Matthew

Still not sure about the LaRussa hire, it might be a disaster.

That's what makes The Big Sleep such a great film, the acting and dialogue are so great, that you don't care you never find out how Owen died, they asked Chandler, and he had no idea either!

I'd buy those in a second.

It will be interesting to see if LaRussa's brand of baseball will still be relevant in today's baseball - for one thing, his "two for one" rule on hit batters won't fly. Still, if he has a good staff, I can see it succeeding, LaRussa is no fool about baseball. However if Covid-19 is still very active, I'd be concerned about him catching that illness, baseball's record on Covid is not that great. My big hope is that we don't begin to hear about "The White Sox Way", had more than I could take about The Cardinal Way under LaRussa tenure there.

Just my opinion, but I think that call was made well before the game even started, I mean, who you gonna trust? your eyes or the computer? In today's game the computer wins every time. I thank the baseball heavens that Bruce Bochy always trusted his eyes.

*Sigh* It's complex, it's the opposite of David's story of Yankees love, so sit down kiddies and listen to my baseball fandom story. I grew up in San Diego, and my first baseball memories is listening to Vin Scully, not a bad way to start, and his "it's time for Dodger baseball" is permanently emblazoned into my skull. I was a Dodgers fan before the Padres hit the MLB (they were PCL, and the first pro game I ever went to was Padres AAA team at Westgate Park, John Boozer - what a name! was the pitcher, and a group of fans behind me kept yelling "Boozer the Loser" throughout the game, I was hooked on baseball after that. I was all of seven. So when the MLB Padres hit the beach, I, of course became fan -- team number two that I followed. I wasted a lot of my youth in the 1970s watching terrible Padres baseball. We lived a five minute drive from the stadium, so my parents would drop me off to go to a game on my own (different time and era) nowadays, CPS would be all over that! So, I was a Padres fan, but durning the 1970s and 80s, the Dodgers were a very interesting team be a fan of, and I even convinced my parents to take me to Dodger Stadium many times to see the Boys in Blue play. Dodger Stadium is a great place to see a game. So there I was, living in SoCal, fans of the two NL teams. Fast forward to the 1990s, and I'm in Berkeley for six years, and I'm discovering that the two teams there were interesting and fun to follow; I mean, you had the Bash Brothers, the Roger Craig Giants, it was interesting baseball to watch, so, I became a fan of those two teams. For the A's, I could take the BART from Berkeley to their stadium, no problem. Going to Candlestick was tougher, but I made it out there. So, now I had four teams I followed and enjoyed. Since then, I've spent more time in NoCal than SoCal, with that, the Giants are my main team. So the Official Matthew Teams Rooting For Rankings: 1. San Francisco Giants 2. Los Angeles Dodgers 3. San Diego Padres 4. Oakland A's That's my story, yeah, I know you're supposed to be a "one team fan", but life is short and baseball is fun, so what the heck!

Yeah, Tony Gonsolin is pretty good, about a K for every inning. Basically, the Dodgers feel if they can keep the other team to four runs or lower, they're winning the game. It'd be nice to see the Dodgers win, last Championship was 1988, I went to one of the Series games in Oakland (student in Berkeley at the time), of course, it was the only game the Dodgers lost. It was the game where McGwire hit the homer in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. What I remember the most about that at bat is that Jay Howell threw McGwire about five straight fastballs, and McGwire was on them, but kept fouling them off straight behind, but you could see he had it timed, and me and my friend (from the Valley, big time Dodgers fan) kept begging for anything off-speed, but no, Howell threw one last fastball, and it was gone. Lasorda always called Howell a brain-dead pitcher after that because Howell kept shaking off the curve from Scioscia. Sometime it pays to listen to you catcher!

I think have the DH actually helped Roberts manage, I was deathly afraid that he'd tinker around and pull Urias for the ninth. Also, knowing anyone he brought in had to face two batters dampened the over managing that Roberts in notorious for.

Dodgers live to see game seven. Like the Dodgers of old, three runs in the first, great pitching to hold the lead for the win. It'd be nice to see them win, but I don't have good vibes about tomorrow, this is where Roberts tends to go off the rails.

