A hot day in Dallas…

We don’t come here very often, so we’re jamming a lot into a short amount of time. We hit up the book depository in Dealey Plaza this morning and the JFK museum that is there. Then an old Dodger colleague took several of us, including Clayton Kershaw, on a tour of the new Cowboys Stadium. Wow – it seems to be worth every bit of the $1.2 billion they spent on building it.

Over at Psychollingy, Eric Collins posted his latest and man, you talk about dedication…his computer got a virus and went down completely, but he typed it out at the business center at our hotel and emailed it to me late last night.

Here’s tonight’s lineup in Texas…

Pierre, LF

Furcal, SS

Hudson, 2B

Ethier, RF

Blake, 3B

Loney, 1B

Loretta, DH

Martin, C

Kemp, CF

Wolf, P

Tonight's tussle in Texas

A pretty cool tradition was started by Ned Colletti, as the dads of several of our players got to make the trip with the team to Dallas. It’s nice early Father’s Day gift…

Pierre, LF (pops is here)

Hudson, 2B (pops is here)

Ethier, RF (pops is here)

Blake, 3B

Loney, 1B (pops is here)

Loretta, DH (his interleague numbers are very impressive)

Kemp, CF (pops is here)

Martin, C (pops is here)

Furcal, SS

Kuroda, P

And right near the Ballpark at Arlington is the new Cowboys’ Stadium, which looks insane. We’re trying to set up a tour of the place tomorrow before the game, as it’s rumored to be something else.

 

Congrats to Dick Gray…

We arrived in Dallas a bit ago and it’s warm…supposed to be over 100 tomorrow. Any ITDers in Dallas that check out the site on a regular basis? Surely there have got to be some of Clayton Kershaw’s old buddies on here somewhere…

And of course we’re bummed that OldBrooklynFan/PierreEastMeetsWest can’t take Frank McCourt up on his offer of a free trip out to Dodger Stadium for the ITD Tour but we’ll keep working at it. No one should be a fan that long and not get a chance to see Blue Heaven on Earth.

And from Mark Langill, here’s a cool note:

Congratulations to former Dodger third baseman Dick Gray who will be inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame on June 12 (tomorrow). Gray was a rookie in 1958 and made his Major League debut in the team’s first game on the West Coast, at San Francisco on April 15.

Gray hit the first home run in Los Angeles team history on April 16 during a 13-1 victory at Seals Stadium. He also hit the first Dodger home run at the Coliseum on April 18 in a 6-5 victory over the Giants. Injuries limited Gray to just 58 games in 1958 and he batted .249 with nine home runs and 30 RBI.

The Dodgers traded Gray to the Cardinals in June 1959 in exchange for outfielder Chuck Essegian. Gray, who joined the Buena Park School District after his baseball career, today is retired and lives in Anaheim and Louisiana.

Day Two of the Draft

You really start to feel old when you see a lot of the kids we’re drafting were born in the 90s. Yes, day two of the draft is over and one more day is left.

Yesterday we drafted Brett Wallach, the son of Tim Wallach, and we already have Matt Wallach in our system. Hopefully we’ll see both the younger Wallachs in the big league sometime soon.

Meanwhile, a former first-round pick Steve Lyons weighed in over at Psychollingy with his draft day memories while Tommy Lasorda, who was at the MLB Network headquarters back east, posted on his blog, too.

Back here at Dodger Stadium, we just finished a photo shoot for the cover of Sporting News, so be on the lookout for that in the coming weeks.

And now, we close out the homestand tonight with this lineup:

Pierre, LF

Hudson, 2B

Ethier, RF

Loney, 1B

Blake, 3B

Martin, C

Furcal, SS

Kemp, CF

Kershaw, P

Draft Day

The Baseball Draft has gone Primetime, so to speak, and is on the MLB Network as we speak. We don’t pick until #36, as our first-round choice went to the D’backs for Orlando Hudson but right now, I’d say no one is complaining about that!

Mark Langill looked up this interesting stat below…of course, who knows who we’ll get. I’d imagine our first pick will come around 5:30 PT.

High School Pitchers Drafted and Signed by Dodgers

(at least 10 starts with Los Angeles in one season)

Chad Billingsley — 32 starts/2008; 20 starts/2007; 16 starts/2006

Clayton Kershaw – 21 starts/2008

Dave Stewart – 14 starts/1982

Rick Sutclffe – 30 starts/1979

Rick Rhoden – 23 starts/1978

Doyle Alexander – 12 starts/1971

Alan Foster – 33 starts/1970; 15 starts/1969

Pretty interesting stuff…shows how hard it is to hit on a high school pitcher and yet, we’ve done it twice in the current rotation.

