Thoughts, lists and other compulsive bits about baseball from comedian filmmaker television producer/Red Sox fan Paul Francis Sullivan....
feel free to call him “Sully.”
Showing posts with label Brooklyn Dodgers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brooklyn Dodgers. Show all posts
Today on The Sully Baseball Daily Podcast, I review the movie 42.
I also look at the famous moment when Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Jackie and wonder if it ever really happened.
Also, Prince Fielder, Jon Lester, Adam Wainwright and Wilin Rosario owned baseball on April 13, 2013.
Subscribe on iTunes HERE.
Players who owned baseball for a Day
Prince Fielder - 2 Bryce Harper – 2 Clayton Kershaw – 2 Cliff Lee - 2 Justin Maxwell - 2 Adam Wainwright - 2
Clay Buchholz – 1
Madison Bumgarner – 1 Miguel Cabrera - 1 Robinson Cano - 1 Shin-Soo Choo - 1 Alex Cobb - 1 Zack Cozart - 1 Yu Darvish - 1 Chris Davis - 1 Jacoby Ellsbury – 1 Adrian Gonzalez - 1 Carlos Gonzalez – 1 Gio Gonzalez – 1 A. J. Griffin - 1 Matt Harvey - 1 Felix Hernandez – 1 Derek Holland - 1 Adam Jones - 1 Jon Lester - 1 Jed Lowrie – 1 Manny Machado - 1 Justin Masterson - 1 Andrew McCutchen - 1 Will Middlebrooks - 1 Shelby Miller - 1 Brandon Moss - 1 Bud Norris – 1 Gerardo Parra – 1 Andy Pettitte - 1 Brandon Phillips - 1 Buster Posey - 1 Albert Pujols - 1 Sergio Romo - 1 Wilin Rosario - 1 CC Sabathia - 1 Ervin Santana - 1 Drew Smyly - 1 Nick Tepesch - 1 Justin Upton - 1 Will Venable - 1 Jake Westbrook - 1 Barry Zito - 1
Today's episode of The Sully Baseball Daily Podcastwas recorded at Dodger Stadium. I discussed why people should give L.A. fans a break for being late.
I also examined the history of the Dodgers and how they were the team that reached out to an African American crowd. They also did the hero for Jewish, Mexican, Japanese, Korean and Born Again Christian fans.
Will they be the team that has the hero for gay fans and Muslim fans?
Also I determined that CC Sabathia, Will Middlebrooks, Adam Wainwright and Adrian Gonzalez owned baseball on April 7, 2013.
Subscribe on iTunes HERE. Players who owned baseball for a Day
Clayton Kershaw – 2
Clay Buchholz – 1
Madison Bumgarner – 1 Shin-Soo Choo - 1 Alex Cobb - 1 Zack Cozart - 1 Yu Darvish - 1 Chris Davis - 1 Jacoby Ellsbury – 1 Prince Fielder - 1 Adrian Gonzalez - 1 Carlos Gonzalez – 1 Gio Gonzalez – 1 Bryce Harper – 1 Felix Hernandez – 1 Adam Jones - 1 Cliff Lee - 1 Jed Lowrie – 1 Justin Maxwell - 1 Will Middlebrooks - 1 Bud Norris – 1 Gerardo Parra – 1 Andy Pettitte - 1 Albert Pujols - 1 CC Sabathia - 1 Drew Smyly - 1 Justin Upton - 1 Adam Wainwright - 1 Barry Zito - 1
Do you know what is a huge part of baseball and fandom?
Being petty.
Being vindictive.
Sometimes knowing the team you hated lost is sweeter than seeing your team win.
What was better for Red Sox fans in 2004? Winning the World Series or watching the Yankees choke on their own vomit?
Well, the answer was The World Series, but you had to think about it, didn't you?
MLB needs to cater to this part of fandom better.
How?
Let me give you an example.
Last night when I was taking my kids for a night walk around our neighborhood, I checked the scores on my phone.
I saw the Yankees let up 4 runs in the 9th and David Robertson blew the save. About 476 blog post ideas popped into my head. When I got home, I went onto MLB.com and looked at the highlights.
And yeah, it was sweet seeing the Rays broadcast of Matt Joyce's homer. But that's not what I wanted to see. I wanted to hear Michael Kay's call. I wanted to hear the Sterling and Waldman call.
