Hello Jim, Hello Jon

Scully announced just moments ago that the Dodgers have acquired over-the-hill slugger Jim Thome. A player to be announced will be shipped to the White Sox in return, tho probably not Ronnie Belliard, who hit a home run tonight and remains overwhelmingly unwanted by every team in the bigs. One day in the mid '90s Uncle Fun Richie and I caught the Indians at Yankee Stadium and Thome signed a ball for me. I have no idea where that ball is now, but Thome has occupied a special place in my heart ever since. He's sorta the Vin Baker of baseball for me, except instead of booze, Thome's drug of choice is HGH, and instead of Sam Cassell, Thome had Carlos Baerga. Really, there's no reason to dislike the move by the Dogs. We now own 8% of the 500 HR club, and 17% of the most protruding chins in baseball. The only down side is that we'll now have to move to the AL west to accommodate our venerable DH. Either that or make it to the World Series. I'll take the latter.

In other late-breaking news, we also obtained the rights to Jon Garland, again for a player to be named later. With his 1 World Series win added to our pen, we've now doubled our team total (Dream Weaver has 1). Be afraid MLB.

Observations - August 20 (Cubs Must Die)

Game 122 on WGN. The first game I've caught in full since Verizon accidentally killed my Wi-Fi when I switched up my plan a couple weeks ago. 3.5 games up in the division at the start of the game. We need a win.

- Tonight's intriguing duos: WGN announcers Bob Brenley and Len Kasper (who will be referred to in this post as Jeff Twardzik, for no real reason); Andre Ethier and Milton Bradley, Weaver vs. Gorzelanny

- Two warning track outs in the top of the first - somehow a 1,2,3 inning. Weaver is gonna make this an interesting one.

- Rafael Furcal - 6 stolen bases this year. If I remember correctly, Kenny Loften had 6 a game when he hit 40.

- Fukudome bibim bomb (I know, he's Japanese, not Korean. It sounds good, deal with it). Top of second. The Weaver feast begins?

- Old timer Cubs coach in the stands. Came up with the dodgers 40 years ago. Summer of '69. The players would listen to Vin Scully on the radio while in the dugout. The red headed godfather is a national treasure.

- 6oth year for Lasorda. 60th year for Scully. Brenley: The difference between the two: "Vin comes up with new stories every once in a while."

- Lasorda's only milestone as a player according to Baseball Reference? His 7 wild pitches in 1956 gave him the third most in the AL.

- Charlie Haeger and Jeff Weaver are in our starting rotation with 40 games to go in the season. That's like 8 starts each. Shit?

- Things never before noticed until now about Dodger Stadium and the Dodgers: big, white moonbounce out beyond center; "Think Cure!" painted along the third base line; Russell Martin's jersey says "J. Martin."

- Brenley says one team in the NL has used its bullpen more than us. The Nationals.

- Player we miraculously don't have on the books: Alfonso Soriano.

- Weaver gets out of a bases loaded one-out jam in the 3rd with the luckiest back-to-back strikeouts i've ever seen. Low and away sliders to drunk Soriano followed by fingers-crossed juiceballs down the middle to Baker.

- Twardzik: Joe Torre has led his team to the playoffs in each of the last 13 years. If the Dodgers make it this year, he'll tie Bobby Cox for the record.

- Kings of Leon drummer in the stands. Probably thought BROnson Arroyo was on the mound tonight.

- Key Moment: 2-2, bottom 6, bases loaded, 1 out. Russell Martin at the plate vs. Angel Guzman after the intentional walk to Loney. I would've taken the deep sac fly. I'll take the grand slam, Russ' 4th(!) homer of the year.

- Aramis Ramirez. batting .324. Has 34 RBI. There's probably a logical explanation. Probably involves Alfonso Soriano.

- Troncoso is a member of the underrated beard club. Confederate general category.

- Twardzik: Manny swung at/made contact with every first pitch he's seen tonight.

- Shitty stat club tally:
Soriano: OBP = .300
Aramis Ramirez: RBI = 34
Rafael Furcal: SB = 4
Russell Martin: HR = 4

Great win. Dodgers at 72-50, maintain 3.5 game lead on the Rockies, 5.5 on the Giants.

