Wednesday, July 01, 2020

Blog Kiosk: 7/1/2020 - Dodgers Links & News - Some Odds and Ends


Here's a really interesting photo I ran into on eBay (link here). It is dated September 24, 1957, and it features Brooklyn Dodger Vice President Buzzi Bavasi seated right in the center (sitting on the right field grandstand steps).

He is wearing shades, as if to hide his appearance from the throng of fans sitting nearby. After all, this day, this game they are watching, would be the very last ballgame ever played at Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn Dodgers would move to Los Angeles the next season.

Below are more links to check out:
  • This Day in Dodgers HistoryIn 1917 the Dodgers/Robins play their very first Sunday ballgame, despite there being a state law banning games on this day. They announce that admission will benefit the Militia of Mercy, a wartime charity, and there will be a pregame band concert and military drill exhibition before the game. When the band concert ends ticket sales stop to conform with the Sunday baseball laws. More than 12,000 attend. Nevertheless, Charles Ebbets and manager Wilbert Robinson are arrested, and will pay a small fine. Here is the boxscoreIn 1948 Roy Campanella made his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He caught Ralph Branca and recorded three hits --  a double and two singles. In 2011 Dee Gordon completed a stolen base cycle. During the seventh inning he reached base on a force out, stole second, then stole third, and finally swiped home with Casey Blake at the plate.  Gordon is the 40th Major Leaguer to accomplish this during the same frame. Here is the boxscore and you watch him steal home here.
  • Happy Birthday, Jack QuinnKent GreenfieldBoots PoffenbergerChris Pérez!
  • Video: WPTA21 -- "Zach McKinstry hopes to stick with Dodgers" (video link).
  • Per Jeff Jaffe at FanGraphs -- "A Minor Matt Kemp Move Illuminates Major Obstacles to a 2020 Season." Having to plan a lineup with COVID lurking.
  • This might be a must have. Via Rich Mueller at Sports Collectors Daily -- "New “Baseball and Bubble Gum” Book Brings 1952 Topps Set to Life."
  • It's much worse that I thought. Via Bob Nightengale at USA Today -- "'He really needs help': Family seeks help for Dodgers outfielder Andrew Toles, who is homeless and hospitalized."
How do you help someone who doesn’t realize they need help?
“You cry every day, you pray every day,’’ says Alvin Toles, Andrew’s father, a former linebacker for the New Orleans Saints. “It’s a relief that you know he’s alive. And now there’s no need to hide anything. Everyone now knows he has a mental illness. 
“Maybe this is how God meant for this to end. Now people know. People are reaching out and asking how to help.
“We just need to find him. We need to bring him home. But he keeps running. He’s in this state of paranoia. He’s running from people. He just keeps running like someone is after him. 
“He really needs help before it’s too late.’’
  • It's official, Minor League Baseball is cancelled, via a tweet from them:


“It’s exciting and I’m obviously blessed to be selected and I’m just really excited to just have some competitive environment for this year where I didn’t really know what that was going to look like a couple weeks ago so I’m just really excited to have kind of a not wasted season," said Michael Grove.
  • Verdugo is going to be very good for the Red Sox, via Christopher Smith at Mass Live.com -- "Boston Red Sox’ Alex Verdugo ‘probably farther along than all of them’ entering spring training 2.0, Ron Roenicke says."
“This guy, he’s probably farther along than all of them,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said during a Zoom call Monday. “This guy has been doing his rehab assignment and hitting in the cage, on the field probably more than anybody has. So I feel good with where he is. Hopefully there won’t be any setbacks with him in these three weeks and he’ll be ready to go.”
  • I'm surprised this hasn't happened already. Everybody knows his history, so why force minority ballplayers to receive an award with his face emblazoned on it. It just always seemed disrespectful to me. Via David Adler at MLB.com -- "Former MVPs want Landis removed from plaque."
"I was always aware of his name and what that meant to slowing the [breaking of the] color line in Major League Baseball, of the racial injustice and inequality that Black players had to go through," (Barry) Larkin told the AP. "His name should not be represented on a plaque or award of honor, especially at this day and time. If his name was taken off, I would not be opposed to it at all."
...
"Looking back to baseball in the early 1900s, this was the norm. It doesn’t make it right, though," (Mike) Schmidt said. "Removing his name from the MVP trophy would expose the injustice of that era. I'd gladly replace the engraving on my trophies."

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