I wasn't cheering FOR the Rays. I don't even like the Rays. Why would I like the team that knocked out the Red Sox in 2008 and 2011?
But I was rooting AGAINST the Yankees. I wanted to hear some deflation in their voices. A little bitterness.
It would have made my night.
Pettiness is a good thing.
It allows other fan bases to
secretly (or not so secretly) take pleasure in the pain of other teams.
Do yo think the 1986 World Series or the Aaron Boone homer would have
any resonance if it happened to the Brewers or Padres?
If Steve Bartman interfered with a Diamondback left fielder, who would remember.
People LOVE misery and love to revel in it.
And just so you know, this isn't a recent phenomenon.
Back in 1951 when the Giants and Dodgers were playing the pennant deciding game in the Polo Grounds, a Dodger fan named Larry Goldberg showed his truly petty colors.
In the bottom of the 9th, he could have listened to the Brooklyn radio feed or the National Television Broadcast. Instead he tuned to Russ Hodges, the Giants announcer. Why? Because he hated the Giants and he wanted to hear Hodges cry when the Giants lost.
His pettiness rose to dramatic levels. It wasn't enough for him to HEAR Hodges cry. He crudely set up a tape recorder next to the radio to save it. Mind you this wasn't an MP3 recorder or his iPhone or even a tape cassette. This was a real to real radio.
He took the time and the energy to wind a source reel, a feed and string the tape through the gears, all for the purpose to hear a grown man be sad at the end of a baseball game.
Folks. THAT is petty.
And the result? Instead of a Dodgers pennant, Bobby Thomson hit the most famous home run in baseball history. And, as Russ Hodges so eloquently put it, THE GIANTS WON THE PENNANT!
(Actually he said "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT" but that wouldn't have been grammatically correct in that sentence and I know my mom is reading this. Hi mom.)
He sold the recording to WMCA, the Giants station.
The most famous call in baseball history exists for us all to hear simply because of pettiness.
Let us hear the opposing announcers on the highlights.
In my He played in the postseason with WHAT team 25 man roster post, I found lots of pictures of well known players looking strange in different uniforms. Elston Howard as a Red Sox? Dizzy Dean as a Cub? Dwight Gooden with the Indians?
But none of those pictures are as strange as these three Yankee legends who wore the uniforms as a coach for different clubs.
Ruth never got a shot to manage a team. The closest he ever got was being the first base coach for the 1938 Dodgers under manager Leo Durocher.
It was a match made in hell as Ruth felt he was the superior talent to Durocher (was there any argument there?) and HE deserved to manage the team.
Durocher felt that Ruth's head wasn't in the game and Ruth wound up leaving.
Yes, it is crazy seeing Ruth as a Dodger. But the fact that it is a black and white picture from another era makes it less anachronistic than the next two pictures. And besides, Ruth wound up playing for the Braves at the end of his career, so the idea of him wearing a strange uniform is not so foreign.
DiMaggio played in a preexpansion, pre franchise moving, black and white TV era. The A's were in Philadelphia when he retired after the 1951 World Series.
Now here he is, skipping over the Kansas City move and landing in Oakland? And unlike Ruth who played for three different teams, DiMaggio was a Yankee only icon. He took the baton from Gehrig and became the superstar of style and grace in Yankee pinstripes.
And here he is in the bright green Oakland unis for the 1968 and 1969 seasons? This was AFTER Simon and Garfunkel sang "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?" Well, I hope the nations lonely eyes turned to the East Bay.
But DiMaggio was a product of the Bay Area. And Charlie O. Finley wanted to bring some prestige to the A's when they arrived in Oakland. So Joe D was offered a coaching job and an executive position. And he did get to mentor a certain young slugger named Reggie Jackson.
It didn't last long and soon Joe's main profession became selling Mr. Coffee and throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium.
(He probably became richer doing those two things than playing baseball.)
This is so surreal that it almost looks like a Photoshopped picture.
It sounds like a scenario from a dream. "I had a dream that Yogi Berra was a coach... but he was in a Houston Astros uniform, back when they had the orange stripes across the belly."
