For Lindsay

Lindsay Weiss was something else.  I remember her as a toddler at Edwards Air Force Base, though my family has known hers since she was a baby.  She was seven years younger than me, which, for children, might as well be a lifetime.  Our families moved around to different places over the years, thanks in large part to the Air Force, but we never lost touch.  In 2001, when my parents moved to Arizona, where the Weisses had lived for quite a while by then, my parents bought a house one block over from the Weiss household.  By then, I had graduated college, but I lived with my parents for six months in that house before moving over to Los Angeles.  L.A. was a six-hour drive away, so after I moved away, I still drove back quite often to visit.

My family had (and still has) a connection with the Weiss family that is hard to explain, though those who grew up Air Force brats like me might have some idea.  When you live on an Air Force base, particularly Edwards, which is isolated in the middle of the desert, you form a bond with people that doesn't go away just because one family or the other moves.

I won't pretend Lindsay and I were best friends or anything.  We weren't.  When I lived in Arizona, and even when I moved out to California, Lindsay was a teenager, and she was doing what teenagers do, what they should do.  She was hanging out with her friends and being a kid.  But we were friends.  And over the last few years, I spent a little more time with Lindsay, making fun of our crazy moms and talking about television shows and movies we enjoyed.  I sent her copies of Felicity and Freaks and Geeks; she encouraged me to watch We Can Be Heroes and Young @ Heart.

Lindsay was an energetic, happy girl, and also stubborn and confident in what she wanted out of life.  This was obvious even when she was just in high school, and these qualities drew people to her wherever she went.  She spent the last six months or so working on ideas for my sister Noelle's nursery.  In July, Christine and I went to Arizona, along with my parents and Noelle, and worked on making Lindsay's ideas a reality.  In October, Lindsay drove with her mother, Alicia, up to Denver to see those ideas put together, and the result is just plain awesome.

The world lost a good one on November 1, 2009.  Lindsay Weiss was eight days past her 22nd birthday, and more than three years into her fight with Hodgkin's Lymphona when her body finally gave out and she got to rest.  She was with her family, and she went peacefully, which is all any of us can hope for, I suppose.

I've felt empty since my mom called to tell me the news on the morning of November 2, and I don't know when or if that emptiness will ever leave me.  But I'm getting through by reminding myself of the love Lindsay left behind, and the lives she touched while she was here.  On December 5, well over 100 of those lives will gather in Arizona to remember Lindsay and celebrate her.  It will be a time for happiness, but that doesn't mean it won't be sad.  Lindsay could best be described as a force, and when something like that is suddenly gone from your life, it's not something you get over quickly.

I want to embed this video, but I can't find a version that will allow it, so I hope you'll take four minutes to follow the link and watch the video, which is a clip from one of Lindsay's favorite movies:

I Will Fix You

A Home Away from Home

I spend a lot of games chatting in the game threads over at Sons of Steve Garvey. That place has turned into a nice little online community. Sort of like a virtual Cheers, in which everyone knows your (pseudo)name. Well, in my case, it's my real name, but still. You want to have a good time and talk Dodger baseball with a bunch of real fans who also happen to be knowledgeable? SoSG is the place for you.

I started reading shortly before I met a couple of the Sons at the Dodger Blogger Night last season, and I have been a regular reader/commenter ever since. I'm not going to on and on about how great it is over there, or how privileged I feel to know the true identities of three of the Sons. That would be boring. Instead, I'll tell you a little bit about what we do over there, and end with a visual representation.

When you spend a ton of time talking (writing) with the same people virtually every night for six straight months, trends start to develop. Certain phrases catch on, and one might even begin to call them catchphrases.

One such phrase is "Rancho Ardiendo," brought to the Sons by Venezuelan reader--and eternal optimist--Karina. It essentially translates to "burning house" in Spanish, and is a term used (I assume in Venezuela, but maybe all over the Spanish-speaking baseball world) when the bases are loaded. Karina taught it to us, and we all use it constantly whenever the occasion arises.

Sometimes, as a baseball fan, you need to keep your expectations low. So, when the bases are loaded, for instance, one might just hope that a team's weak-hitting catcher can work the walk to drive in a run. Or hit a ball that should be a double play to end the inning, but instead results in an error that scores a run and/or keeps the inning alive. Often on SoSG, the commenters respond the same way: "I'll take it." As in, "it wasn't really the best outcome, but I will deal with the results anyway." The other night, Orel deemed it the SoSG catchphrase, and I'd have to say that it certainly is, at least for the 2009 playoffs.

