Tagged: Giants

An underrated park and team?

For those who have been to PNC Park, you know that it’s one of the most impressive settings in all of baseball. A great stadium, right on the river with a gorgeous view of the downtown skyline. If you’re one of those fans who likes road tripping, I’d definitely recommend a trip.

On top of their nice park, they also have a team that’s starting to show signs of turning around their misfortunes on the field. They’re at 17-17, their best start since 2002 and according to @dejan_kovacevic, the Pirates beat writer, if they beat the Dodgers tonight, it would be the first time that they will have a winning record this late in the season since 2004.

Here’s hoping they don’t accomplish that feat and that the Dodgers can get on a roll here in Pittsburgh before returning home this weekend against the D-backs, Brewers and Giants.

Come Together

Today at Dodger Stadium, fans from around the city came together and donated more than $61,000 to help the Bryan Stow Fund.

For those who couldn’t make it out, you can still donate at sfpcu.org. Our most sincere thanks go out to AMR for helping put on this event and having countless volunteers show up to take part. And our media partners at KCAL/CBS, Prime Ticket, KABC 790, and Univision, as well as the L.A. Times, spent much of the weekend encouraging fans to take part in today’s fundraiser and we are all grateful for their efforts, too.

Tonight, at the game against the Giants both teams will take part in ceremonies to encourage civility within this great rivalry, AMR will be out collecting donations from fans, and then the two teams will go out on the field and play hard for nine innings. In the meantime, please keep Bryan in your thoughts and prayers as all of us are at the Dodger organization.

Vin Scully on Opening Day

When ESPN announced that it would pick up Opening Day against the Giants, some people wondered if this meant that Vin Scully would miss his first home opener since the team came to Los Angeles.

Worry no more. Vin is on board to play a role in the KABC radio broadcast on March 31 and will be in the house. Exact details of what innings he’ll call and any other role he might play in the ceremonies have yet to be determined, but rest assured, he has every intention of being here. And we’re planning a memorable ceremony that we truly hope our fans will enjoy.

For what it’s worth, when we mentioned the idea to Rick Monday and Charley Steiner, both were fully on board. As Rick put it, “It wouldn’t be Opening Day without Vin Scully.”

We couldn’t agree more.

 

Opening Day just got one day closer…

And that’s how we kick off the Inside the Dodgers blog for 2011…

We head to Camelback Ranch in just six weeks and after six more weeks at baseball’s best Spring Training site, we are back here at Dodger Stadium for Opening Day against the Giants.

As you have probably heard, ESPN wanted to get the Dodgers/Giants rivalry as their marquee game on Opening Day, so they asked us to move our home opener, April 1, to the night before so that it could be televised nationally. So, we’ll have three of our first four games on national or regional TV — Thursday and Sunday on ESPN and Friday on FOX. And pretty soon, we’ll be able to give you the whole TV schedule for the season with KCAL and Prime Ticket.

The energy and buzz at the stadium has ramped up significantly since we returned from the holiday break. And as promised, I’m going to work harder to make this blog more exciting, more relevant and with more of your input throughout the year. Please know that your comments about the blog’s commenting functionality are being addressed as we speak. I’m very, very hopeful that the good people at MLBlogs.com will have a solution before Opening Day.

So check back often or keep an eye on our Facebook or Twitter pages, where new posts show up whenever I send them live.

Fall Classic…who are you rooting for?

I know, seems like a crazy question to ask given that our rivals are representing the National League, but perhaps some of you are NL fans through and through. Here’s hoping for an awesome seven-game series that keeps everyone on the edge of their seats…

Among those with Dodger ties who are in the hunt for a ring are Cody Ross, Guillermo Mota, Roberto Kelly Ron Washington, Dave Anderson, Mike Maddux and Wayne Kirby. In the front offices, good wishes go out to Texas’ Thad Levine, A.J. Preller, Nick English and Bill McLaughlin, as well as the Giants’ Ed Creech and Joey Amalfitano.

It’s never fun to be watching the World Series at home instead of your own ballpark, but I hope everyone enjoys it. Any predictions? Who wins in how many games?

Clubhouse crazes

It’s cool to see that even in the heat of a division series, the Rays find time to keep things light in the clubhouse by using their iPad. This is a great read from Yahoo’s Jeff Passan and I think these are the types of stories that fans really like to read about because it shows the “other side” of the players.

I still remember when the Sudoku craze took over our clubhouse after Jose Cruz Jr. found one on a table in the clubhouse at Coors Field. And this year, Casey Blake was the guy always on top of crossword puzzles, often with the help of his Ivy League teammate, Brad Ausmus (among others).

As a PR person, it’s our job to find these cool stories and help share them with you guys, the fans, so we’ll keep working this year to come up with them and bring them to light.

On a side note, to answer the question that was asked about the Team Photo Calendar that was given away by the Heart Gallery folks – yes, there are amazing success stories from this program. Last year, I believe 26 kids were featured in the calendar and all but a few found homes through this project. How amazing is that? That’s part of why we agreed to do it again this year…

As for the NLCS…I’m not even sure who to root for in a Phillies/Giants series. Is it possible that neither team wins?!  Who are you all rooting for and what are your World Series predictions?

A big weekend by the Bay

First pitch is happening right now and while nothing is truly must-win until the end of the season, these are some pretty huge games right now against the Giants and Padres.

Charley Steiner pointed out that including tonight, we have one third of our remaining games (20 of 60) against these two teams. Obviously that gives us a lot of opportunity to make a move and at the same time, gives these teams a chance to create some distance between us and them.

Should be a fun series, with tomorrow’s trade deadline looming large…less than 20 hours away.