-Star closer Steve Howe died last night in a car accident. As you can imagine, the entire Dodger organization is deeply saddened by the loss and our sympathies go out to his family and friends. Steve was a huge part of the Dodgers’ 1981 World Championship club and he will go down as one of the best closers in franchise history. He will be missed.

It’s Friday, which means Eric Gagne should be starting his throwing program today less than three weeks since he underwent surgery to remove a nerve in his right elbow. Fortunately for Eric, he will be bowling left-handed in the annual Eric Gagne Dodgers Dream Foundation Bowling Extravaganza. There are still a few spots left, so if you’re interested in hitting the lanes with Eric, his teammates and a few Hollywood celebs, take a look at the link.

As promised, there were several good off-day features on the Dodgers today.

Tony Jackson of the Daily News wrote about Bill Mueller’s position in the lineup.

Steve Henson of the LA Times writes about Dioner Navarro’s battle to improve at the big league level.

Bill Plunkett of the OC Register covered J.D. Drew’s hot start.

Allison Otto of the Riverside Press Enterprise writes about Maury Wills’ tutelage of Jason Repko.

And Jesse Sanchez, who is covering for MLB.com wrote about Ricky Ledee and Jose Cruz Jr. (Ken Gurnick didn’t make the trip to Houston, but I believe he’ll be covering again in San Diego).

Lots of coverage today regarding Rafael Furcal, including stories in the LA Times, Daily News, and the Orange County Register, among others. After making six errors in the first 20 games, Furcal took it upon himself to get extra groundballs with the first base coach, Mariano Duncan, and hopefully this will help him get back on track. As you know, he’s been battling some nagging injuries and today’s day off, as well as yesterday’s, could give him the boost he needs.

For those of you who don’t get to follow the news cycle as much as those of us in the PR world, I figured I’d write a brief post on why it is that you often see the same subjects from the numerous outlets that cover us.

Generally speaking, we have seven people that cover us every day — four daily papers, MLB.com, KFWB and the Associated Press. These are the only ones that travel with us on the road and in the case of the AP, they’ve got someone in each city, so they don’t actually travel.

The clubhouse opens to the media three and a half hours before game time and is open all the way up until 45 minutes before, with the exception of when the team is on the field taking batting practice.  Every day before the game, Grady Little meets with the media and talks about the main subjects of the day while trying to answer any questions that the reporters have. This is why, for the most part, the same subjects come up in all the coverage the following day (or in MLB.com’s case, later that day).

The exception comes when one of the reporters thinks they know something that the others don’t. In that case, they’l ask me or Joe Jareck, our assistant director of public relations, if they can stay after the group media session and ask Grady something on their own. Sometimes they have a real scoop, sometimes it’s nothing major, but it’s a way to differentiate your coverage from the competition.

Another exception will be on a day like today. Without a game, the writers all have "off-day stories," which they will have been working on throughout the week. Usually this is a feature of some sort on one of the players, coaches, staff members, etc. and most of the time, they differ from the other people covering the team.

This is probably more than you care to know about how the team is covered, but with yesterday’s news about a new spokesman in the White House, I thought it might be interesting to explain how news gets made, even in the sports world.

JR