Scully Says. . .

It’s bordering on sacrilege to criticize the commentating by Dodgers announcer Vin Scully, but I can’t help cringing every time he mangles a foreign surname. Thank goodness Juan EnCARnacion has been traded away, so that Scully doesn’t have to put the emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle four times a game.

On the Dodgers’ recent road trip through Colorado, we were introduced to pitchers Ryan Fuentes (Fwen-eez, in Scully’s parlance) and Jose Acevedo (Vin says A-ce-vee-do).

You’d think Scully would have heard Jose Can-say-co’s name pronounced correctly enough times to get it right, but he still can’t get away from saying Can-see-co. And how somebody reads the name Brazoban and manages to pronounce it BREZZoban is beyond me. (For the record, the Spanish broadcasters pronounce it BraZOban. )

Scully’s pronunciation problems aren’t limited to Hispanic players, although these are the ones that twist his tongue most often. When Japanese reliever Akinori Otsuka followed Mexican reliever Antonio Osuna in a game against the Padres last year, a flummoxed Scully sounded like he was describing a woman selling seashells by the seashore.

Unusual Anglo-Saxon names, on the other hand, barely give him pause. Scully deftly trills Clint Barmes (Bar-mess), Adam Hyzdu (Highs-do), and Scott Linebrink (Line-brink).

Perhaps he just guessed the pronunciations of these names and got lucky. But I’d like to think Scully is more of a professional than that. He certainly is in all other respects of his job.

More likely, he checked the media guide or with the players themselves to see how they pronounced their names before saying it wrong in front of millions of people. He owes foreign players the same respect.

For Starters, Dodgers Need Pitching Help

Which are the real Dodgers? The team that opened the season 12-2, that won games in dramatic fashion with late-inning comebacks and timely two-out hitting? Or the team that has lost six of the last seven, letting second-tier teams score early and often and then failing to mount the very same kind of late-inning comeback that made them everybody’s (including Sports Illustrated’s) early season darling?

The answer of course is neither. The Dodgers are not as bad as they’ve been playing lately, and they were never as good as their press clips from the first two weeks of the season. The ball bounced the Dodgers’ way for a while, into the gloves of Milton Bradley and Jason Repko and under the gloves of Jason Ellison. Now it’s bouncing the other way, into the glove of Craig Counsell and off the wall instead of over it, leaving Ricky Ledee at third with the tying run.

What the two streaks have in common, however, is more troubling. And that is giving up a bunch of runs early. Jim Tracy has done a remarkable job in persuading the team (if not the fans, who left en masse on Opening Day long before the ninth inning) that they’re never out of a game no matter how far behind the starters put the team. Comeback wins are great for team chemistry, but you can’t count on them to propel your season.

Going into spring training, the Dodger rotation was hardly impressive. They had three number two starters (Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, and Odalis Perez), all of whom had question marks. Was Derek Lowe the guy who won all three playoff series for the Sox or was he the guy who had a mediocre regular season? Was Penny’s arm injury career-threatening, or could he be the kind of postseason pitcher he was for the Marlins in 2003? Was Perez the guy with the great E.R.A. or the guy who seemed to lose every game 3-2?

So far, the answers to those questions have been mostly positive. Lowe has been a terrific addition, compiling an ERA around 2.00 over his first five starts. Perez has walked too many batters, and given up too many runs, but still won three of his first four. And Penny pitched, which is more than many expected of him at all.

The rest of the starters have been depressing. I don’t understand why the Dodgers thought they could fill the back of their rotation with guys who had proven their inability with other clubs, but that’s what they’ve gotten in Elmer Dessens, Scott Erickson, and Jeff Weaver. Dessens has pitched like the career 39-49 pitcher he was when the Dodgers acquired him. Erickson was a frontline starter during the Nixon administration, but hasn’t had a winning season this millennium. And the best thing that can be said about Weaver is that he’s cheaper and less atrocious than Kevin Brown, the man the Dodgers unloaded to get him. Weaver’s 6.23 ERA includes a shutout. In his other four starts, he’s given up 21 runs in 21 innings. That’s only a run per inning!

One of these three (probably Dessens) is losing his spot now that Penny is back for good. But for the Dodgers can’t compete unless they get another quality starter. The bullpen has been lights out, and will only get better with the return of Eric Gagne. But when you play from behind, you don’t get many save opportunities, leaving one of your greatest weapons in your holster.

Choi in Mudville

It’s beyond me why the Dodgers persist in the Hee Seop Choi experiment. General Manager Paul De Podesta, who has made clear his love for on-base percentage statistics, saw Choi’s .350 OBP with the Cubs in 2003 and .388 OBP in the first half of 2004 with the Marlins and was blinded to the fact that the guy is still a .236 hitter (As of April 27). DePodesta couldn’t resist giving up team leader Paul LoDuca and setup man Guillermo Mota to get Choi and Brad Penny.