I actually remember Yogi as the Astros coach. During the 1986 NLCS, I remember him in the Houston dugout and patting Billy Hatcher on the back when he hit his game tying, series extending home run in Game 6.
And even with that memory this STILL looks absurd.
Yogi has no connection to the Astros!
He is a St. Louis native so maybe the Cardinals would have made sense... but the ASTROS?
A player who so represented a traditional romantic time of baseball played for the very team whose legacy was the modern and the new era. Yogi, the hero who played in the post war Yankee dynasty, was calling a dome with fake grass and garish orange uniforms for an expansion team.
I am trying to think of some metaphor to explain how absurd that is... but I can't think of one better than Yogi Berra in a Houston Astros uniform!
He had two bitter divorces from the Yankees. One after the 1964 World Series when he was fired as the manager and replaced by former Cardinals manager Johnny Keane. Yogi found refuge with his mentor Casey Stengel and became a Mets coach and eventually a manager.
Then in 1985 when Steinbrenner fired Yogi as the Yankees manager in 1985. He joined the Houston coaching staff and never embraced the Yankees again until DiMaggio passed away in 1999.
Maybe Joe D left him a message. "Don't have the last uniform you wear be that ridiculous orange Astros uniform."
You are never going to get a better chance! The Dodgers are a mess... they have gone from one of the classy and glamorous franchises to a team that needs to be bailed out.
So come on. There MUST be a billionaire in Brooklyn who can bring them back!
Hey, that whole "Bring the Nets to Brooklyn" thing isn't happening anytime soon. So come on! Have them play in MCU Park and put in some temporary seats.
L.A. stole the Raiders and lost them. Have them lose the Dodgers as well!
Like with every team in baseball this evening, the Red Sox players all wore #42. It is a unique gesture from the Red Sox on this Jackie Robinson Day.
Remember, the Red Sox were the first team to give Jackie a try out. Back in the mid 1940s the Red Sox had Robinson and Sam Jethroe play for scouts at Fenway Park. Supposedly someone yelled "Get that ni--er off the field."
Seeing the Red Sox lost a racial discrimination suit 40 years later, I do not find the story to be outlandish.
The Red Sox had a chance to be the first team to integrate. Instead, under the grip of the dreadful Yawkey family, they became the last.
The Red Sox could have lead the way in integration. Instead they were dragged kicking and screaming into it... up until the 1990s when Dan Duqette discovered that the Red Sox didn't even send scouts to the Dominican Republic.
In 1947, while Jackie Robinson changed history in Brooklyn wearing number 42, Chuck Stobbs was a pitcher for the Red Sox.
He wore #42 in Boston instead of Jackie.
Stobbs was 18 years old and a young phenom of a left handed pitcher. His career never blossomed and he is best remembered as a member of the Senators when he let up a 560 foot homer to Mickey Mantle that brought about the term "Tape Measure Shot."
He became a minor league coach before passing away in Florida a few years ago.
He wore the number 42 with pride for the Red Sox. That's almost as good as having Jackie Robinson, isn't it?
On May 2, 1964, the Giants played the defending World Champion Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. In the 9th inning, Dodgers pitcher Joe Moeller had a 4-2 lead and looked to get the complete game victory.
Willie McCovey led off the inning with a walk. Up next was the new Giants left fielder... Duke Snider.
Yup... The Duke of Flatbush actually finished his career as a Giant. The whole "Willie, Mickey and the Duke" trio once had two of them as teammates.
Snider was not a member of the Dodgers when they won in 1963. The Mets, hoping that his presence on the team would boost the box office. After a year of calling the Polo Grounds his home and wearing the N-Y logo on his hat, he was sold off to the Giants in 1964.
So up he stepped in 1964 and hit a line drive home run into the Dodger Stadium seats and tied the game up.
In my post for Ernie Harwell that I wrote earlier this week, I brought up the fact that Harwell's broadcasting contract was traded to the Dodgers for backup catcher Cliff Dapper.
I made a little joke about how Dapper never made it back to the show. But there are no idle thoughts on the internet and I wanted to see Dapper's stats in the big leagues.
The guy played in 8 big league games for the Dodgers in 1942. He got 8 hits including a homer and a double. He drove in 9 runs in those 8 games and batted .471 with an OPS of 1.232.