You're right! And as how the Yankees keep blathering on and on and on about The Yankee Way® , so the Dodgers keep on yammering and yammering about The Dodger Way®. Just win some World Series' before the blather and yammer please!

These Dodgers, what happens to them in the post season? It always seems when things get tight, they disappear. I DO NOT LIKE THE WAY ROBERTS MANAGES EITHER, in big games he's frozen into some kind of predetermined game plan, and by heaven, nothing's going move him off that plan! Kershaw, come on, if anyone followed the Dodgers, you know that he should have come out after five innings. The idea of manufacturing runs has become a lost art for the Dodgers (and most teams), what ever happened to the idea that "little baseball" can win games? Lone gone in this day and age.

I always taught in history classes that the "classic definition" of a southern state was membership in the confederacy, has that changed now?

No, believe it or not, the St. Louis Cardinals played the St. Louis Browns(!!!???) in the 1944 World Series, I think St. Louis is considered southern, isn't it? Also, the Cards played Texas in the World Series (sorry to bring that one up JSangray!) 1944 World Series

Nice article, meditation, on the book store scene in The Big Sleep

That is sad, RIP to a great player. I was lucky enough to see the Big Red Machine in person many tines in San Diego, and that was an amazing team, with Morgan especially playing a style of game that you rarely ever saw. Plus, who can forget his homer as a Giant that put the nail into the Dodgers pennant hopes. RIP Joe.

Great performance by Rafa, Novak overmatched, to say the least. Shaking my head over the abysmal state of American men's tennis. You know it's bad when John Isner is still the top ranked USA player with Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka being the top "young" players.

Is the thinking that the call was made by the GM? I know the Giants operate that way, but the Yankees also? The article just dropped the point after it was made.

I love being irrational, it's in my baseball DNA.

My Whitey Ford story: I knew a man, Ken F. (RIP! He was a great guy!), who grew up in New Jersey, he was an umpire for high quality amateur baseball games in Jersey. One day, he's umping an exhibition game where some of the Yankees are playing a good semi-pro team and Whitey Ford is pitching. Something happens in the game getting Ford really pissed off, and so he starts to throw pitches "high-and-tight", if you know what I mean. Ken was the umpire behind the plate and knows what's going on. So he goes to the mound to tell Ford to cool it, telling Ford how dangerous it is because these guys aren't big league players and never will be, so they're way overmatched and Whitey can really hurt someone bad. Ken goes back behind the plate, next pitch, high-and-really-tight, Ken goes to the mound and kicks Ford out of the game, chaos ensues. A couple of years later, Ken is in Yankee Stadium, sitting close to the Yankee bullpen before the game with his newlywed wife, Irene (RIP, great woman!), and here comes Whitey Ford, ambling towards the bullpen, he recognizes Ken, stops and apologizes for putting Ken in a bad spot and agrees that he should've been kicked out of the game. Ford spends time talking and congratulating Ken & Irene on their marriage and being the classy guy that everyone knows he is. Ken loved telling this story and I heard it many times.

Just saw where Whitey Ford passed away, sad news RIP. About Dave's question: I always felt that those 1980-81 Oakland A's teams, where Billy Martin ground the starters in mulch, killed the rotation and any thought of just three days rest. MLB coaches looked at that, ran away from anything like that, and started to add a fifth starter to the rotation. I seems to me that by the end of the 1980's, everyone had a five-man rotation. Pitch count put the final nail in the coffin in the possibility of three days rest. Nice article of the starters that Billy Martin ruined.

I love the app the TCM has for smart TV's if you have them on your tv package, it's a great way to catch movies that I miss, and TCM keeps most films on the app for at least two weeks after their tv appearance. I hope Direct TV doesn't bump them up to a higher bracket.

Sad news, great, great pitcher. His game 1 in the 1968 World Series is a great game to watch. RIP.

Wire Train: Between Two Words

Yeah, they did. There's a good movie to be done of Babe's life, the guy came from absolutely nothing, no education, no family, and became a national hero. He deserves better than William Bendix or John Goodman trying to be "larger that life". Maybe there's no way you can put that on film, who knows, but I find it an amazing story. You start out like this, in the world's most depressing Christmas picture (Babe on left, his father on the right) And you wind up with the idol of kids and hero to the nation. It must of been one hell of a ride.