Unripe Avocados

Tonight the Dodgers close their eyes and reach into the avocado bin against the Cardinals for the last time this season. If their luck is as poor as mine - and it has been vs. this clearly superior NL foe every season in recent memory - the Dogs will pull out a rock-hard and flavorless fruit. This is the way it is with avocados. When you need a ripe one, you won't find one. When you want one that will be ready in two days to round out your planned meal of a smoked gouda quesadilla & Newman's Own Lemonade, you'll only find avocados that want to be eaten right then and there.

Maybe it's not avocado season. Maybe it ended before the All-Star break. Maybe I should try one of those big Mexican variety avocados, you know, the ones with the pimply light green skin that you only see in grocery stores, though never in anyone's basket. Maybe I should try one of the varieties in this enlightening little chart. Maybe I'll just buy a pack of baby carrots. Most likely, I'll buy two unripe avos ($2.50 each), put them on my windowsill and forget about them until they grow little trees out of them. I guess that wouldn't be too bad.

Scully PWNS Swindle

I hopped into bed, flipped open my laptop and turned on mlb.tv just as the bottom of the 8th of last night's game began. Down 4-12, the Brewers put R.J. Swindle on the mound. A doughy looking fella who resembles something like Dave Matthews and Paula Poundstone's love child - A real comely ballplayer, as you can see. Swindle proceeded to get a major league shellacking. The type you would witness if your high school's varsity go-to middle reliever stepped on the mound to face legitimate major league ballplayers. That's what it looked like, and that's pretty much what it was. Mr. Swindle, Wikipedia tells us, "has five pitches, including a fastball, slider, change-up, cutter, and a 55 mph curveball." His "fastball," mind you, topped out at 80 mph. When Vin saw the man's curve, which clocked in at 53 and then 52 mph on the very generous Dodgers speed gun, he did everything except laugh in the dude's face.

“Wow, 52 mph! I think that’s the slowest pitch I’ve ever seen on the gun here at Dodger Stadium. I tell you what… if you strike out on that pitch, you really got Swindled!” [via Stop Making Sense]

Vin then went on to make some comment about how bad the Brewers bullpen and pitching prospects must be for Swindle to make the major league squad. It might have been the most pejorative thing I've ever heard Mr. Scully say.

Still, a couple Dodgers did strike out at Swindle's hand (Castro, Furcal), but when the inning was done the Dodgers had thrown 5 more runs on the board. Guillermo even put up an RBI bloop single. Swindle now has an ERA of 16.20. He has not thrown a scoreless inning this year. Seriously. Here's to hoping we see him on the mound tonight.

All-Fatty Team

In light of the signing of George Sherrill and Prince Fielder declaring war on the Dodgers, I've decided to put together a team like no other, a team of the biggest fatties in the MLB. Shockingly, this team would probably compete with, and beat, most squads in the Bigs, and truth be told, they probably all have faster 40 times than anyone reading this blog.
SP: CC "Chicken Cutlets" Sabathia

CP: Eddie "Everyday I eat Steak" Guardado

C: Benji "The Fat One" Molina

1B: "Burger Prince" Fielder

2b: Ron "Chicken Grease" Beliard

SS: Christian "Uhhhh" Guzman

3B: Pablo "The New Giant Tomato" Sandoval

LF: Adam "The Donkey" Dunn

CF: Andrew "I'm Jonesing for a Burger" Jones

RF: Bobby "I Might Be Fat" Abreu

DH: David "Big Papa Johns" Ortiz

Prince Fattie Storms the Clubhouse

If you haven't heard, things got preeeety chippy after the Dogs beat the snot out of the Brewers 17-4 last night. In retaliation for an errant pitch that grazed Manny Ramirez in the 7th, Guillermo Mota sent Prince Fielder to the ground with a 94 mph fastball to the thigh. But wait! There's more! After the game, in an attempt to get at Mota (or, more realistically, because he heard about the delicious Dodger post-game spread of sandwiches and pizza) Fielder tried to break into the Dodgers locker room. Ultimately, he was held back by a dozen teammates and a couple security guards, preventing anything truly awesome from happening.

Tonight, in the final game of the season against the Brew Crew, the Dogs will send Schmidty to the mound. 5 or 6 years ago this would be the perfect dude to have on the bump in a game that is sure to get chippy. His menacing mid-90s fastball was not something to mess with. However, I highly doubt that any of the Brewers are shaking at the knees for fear of getting hit by his lazy 85 mph heater. Unfortunately, the Dogs will probably be the ones waking up on Thursday with giant welts on their backs and arms. Hopefully they'll also be the ones waking up with the win.