He was supposed to fill in for Mickey Owen and was ultimately sent down to the minors.
He was 22 years old in 1942 and most fit 22 year old men didn't stick around Brooklyn then. He served three years in the Pacific Theater and made back alive.
He never played in the bigs again. He made it all the way to Montreal, the Dodgers top farm club, when his contract was traded to the Atlanta Crackers minor league team in exchange for their announcer Ernie Harwell.
What an 8 games those were. It's hard to believe that with so many top players enlisting into the service that year that Dodgers manager Leo Durocher couldn't find a little bit of playing time for a kid who came out of the gate swinging.
Alas, he didn't. But any man who made the best of his big league cup of coffee and went on to defend our country and then be traded for a Hall of Famer is worth at least a salute on line.
Somewhere Cliff Dapper is still alive. If any of you know him, drop me an e mail at info@sullybaseball.com
Seriously Dodgers… the taxpayers of New York paid good money to build this shrine to the Dodgers past. Hope you feel at home.
New Yorkers have such warm and fuzzy feelings for the Dodgers that it is kind of sad. There are many people in Brooklyn who still wear Dodger caps and the Cyclone logo is designed to resemble to old Brooklyn caps.
I had equated the Mets with a husband who pines for his hot ex girlfriend while ignoring his plain Jane but loyal wife.
I think it might be even more pathetic than that.
I think the Mets are kind of like Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in Boogie Nights and the Dodgers are Dirk Diggler.
Remember when he bought the Transam because he wanted to impress Dirk Diggler and Dirk doesn’t care at all?
That’s what’s happening here.
The Dodgers will be looking at the stadium, not really caring, then the Mets would awkwardly butt in and say “Can I kiss you on the mouth?”
And after the awkward exchange, the Dodgers remain cool but the Mets sit outside, crying and muttering I'm a fuggin' idiot. I'm a fuggin' idiot. Fuggin' idiot, fuggin' idiot, fuggin' idiot.
It's Jackie Robinson Day... the day we celebrate Jackie's courage, Branch Rickey's vision and the deliverance of baseball from racial bigotry and boring station to station baseball.
I for one think if everyone and anyone wants to wear #42 today they should... If a parent is at a game with their kid and the kid asks "Why is everyone wearing 42?" then that can only lead to a healthy and productive discussion.
Yahoo's Big League Stew doesn't exactly agree with me... and maybe they are right. Maybe we are celebrating Jackie TOO much. (Cue eye roll.)
1) The fact that they will be reminded of 2007 every time a team is up by 7 games with 17 to go?
Think they'll forget? It will be mentioned along with the 1951 Dodgers, 1964 Phillies and 1978 Red Sox.
2) The fact that the Mets lost to so many tomato cans AT HOME?
Yeah the two Phillies sweeps were rough, but they went home for their last 7 games against the pathetic Nationals, the already make plane reservations Cardinals and the flopping Marlins. They won a grand total of one game.
3) The fact that they lost the Division to Philadelphia?
As a Red Sox fan who lived in New York... trust me, when your team loses to a team whose fans you interact with all the time... it hurts more.
It's what made 2004 so unique to Yankees fans. When the Yankees lost, they'd lose to obscure fan bases (Florida, Anaheim, Arizona, Seattle) or fan bases they didn't see much of (Los Angeles, Kansas City, Cincinnati).
You had to go all the way back to 1955 to see the Yankees lose to a team that was close to them (the Brooklyn Dodgers) and even then, the team left town 2 years later.
The Red Sox aren't going anywhere and we haven't let the Yankees forget it. I'm sure Yankee fans haven't let you guys forget 2000 nor the 24 more titles.
Now get ready to hear it from Phillies fans.
4) The fact that some fans prematurely claimed the city?
It's safe to say the Mets have not claimed the city as their own. And any A-Rod/Jeter vs. Wright/Reyes debate seems pretty decisive.
5) The fact that the window might be closing?
There are some young pieces on this team but a lot of old ones as well... and the Mets were clearly built for right now. And with a wide open National League (and a chance to open the post season at home) the Mets blew a prime chance to potentially go to the World Series.
6) The fact that Beltran was caught looking last year?
Who knew that Carlos looking at strike three might have been the Mets last chance to go to the Series in a long while.
