6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

I confess, the giddiness of the last few days still hasn't entirely worn off. It being this blog's raison d'être was originally to see the McCourts chased to the curb, and here we are now, at a sort of Mardi Gras for Dodgers fans, the noisome pest formerly vexing us agreeing to exit the city and the stage. Perhaps we are not entirely done with him; one could imagine him and Jamie retaining one each of their fabulous mansions in Malibu or Holmby Hills and still having cash left over if the billion-dollar-plus sale price fantasies do indeed bail out the pair of moneygrubbing carpetbaggers.

But what we are not done with, and probably won't be until the smoking hulk of the Times finally sinks into the Pacific, is that paper's absurdly bad sportswriting. When the guy who is was* running the section pens a thumbsucker that manages to get all the bits wrong about blogging ("this generation of sports critics who have a pair of pajamas, a laptop and a basement to type from"), as though the Times weren't repurposing paid columnists for that very same shopworn locution. Ditto his whitewashing years of Bill Plaschke columns that bag on the commish for exactly the same thing he complains about bloggers complaining about. I suppose this counts as a sort of signal flare to see if anyone is still reading the damned things, and if so, he made his mark; but you can equally see how Dwyre thought TJ Simers, and especially, Plaschke were worth bringing in.

Update: I should add that Mike Petriello of MSTI tweeted me that the LAT has no room to complain about filthy dirty hippies bloggers, as they share space with some of the least credible — okay, I'll say it — worst — in the business, Bleacher Report.

Strange, but on the same day, Times emeritus writer Ross Newhan stumped for a Pulitzer nomination for Bill Shaikin, who truly deserves it. At this point, it is vital to take a light saber and cut the Times' reporting — which is good and, in their coverage of the McCourt case, excellent — and slice it away from the offal that is their sports columnists.

Labels: dodgers, media

Considering two of the biggest sports stories of the year were broken by TMZ.com, this is not surprising in the least. (Here I'm referring to Tiger Woods' randy adventures, and the McCourt divorce.) The Sports By Brooks analysis is spot-on.

Labels: mccourts, media

The Big Lead (via BTF) has leaked the writing staff of the new ESPNLA.com website, and it looks really like an all-star cast from the local media. With long-time Angels/Dodgers fan Eric Neel as managing editor, the names look like a who's-who of recent newspaper disgorgings, including Jon Weisman and Tony Jackson (Dodgers) and Mark Saxon (Angels/USC). The Kamenetzky brothers will reprise their roles in covering the Lakers. ESPNLA.com might not suck as much as I suspected they would.

Labels: blogs, media

MLB will eliminate printed media guides, replacing them with PDFs. The move will save MLB $100,000 annually. The guides, available to the press since the 1930's, were made generally available starting in the 1980's.

Labels: media

Via LA Observed, it looks like there's been another round of layoffs at the Times, with 75 getting the axe this time. New blogger Veronique de Turenne and film critic Carina Chocaro are among the victims.

Further south down the I-5, the Register has taken a 15% hit in daily circulation numbers in the six months ending September 30. (The Times over the same period of time is only down 5.2% according to the linked Orange County Business Journal story.) And this is new: the Register is thinking about joining up with the Times to save money? We already know that the OC daily has been buying Dodgers coverage from the Los Angeles Newspaper Group all year, but a consolidation with the Times would be momentous indeed.

Labels: dodgers, media, newspapers

I keep meaning to make some mention of this, but one problem I kept having with the new Gameday Audio launcher is that it assumes, incorrectly, that you're using Silverlight even when you aren't. The way around this is pretty simple: if you see the Flash control panel appear on the Gameday Audio launcher instead of the MediaPlayerConnectivity filler (you really should be using that), the trick is to go into the cookies and erase the SLInstall cookie (Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy, and click on the "Show Cookies" button, then search for "mlb.com"). There may be more than one, so erase all of them. You should then be able to start Gameday Audio using MediaPlayerConnectivity. This cookie keeps getting set, so you may have to go through this each time you log in or launch. It would be nice if there were a way to reject just specific cookies.

Labels: media, mlbam, tech

Derek Lowe's Next Request

Via The Onion. (Hat tip, Jon.)

Jay Jaffe Answers Some Questions

... in Tuesday's chat, starting with mine:

scareduck (Still closer to Angel Stadium than Chavez Ravine): Three questions: 1) For my Cubs lovin' wife, are the Northsiders for real? They've done well so far, but what are their big questions down the stretch? 2) Is there any light at the end of the Andruw Jones tunnel, or is that the sound of a diesel locomotive? 3) Joe Torre: great manager, or *greatest* manager? Seriously, look at Friday's Dodgers lineup: how could he expect to win?

Jay Jaffe: Cubs: for real. Their run differential is the best in all of baseball by a wide margin, and I don't see any of the other NL Central teams being able to hang with them. I think the big questions are whether Rich Hill rediscovers his control and returns to the rotation, and whether Kerry Wood can hold up as the team's closer. Barring injuries, I think they'll be OK, and even with those injuries, they have a bit of depth to either cover from within or make a trade to help themselves out.

