Read 100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die Online
Authors: Jon Weisman
100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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To Dad, who made my childhood jaw drop when he could quote Walter Johnson's strikeout totals from memory; to Mom, who would cut my morning toast into a ballfield if I asked; to Greg, who has brought joy to Mudville my entire life; and to Robyn, who taught me that if you want to play catch, you have to go after it yourself.
To Dashiell, whose sublime babyhood allowed me to work in peace in the wee hours; to Casey, my happy, happy boy; and to Lilah, my sweet, sweet little girl.
And to Dana, my love, my one and only, who is more special to me than words can say.
Contents
6. '47, Heaven and Hell on Earth
9. Ebbets Field: The Center Cannot Hold
12. “The Worst Club Ever to Win a World Series”
19. Don't Turn Your Back on a Hero Who's Down on His Luck
26. And a Manny Shall Lead Them
34. One Postseason, Three Comebacks
40. “The Best Hitter God Has Made in a Long Time”
43. Black and Blue and Purple Heart
48. Chief Noc-a-Homa and Joe Morgan
54. 1941: Three Strikes, You're Not Out
57. The Head-Spinning, Allegiance-Shifting, Authority-Defying Leo Durocher
60. See the Dodgers on the Road
62. When Were the Dodgers Born?
66. Eric GagnéâFact or Fiction
70. The Glory of Clayton Kershaw
71. Manny Mota Mota Mota Mota Motaâ¦
79. (Re)read “The Boys of Summer”
81. Was Brooklyn Still in the League?
82. “Gonna Take 'Em Down to the Camelback Ranch”
83. Question the Conventional Wisdom
86. In the Booth: Solo Farewell
91. Free (But Expensive) Agency
95. May Your Son Be a Magnificently Named Son
97. Join the Online Dodgers Community
98. World Series Drought, Part 1
99. World Series Drought, Part 2
100. Read Old First-Hand Stories
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Foreword by Peter O'Malley
Several years ago, I was introduced to the website DodgerThoughts.com
and writer Jon Weisman. I was immediately impressed with Jon's passion, commitment, and analysis of the Dodger organization. Now he has been given the most challenging assignment to list
100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
. Even with his selected 100 key items, I suspect that individual Dodgers fans will keep adding more from personal memories.
However, Jon has captured the disappointment of the 1951 and 1962 pennant races while sharing the excitement of Dodger World Series championships in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, and 1988. From “the Captain” Pee Wee Reese, to the grace and elegance of center fielder Duke Snider, to the all-out competitiveness of Jackie Robinson; to the courage and indomitable spirit of Roy Campanella; to dominating pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale; to the leadership of managers Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda; to the consistency of Don Sutton; to the famous infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, and Cey; to the sheer drama of Kirk Gibson's 1988 Game 1 World Series home run and Orel Hershiser's Cy Young season; to “Fernandomania,” “Nomomania,” and beyond; Dodger baseball has fascinated us all. This book will be appreciated by baseball fans of all ages.
So, sit back and pull up a chair as our friend and Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully would say. Happy readingâ“It's time for Dodger baseball!”
âPeter O'Malley
President
Los Angeles Dodgers, 1970â98
Introduction
In my childhood, there was time for everything. The Dodgers were part of that ensemble cast, one of many pastimes I could devote myself to after (or before, or during) my homework. Given that, in many ways, my childhood lasted past my 30
th
birthday, this meant years and years of unbridled involvement.
Marriage, children, and, after much resistance, a tumble from the freelance control-your-own-destiny world into the hopeless ranks of the salaried decimated my free time. No longer could I check “all of the above” for hobbies. I had to pick and choose my interests carefully. Of course, ultimately they pick themselvesâthe things that are most important to you stay with you. And while much left me, the Dodgers stuck around, deep.
In fact, beginning in 2002, I started to spend more time pondering the Dodgers than ever before. At a time most people had still not heard of the word, I started a blog called Dodger Thoughts (www.dodgerthoughts.com), where I would pass along notes and essays about the team and express views the mainstream press didn't. You'd think you'd run out of things to say but, on the contrary, no matter how pressing daily life might be, the Dodgers demanded a daily examination and re-examination in every wayâfrom what happens in the games to what happens in the stands, from the present to the past, from the personnel moves to what to do about all those beach balls. The Dodgers aren't the only epic story around, but they're a pretty great oneâwith fantastic characters, emotions, and plot twists that are nearly impossible to abandon (even if, since 1988, it turned rather Dostoyevskian). Whenever I wonder why I'm watching a Dodger game instead of doing, I don't know, any of a million other things like going for a hike or doing something constructive for society, I find there's just too much here to let go of. Why even have a society if we can't use it to follow the Dodgers? This book,
100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
, speaks to this tenuously rational but undeniable pull the Dodgers have.
Now, the risk of a book in this format is that the more of a Dodgers fan you are, the less you would need to be told what's important about them, and so instead of being all things to everyone, the book ends up being nothing to anyone. And that's bad for sales. The task, then, is to reverse that, to give the diehards something new to chew on while also showing those casual or even antagonistic about the Dodgers what's worth understanding about them. (Attention, San Francisco bookstore patrons: Know thy enemy!) This book is not a laundry list where you're simply told that Jackie Robinson broke baseball's modern-day color barrier or Kirk Gibson hit a big home run. It's an attempt to go wider and deeper, to rethink or re-experience the familiar, and introduce or remind us of the not-so-familiar so that everyone can benefitâfrom the Dodger fan with all the time in the world to the one who will only read one baseball book a year. I hope this book fulfills that mission.
If nothing else, hidden in these pages are my favorite, underused, avoid-the-traffic routes to Dodger Stadium. The book might be worth keeping handy just for that!
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A Word about Statistics
Throughout
100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
, traditional baseball statistics will be augmented by more recently developed stats, most often Total Average (TAv) and adjusted on-base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS+). Here's what they mean and why they're being used.
TAv, created by Baseball Prospectus, and OPS+, which you'll find at Baseball-Reference.com, are means to measure offensive performance across different years and ballparks. In particular, 20 homers from a batter hitting in Dodger Stadium in the 1960s is a greater accomplishment than 20 homers from a batter hitting in Dodger Stadium in the 1990s, because it simply was harder to hit the ball out of the park in the prior era.
Taking into account these factors, TAv expresses a batter's offensive value in a number designed to resemble batting averageâan average TAv is .260, anything at .300 or above is excellent, anything below .200 is awful. OPS+ is similar, though it doesn't take base running into account. An average OPS+ is 100âanything higher than 100 is above the league average, and anything lower is below.
So, for example, Wes Parker, who batted .238 with eight homers for the '65 Dodgers, had a .276 TAv and 100 OPS+, while Eric Karros, who seemingly had a better season with the 2002 Dodgers by hitting .271 with 13 homers, actually comes in behind Parker with a .260 TAv and 96 OPS+. (It should also be noted that even when citing traditional stats,
100 Things
will lean toward on-base percentage rather than batting average for a truer snapshot of a player's ability to avoid getting out.)
For pitchers, adjusted earned-run average (ERA+) from Baseball-Reference.com works on a similar principle, recalculating traditional ERAs so that they can be compared across time and space more fairly. One reminder: Higher is better. An ERA+ above 100 means that the pitcher was above-average.
These statistics aren't the be-all and end-all, but they do provide a more accurate means of understanding how different Dodgers performed. For those who haven't seen them before, here's hoping you'll give them a try.