Let’s forget for the moment that giving up LoDuca left the Dodgers short at catcher last year, and gave them a surfeit of players at first base. Let’s forget that DePodesta then traded another favorite, Shawn Green, to Arizona, where he hits home runs only against the Dodgers, to make way for Choi to play first.

Instead, let’s focus on the fact that it’s time for the Choi experiment to come to an end. He’s a mediocre defensive first baseman who doesn’t hit for average, doesn’t hit for power, doesn’t drive in runs, doesn’t score runs, and can’t hit lefties. Mostly what he does is strike out, which doesn’t advance runners or force fielders to make plays.

Choi has had more strikeouts than hits each year of his short career. This is not surprising given his 6’5” strike zone. The fact that he gets any walks at all is rather incredible.

Perhaps he’ll get better, since he’s perceived as young. But he’s already 26 years old, a year older than Albert Pujols and a year younger than Lyle Overbay, two other young first basemen who are both much better players than Choi.

I know DePodesta is reluctant to admit his mistake in trading for Choi, but the Dodgers need to get him out of the lineup. When Antonio Perez returns from the disabled list, look for them to move Jeff Kent to first and slot Perez in at second. That would give them some speed at the top of the order. I’d even go so far as to send Choi down to the minors to work on his strikeouts.

Failing that, look for the Dodgers to trade for Todd Helton before the season is over. He’s itching to get out of Colorado, where a promising youth movement won’t pay dividends for several more years. The Dodgers can rent Helton for half a season and see if he hits at Chavez Ravine like he does in thin air before deciding whether to pay him the kind of megamillions he’s looking for.

Maybe they can even ship off Choi in the deal.

A Black Eye for Baseball, and for America

Before I even get started, let me say that I hold Jackie Robinson in the highest regard. Not just baseball players, not just athletes, but all Americans of all races and colors owe him a great debt.

It is unfathomable to think that a modern day ballplayer would tolerate the outrageous slings and arrows that Robinson endured. Baseball recently fell all over itself to praise Gary Sheffield for not pulling a Ron Artest on a Boston fan. But just imagine what the Yankee outfielder would have done if the fan’s malice was motivated not by the color of Sheffield’s uniform, but by the color of the man wearing it.

That said, you’d think there have been no racial pioneers in this country in the 58 years since Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. In March of this year, Congress decided to give Robinson the Congressional Gold Medal, putting him in the company of such distinguished Americans as Danny Thomas, Harry Chapin, and Charles M. Schulz. Robinson no doubt deserves such an honor, joining Roberto Clemente, Joe Louis, and Jesse Owens as the only athletes to receive the award. But the timing of the medal, some 32 years AFTER Robinson’s death, smacks of tokenism.

This is the same Congress that cares so little about issues that affect blacks and other minorities living and dying today, such as a stolen election, the health care crisis, capital punishment, corporate corruption, and a war against phantom enemies. Even Martin Luther King would appear to be too controversial for such an award (though he has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom). But with one stroke of the pen, Congress hopes to burnish its race relations credentials by making Jackie Robinson the Crispus Attucks of the 20th century.

Not to be outdone, Major League Baseball has declared April 15 Jackie Robinson Day across the league. I’m all for coming up with something else to think about on tax day, but could we please honor somebody other than Robinson for contributions to baseball. Hank Aaaron, for example.

Unlike the adoration received by Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds in their attempts to break the single season home run record, Aaron was met with death threats and racial insults in the year leading up to his conquest of Babe Ruth’s all-time mark.

Thirty years later, his accomplishment seems all the more amazing, even as Bonds takes aim at it. Bonds, who will turn 41 in August, still needs 53 more homers to pass Aaron. That doesn’t seem too daunting in the modern, the steroid-juiced era, especially for a guy who has averaged 45 a year over the past three. But when Aaron played, the mound was higher, the parks were bigger, and the off-season was spent working, not working out. Aaron never hit more than 47 homers in a season, and it took him three years to hit his last 42 roundtrippers.

Also lost in all the Robinson glorification is the fact that the situation for blacks in baseball still leaves a lot to be desired. Escorting Rachel Robinson onto the field at Dodger Stadium earlier this month was Milton Bradley. The Dodgers’ hot-headed centerfielder expressed his admiration for Robinson in a column in the L.A. Daily News.