Anyway, here’s tonight’s lineup:

Pierre, LF

Hudson, 2B

Ethier, RF

Loney, 1B

Blake, 3B

Martin, C

Furcal, SS

Kemp, CF

Billingsley, P

Inside the Dodgers Tour

The long-awaited tour is coming up at the end of the month (June 27)…and at your request, we’ll also arrange for a group section of tickets for those who want to go to the game that night, too.

Plus, we have some great news to share. I spoke with Frank McCourt about your idea of bringing out OldBrooklynFan and he immediately agreed that we have to do it. So, OldBrooklynFan, please email us at notes@ladodgers.com and we’ll work out the details. The Dodger organization is thrilled to have you out here!

For the rest of you, here’s what you need to do:

If you’re interested in the group tour at 11:30, please email Dustin at dustinp@ladodgers.com and he’ll take credit card info, etc. to get you set up.

If you want to attend the game that night against the Mariners, please contact Kris at krisz@ladodgers.com or 323.224.1308.

Hope you can all make it out…

 

Sunday Night Bleacher Beach Baseball

Things are looking pretty good these days and they just got better for anyone looking to come out to the series against the A’s. Free parking for the whole series…

For those coming to the ITD tour and game, be on the lookout for all the info tomorrow. Will finally get around to posting the process for buying tickets.

Here’s the lineup for tonight’s game on ESPN…and if you weren’t going to come out tonight because of the Laker game, don’t worry…we’ll have it on several TVs throughout the concourse to support our downtown team.

Pierre, LF

Hudson, 2B

Ethier, RF (The Mailman of Dodgertown)

Blake, 3B

Loney, 1B

Kemp, CF

Furcal, SS (how big was that homer yesterday??)

Ausmus, C

Wolf, P (against his former squad)

 

Andre Ethier – the mailman of Dodgertown

I never got around to posting the lineup today, as we were busy with the news conference to announce 90090 as the official new zip code of Dodgertown. It’s pretty cool that we’re the first team ever to have that distinction. And we’ve gotta give a shout out to George Barajas, who has been sorting the mail here at Dodger Stadium for 23 years. He was part of the pregame ceremony, as were a lot of our friends at the post office. And of course, it all started with Jamie McCourt, who has been the driving force to get it done along with the help of Tommy Lasorda and many others behind the scenes.

But I guess it’s Andre Ethier who is the new Mailman of Dodgertown. He seems to deliver every day.

This team is really something else. Back-to-back nights, down by a run in the ninth, they’ve found a way to win and both times, it’s been Andre coming through in the clutch. And in case you didn’t watch the game, that’s his sixth walk-off in the last two seasons, more than anyone else in baseball.

Hope you all make it out tomorrow for the series finale or tune into ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (or KABC). For those who missed Bleacher Beach last week, it should be a hot spot again manana.

I love the 80s

It’s Fireworks Night at the Ravine and we’ve got an 80s theme so hopefully you’ll be here…rain seems to have gone away for the day, which is cool.

Thanks to some big Dodger fans over at the NBA, we got the chance to stop over at practice today for the Lakers and Magic and see how media operations run in the NBA. We’re all pulling for the Lake show, including Sasha Vuajcic, who is throwing out first pitch tonight. And of course, Kareem, who was wearing his Dodger hat at Staples today and is a big Dodger fan.

And while we’re on the subject of LA legends, Tommy has updated his blog so take a peek.

Here’s tonight’s lineup:

Pierre, LF

Furcal, SS

Hudson, 2B

Blake, 3B

Loney, 1B

Martin, C

Ethier, RF

Kemp, CF

Milton, P

NLCS Rematch

Of course, even if we sweep the four-game set, it won’t make up for last year’s postseason loss, but it should be a great series here at the stadium.

For those who are interested in the ITD tour, there is definitely a group ticket component with a discount as part of it. Stay tuned for details, hopefully tomorrow. Just another busy day around here.

The lineup:

Pierre, LF

Furcal, SS

Hudson, 2B (back in the lineup and doing a live web chat next Tuesday at 2 if you want to catch up with him)

Blake, 3B

Loney, 1B

Martin, C

Ethier, RF

Kemp, CF

Kershaw, P (along with Ethier, will be signing autographs tomorrow at Macy’s in the Northridge mall from 12-1)