Finally, you've probably seen that Juan Pierre wears a shirt that reads "Beast Mode." The readers at SoSG took this term and ran with it, using the "[noun] Mode" format for other players. I don't know when it started with Casey Blake, but I do know that for most of the season, the Dodger third baseman has been referred to most often as "Beard Mode." Simple, yet genius.

You may recall that I told you a few posts ago that I have a button maker. When life presents one with catchphrases, what else can one do but put those catchphrases on some buttons? So, conceived by me, designed by Christine, and handmade by both of us, I present you with the next wave of Robots Are Everywhere Dodger Buttons (mixed in with some of the old ones):

Also, just to remind the Dodgers what they're playing for tonight:

One game at a time. Just bring it back to L.A. and go from there.

Surviving Broxton

I spent my morning reading stories from various Dodger blog writers, all of whom are--rightfully--heartbroken and confused. How could it be? We were one out from tying it, one out from showing the Phillies that we aren't the same team they kicked around last year.

And then Broxton showed he was afraid of Matt Stairs, all because last year Matt Stairs hit a home run that changed last year's series. I don't want to be Bill Plaschke, talking about the ghosts of years past or whatever, but why was Broxton afraid? Matt Stairs has a below-.200 average, and he hit all of five home runs this year. With no one on base, even if Stairs did knock one out, the game would only be tied. And I'm sorry, but Stairs was not hitting it out of that park last night. So you pitch to him, and you get him out. Then there are two outs and maybe Broxton isn't so nervous that he hits Ruiz with the pitch, putting the winning run on base.

I can't not blame Broxton here. I'm sorry. I know he was a great closer all year, and that some people were too soon to jump on him when he had a couple of bad games. I don't care about all that. What I care about is him coming into a must-win game in the playoffs and not being chickenshit about a 40-year old who can count his home runs this year on one hand. And if he's going to be chickenshit about that, then I care that he better be damn sure he can get the next two outs with a runner on base. And if he can't, and he instead hits a batter, then manages a line drive out, I care about him not grooving a fastball over the heart of the plate to a leadoff hitter who is just looking for a pitch to drive.

This is not a matter of Broxton making just one mistake. A home run to tie the game would have been one mistake. An "unintentional" walk, followed by a hit batter, then followed by a ball scorched to the gap, those are a lot of damn mistakes. You blew it, big boy. And it's totally on you.

I don't really want to talk about the strike zone, which absolutely, positively sucked. But I will encourage you to go look at this image. Look how many pitches right in the middle of the plate were called balls. Now, sure, there are a few from Phillies' pitchers in there, but the majority are pitches thrown by a Dodger pitcher for strikes, but for whatever reason called balls. I don't want to be the one who whines about bad umps, but there are moments in games when those calls matter. And in a close game like this, it matters that the ump is not calling strike three on obvious strikes. The guy was a joke, and if he is behind the plate again in these playoffs, MLB has some explaining to do.

So, I spent my morning reading what the Sons have to say about this, along with Dodger Thoughts and Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness. And then I thought some more about how I felt last night, about how Christine went into the kitchen to heat us up some spaghetti (we had been afraid to eat during the game), and had to ask me to stop ranting because she was sick of crying. I wanted to cry. I felt like sobbing. But it just wouldn't come. I seethed with anger instead, and that continued into this morning, especially the more I read about how everyone else felt.

Then I went over to Surviving Grady, just to get away from the outright sadness everywhere in the Dodger world. That's when I read this, and I felt just a little bit better. Now, I realize that most of my readers are not Red Sox fans. But that's not really the point here. Just think back to 2004. Think back to game three of that ALCS, and how the Red Sox had their asses handed to them in a 19-8 romp. Then remember game four, where they were down going into the ninth against Rivera. But then came the walk from Millar, the steal by pinch runner Roberts, and the tying hit from Bill Mueller. And a little while later, the win. Just one game, but the Sox were back in it. And they came all the way back, shocking the Yankees and moving on to the World Series.

I know that these Dodgers are not the 2004 Red Sox. But do you really think the 2009 Phillies are the 2004 Yankees? No way. Look, I'm not saying I fully believe the Dodgers can come back from this. And if they win tomorrow night, we might just be setting ourselves up for seeing the Phillies celebrate on our field. But do we want to root against our own team tomorrow night just so we don't have to have see a Phillies celebration? Do we want to really see the baseball season end so badly that we're willing to ignore any possibility of a miracle?