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2817257,00.html


In a perfect world, the Dodgers might have chosen a representative who wasn’t best known for throwing a plastic beer bottle at a fan last year in Colorado. But they didn’t have much choice, since Bradley is the only black everyday player on the roster.

While Robinson would have been honored by the the recognition for his accomplishment, he would have been disappointed at baseball’s overall performance on racial issues. For sure, the onslaught of Hispanic and Asian players like Cesar Izturis, Hee Seop Choi, and Odalis Perez would not have happened were it not for Robinson’s efforts. But the percentage of black players and managers is lower today that it was when Robinson died. L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke said it best in his April 15 column.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/dodgers/la-sp-plaschke15apr15,1,1290351.column

"In his last public address, at the 1972 World Series shortly before his death, Robinson scolded baseball for its failure to hire an African American manager.

Not surprisingly, Rachel Robinson's most passionate answer during a brief interview Thursday was about baseball's failure to recruit more African American players.

Last season African Americans made up only 9% of major league rosters.

Thirty years ago, it was 25%.

Every season, through lack of interest and opportunity, the barrier that Robinson broke seems to regenerate a few more inches.

'I'm very saddened by that fact,' Rachel Robinson said. 'Change can occur, but it has to be sustained, and I wish I could see that happen in my lifetime.'"

The Dodgers are talking about making Jackie Robinson Day an annual event, and asking Major League Baseball to make sure they have a home game on April 15 every year, the same way Boston plays at Fenway Park on Patriots Day. Before they do, they had better make sure they plan to have a black player on the roster. It would be a terrible black eye for baseball if they didn’t.

Garciaparra Gets Punked By Bob “Atrocious Judgment” Ryan

In May, 2003, after saying he would “like to smack” Joumana Kidd, wife of New Jersey Nets guard Jason Kidd, Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan was suspended without pay for 30 days.

"It was, of course, atrocious judgment on my part," Ryan said at the time.

The month off rehabilitated Ryan’s image and his standing with his colleagues on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters, where he is once again a regular. But it has done little for his judgment.

Ryan’s latest offense is his April 22 column in which he doesn’t quite accuse former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra of taking steroids. Ryan doesn’t have any evidence that Garciaparra took steroids other than the fact that he crossed paths with Jose Canseco and has been hurt a lot lately, most recently a season-ending groin injury last week. Instead, he does a lot of speculating about whether Nomar took steroids.

This is yellow journalism for sure—casting doubt about a player’s accomplishments without a shred of proof. But what makes it worse is that Ryan punked Garciaparra from a thousand miles away, safely beyond the reach of Nomar or the fans of the team he now plays for.

Dozens of baseball players have been suspected of taking steroids for years now. The fact that Jason Giambi got caught only meant that baseball has had to confront the issue, rather than sweep it over, as it had been doing for a decade.

But Ryan’s timing has more to do with Nomar no longer being a member of the Boston Red Sox. If Ryan is so sure Garciaparra has been taking steroids, why didn’t he say something four years ago, when the shortstop bulked up for a March 5, 2001 cover photo for Sports Illustrated? Why didn’t he say anything when Nomar got injured in 2004. Could it have something to do with the fact that he was hitting .321 for the Sox at the time?

Where was Ryan’s suspicious mind when David Ortiz, who never hit more than 20 home runs as a member of the Minnesota Twins, hit double that number for Boston? What was Ryan saying about Jason Varitek in 2001, when injuries limited him to 51 games, or in 2004, when the Sox catcher hit 24 points above his career average?

Ryan was in Boston, where readers would be calling for his head and players would be confronting him every day if he called their achievements into question. But now that Nomar has been safely shipped off to Chicago, and Ryan no longer needs quotes from him, he doesn’t have to worry about giving him a fair shake. Garciaparra didn’t just take the Red Sox curse with him; Ryan has conveniently made him the fall guy for any and all steroid use by Boston players.


The whole episode points out a larger problem in baseball, which is that steroids are now going to be the elephant in the room every time a player gets hurt, doesn’t get hurt, slims down, bulks up, performs well, or goes into the tank. Steroids have tainted every player in the game, whether they use performance enhancers or not. And the toothless testing policy the league has adopted to address the issue isn’t going to change anything.

As long as chicks dig the long ball, as long as ESPN does a special segment each night replaying every roundtripper hit in the previous 24 ours (but cutting the number of defensive Web Gems down to a more manageable five), as long as there is a designated hitter position for immobile sluggers who can’t play the field, baseball is going to reward home run hitters more than speedsters, slap hitters, and defensive whiz kids. And that means players have millions of reasons to cheat.

Unless these basic facts change, Bob Ryan will be able to write the same column about every player in baseball. Except those who happen to play in Boston.