Tagged: Kirk Gibson

Could this be the season for CY/MVP?

There’s no sugar-coating the fact that this season has not been anything like what we all had hoped back in February, but there are some bright spots that are impossible to ignore. In fact, the performances of Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw last night once again put their names among those that have to be considered for Cy Young and Most Valuable Player in the National League.

The Dodgers haven’t had that happen since 1988 when Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser pulled it off and it hadn’t happened before that in Los Angeles since 1974 with Steve Garvey and Mike Marshall. Of course, we got spoiled in the early 60s when Maury Wills and Don Drysdale did it in 1962, followed by Koufax winning both awards in 1963.  Don Newcombe pulled off the double-feat in 1956 back in Brooklyn, the first year the Cy Young Award was given out.

Meanwhile, it hasn’t happened to any team in the NL since Pujols and Carpenter did it for St. Louis in 2005 and the last time it happened in the bigs was when Minnesota did it with Morneau and Santana in 2006.

If the season ended today, do you think they’d both take home these coveted awards?

Photo courtesy Getty Images

History revisited…

Pretty cool that just a few feet away, Vin Scully is doing the Dodger broadcast, Joe Garagiola is doing the D-backs broadcast and down in the dugout, Kirk Gibson is managing the D-backs. All three men were there on Oct. 15, 1988 when Gibby hit the famous home run in Game 1 of the World Series.

A few of us were joking before the game that when Gibson goes to the mound to pull out his pitcher, he should do a fist pump with his right arm like he did rounding the bases.

Meanwhile Joe G. and Joe T. were hanging in the dugout during batting practice and a ton of players came over to meet Garagiola. The broadcast area here is named for him and they have a cool timeline of his history in the game of baseball.