Andruw: lots of questions about him today. The upside of his injury is that it may explain some of his struggles, it may force him to get back in shape as he rehabs, and it will give Dodger fans a bit of relief when it comes to the daily drama of the outfield lineup.

Torre: Furcal being hurt certainly takes a bite out of that lineup. But really, Torre's going to have to get over this Russell Martin-at-3B fetish, even though it's only been a total of 37 innings he's played there. It's fine to give him a breather now and then, but when you're stealing at-bats from DeWitt or LaRoche to give them to Gary Bennett, something is definitely wrong.

jlebeck66 (WI): Dodgers. DeWitt. LaRoche. How's this gonna end? Did LaRoche anger a deity or something?

Jay Jaffe: Sticking with this topic for a moment, I'm as big a LaRoche booster as you'll find, but DeWitt is knocking the stuffing out of the ball. I don't expect that to continue unabated, but there's no sense in sitting him down right now.

From a long-term standpoint, it's a nice problem to have. I'd hate to see them trade LaRoche, but I don't think they necessarily have to. I wonder whether the Dodgers would consider revisiting the DeWitt-to-second experiment that they tried in 2006, when the kid was at Vero Beach. With Jeff Kent clearly showing his age and Tony Abreu apparently joining the Federal Witness Protection program, that may be a palatable option.

Marco (San Diego): Jay, Somewhat of a sigh of relief about Peavy's elbow. Some reports around here say he'll miss anywhere from 15 days to six weeks. Knowing Peavy's competitive nature, and the fact that Towers' job might be on the line, is there a concern he is rushed back? What do you know about his injury?

Jay Jaffe: I don't know anything beyond what Will Carroll wrote in today's UTK (the team isn't saying anything about Peavy's MRI, but they used the word strained, suggesting a muscular injury). But if Towers' job really is on the line, then the team deserves to crash, burn, and then get swallowed by the ocean, because he's done one hell of a job in San Diego, building contenders on shoestring budgets.

As a Dodger fan, I'll trade you Towers for Colletti even up.

The Padres' season looks pretty close to lost already. I don't see where rushing Peavy back would do any good, particularly now that they've made a serious long-term investment in him. Why would they risk damaging the organization's top asset?

The Coolest Cover Of Sports Illustrated Ever (That Didn't Have Cindy Crawford On It)

Maybe the Cindy Crawford reference is dating me (quite a bit, actually, and no, I have no idea whether Ms. Crawford ever actually appeared on an SI cover), but Sports Illustrated has commissioned a DC Comics illustration for their May 26 issue, for the lead story of the bizarro scene in baseball, particularly the AL East. Mark Bagley had almost no time to turn this one around:

Bagley, who, heroically, is scheduled to provide pencils for all 52 issues of “Trinity,” told CBR News Tuesday evening, “Dan Didio called me Thursday afternoon asking if I could do the pencils. I asked him what the deadline was and he said inked and colored by Monday. I said something nasty, and agreed to do it. From then I dealt with Mark Chiarello.

“'SI' gave me a paragraph long description of what they needed, and I went to town with some sketches. I had a sketch approved by noon on Friday, and finished the piece Saturday morning.

“Karl Story is local to me, so he agreed to do the inking chores and when he finished doing a great job, he scanned and emailed the art to Mark, who colored it. I’m tired but what a great opportunity.”

I tried to find that issue yesterday at three different stores but couldn't. I'm gonna run to the Westwood newsstand I sometimes go to later today to see if they've got it. What a great cover! (Via BTF.)

The Angels And Dodgers Have A Plan

And it might sound familiar.

Late: Brian Kamenetzky On The Angels' Non-Trade For Cabrera

A good idea, in retrospect and with not a lot of at-bats to prove it. The Angels needed the pitching they would have had to move, and Miguel just ain't hitting, plus there are signs that he might be slowing down substantially.

Labels: angels, dodgers, funny, injuries, media, padres

I happened to spy this in the paper version of the OC Weekly, but they also happen to have it online so's I can share it with my numerous readers: turns out the Register is in secret talks with Dean Singleton's MediaNews, Inc. for content-sharing. MediaNews, Inc. is the publisher of the Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, San Bernadino Sun, and Riverside Press-Enterprise, among others. The speculated agreement would have the Register covering only the Angels (probably Bill Plunkett and perhaps Mark Whicker), and the Daily News sending its reporters (some combination of Tony Jackson, Diamond Leung, Paul Oberjuerge, and possibly others) to cover the Dodgers.

Singleton previously approached the Register to acquire it, but was rebuffed when the Hoiles family heirs raised $900M from the Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. If they can't return that money by 2010, they may have to sell the paper anyway. Singleton has a reputation for slashing newspaper operating staffs, as he did after he bought the Press-Telegram in 1997. A content-sharing agreement would be a first step toward a merger.

Update 2/16: Lookee here: a Tony Jackson byline at the Register. Huh.

Labels: angels, dodgers, media, newspapers