Archives for posts with tag: Vin Scully
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The ’Pen Is Frightier

April 19, 2023 //
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Clayton Kershaw joined the 200-Win Club on Tuesday night (April 18).

We teeter over the brink to below .500 … again — the Mets just beat us, 5-3, on Wednesday (April 19) BOX SCORE — the main takeaway of the season so far is, “It doesn’t matter how good our starters are, or how many homers we hit, or how many double plays we execute if our bullpen is just going to start pitching batting practice in the last three innings.”

Last night (April 18), I saw a gem of a Clayton Kershaw start: 7 innings, 9 Ks, 3 hits and no runs. It was beautiful, and he got run support, as well, earning him his 200th career victory, 5-0, over the Mets. BOX SCORE For once this season, the bullpen was solid, like they knew Vin Scully (who was the night’s honoree with a swag Jersey giveaway) was watching. 

But that only evened our record at 9-9, since the dreaded Cubbies won the weekend series (CHI 8-LAD 2 on Friday, LAD 2-CHI 1 Saturday, and CHI 3-LAD 2 Sunday), and the Mets nipped the opener on Monday night (April 17). A very eventful 8-6 affair in which J.D. Martinez went long twice only to see our 6-5 edge disappear with the arrival of reliever Alex Vesia on the mound. BOX SCORE Boy, did he and Phil Bickford really stink up the joint! Bickford balked in the tying run before throwing one pitch! But those loaded bases fall squarely on Vesia’s shoulders.

Aside from the groans when virtually any reliever is announced, the games this week have been fun to attend. Sometimes, when I’m walking on the Top Deck concourse, I feel like a teenager again, recalling those springs and summers when I covered all kinds of sports for the Valley News & Green Sheet. It makes me miss my dad, but in a good way. 

He hired me at 17 as a full-time member of the Green Sheet’s Sports Dept., a rare thing for a girl in 1973. Now, it’s 50 years later, there are a lot of female sports reporters. A woman is a heartbeat away from the presidency. And yet, we are reminded every day that the world is still pretty much run by old white dudes.

Next Taco Tuesday, maybe we’ll see, “MALE MARIACHI GARIBALDI” on the ribbon board.

Yeah, probably not.

The struggle for a world that’s right and truly gender-blind rages on.
Mariachi Las Catrinas perform at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday (April 18).
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Categories 2023

15 Days & Counting

March 19, 2017 //
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Two weeks from tomorrow, the Dodgers will set out on another months-long journey toward, hopefully, postseason success.

I love baseball season. Not just because it starts in my favorite month, but also because it always gives me something to talk about and share with people wherever I go.

My closest friends, of course, know about my True Blue Dodger love, but even people who barely know me can tell I’m a fan, because, during baseball season, I’m always sporting the colors: The calligraphic Dodgers logo splayed across my deep blue breast, images of Kershaw and the now retired Vin Scully, and sayings like “This Is Next Year.”

That reminds me, I have to pull my collection of T-shirts out of storage. Almost time to let my Dodger Freak flag fly!

 

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Categories 2017

The Win for Vin

September 26, 2016 //
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win-for-vin

Would you believe a home run? The Dodgers have clinched the division and will celebrate on schedule.

Vin Scully, like many of us in the stadium yesterday, had been watching the other game (Giants 3, Padres 4 in the top of the 9th) as Dodger second-baseman Charlie Culberson came to the plate. There were two outs, and his team was tied with the Rockies 3-3 in the bottom of the 10th. We were bracing to go to the 11th and to clinch the National League West championship via San Francisco’s demise.

“Culberson doesn’t have any homers,” my husband lamented. “It’s time for him to get his first.”

BAM! Vin Scully got to report one last miracle in Chavez Ravine before hanging up his microphone and heading home.

For me, it was better than Kirk Gibson’s home run simply because I was there to see it with my own eyes.

I’ve witnessed many amazing moments at Dodger Stadium — Fernando’s no-hitter, Manny’s bobblehead slam, Steve Finley’s clinching homer — but they came mostly from players who were well-known to be capable of such big contributions.

No one expected anything like this from Culberson, who practically danced from third to his waiting teammates at home plate. It was a beautiful, joyful and totally surprising turn of events.

When Kershaw was injured, a postseason berth looked like a lost cause. Luckily, this scrappy team didn’t see what so many of the rest of us saw.

To a man, they came through when needed. The unlikeliest of heroes emerged game after game. With the steady leadership of manager Dave Roberts, the veterans — Adrián González, Chase Utley, Howie Kendrick and A.J. Ellis (now gone but never forgotten) — and the rest of a roster made from spare parts came together to make history.

This is a team in the truest sense of the word.

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Categories 2016
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