Yes, I know we'll have to see Cliff Lee in a game seven, should it get there. But if we force a game seven after going down 3-1, don't you think we'll have the Phillies against the ropes a little bit? And wouldn't you like to see the boys in blue at least try to make that happen?

I'll tell you right now, I do not give a flying fig about a Phillies/anyone World Series. So the season will be over for me the second the Dodgers are out of this. That means that I just have to keep reminding myself that the Dodgers are not out of this. Sure, I'm going to go through some moments in the next 30 hours during which I will be completely convinced that the Dodgers are toast. But I'm going to push through those, and the subsequent nausea, and I'm going to tell myself to believe.

Because just remember--if we take this back to Dodger Stadium, we'll get a little of this:

And as corny as we've all thought the "Don't Stop Believin'" song has been all year, it's pretty much the most important message we, as Dodger fans, can hear right now. If the Dodgers lose this series, you can be negative and angry and sad and all of that, and you can bet I'll be right there with you.

But for now, let's just try to focus on how good it will feel if we can make the Phillies sweat this one a little bit. Send those positive vibes out into the world and see what comes back to us. It can't hurt, right?

Onward

If I were a Philly phan, I would probably be writing about last night's shellacking of the Dodgers as though it were an obvious sign that the better team finally showed up and proved itself. After all, 11-0 is about as one-sided as you can get, so I'd be pretty proud of my team and ready to say this series is over. Of course, I'd write that the Phillies haven't won yet, and that they still have games to play, perhaps try to act a little humble; but in my heart of hearts I would know how this will all end.

As you know, I am not a Phillies' phan. And that sense of complacency might be exactly where I want those phanatics to be right now. I was seriously depressed last night, from the first inning on, and I was watching my team feeling like there really was a chance that this was the best they could do: a slugfest in game one, a "gift" win in game two, and a beatdown in game three. But there are, as they say, two sides to every story, and after I got over (well, okay, not quite over it yet, but I'm getting there) the game, I realized there's another way to look at this.

Game one, Clayton Kershaw was off, but so was Cole Hamels. The Dodgers won the battle of the bullpens (just subtract Sherrill from that conclusion), and showed a lot of heart in coming back from a 5-1 (and an 8-4) deficit to actually make it a close game in the end. Game two, sure, the Chase Utley error helped us. But, Vicente Padilla had only given up one run, and the bullpen took care of the rest of the game. Utley might be the goat of that game, but it wouldn't have hurt if his team could have scored some more runs so that error could have been meaningless. And yeah, okay, we got our asses handed to us in game three. There's no question about it. But, as many commenters on Sons of Steve Garvey pointed out last night, that beating couldn't have come at a better time. Kuroda was going to suck, so why not let it happen in a game we sort of expected to lose anyway, considering the Phillies' ace was on the mound? Any Phillies' pitcher could have beaten the Dodgers last night with the way Kuroda pitched, so now we just have to forget about it and move on to games we can expect to at least make interesting. Besides, as commenter "rbnlaw" on SoSG pointed out this morning, "losing 11-0 is better than losing 2-1 when you've led most of the game...right Fillies?"

So, yeah, momentum (whatever that means) is on the Phillies' side for a few hours. But I believe in Randy Wolf's ability to come out and shut down Philadelphia's offense while our boys go to town on Joe Blanton. We win tonight, and it's 2-2. That makes it a best of three, and two of those remaining three will be played at beautiful Chavez Ravine. Of course, winning tonight and Wednesday makes it less likely that we'll have to see Cliff Lee in a game seven with the World Series on the line, so I wouldn't hate that outcome.

As for what I'm doing to help the team, I've yet to decide on tonight's wardrobe. Last night, I wore my blue Dodgers jersey over my "not right now. I'm watching the game" shirt, and look what happened. That jersey is what I was wearing when the Dodgers clinched the West, so I thought it would work, but it's retired now, at least for tonight. So now I'm thinking I'll wear the Dodger pajama bottoms from game one (since they obviously helped to spark the offense), and my Dodger hat, but no Dodger top. Just a normal shirt of some kind. Perhaps that will be the right combination to get things heading in the right direction.

GO DODGERS!!!

That Old Blue Magic

I did not like last night's game, but I don't really want to talk about it, either. It was a game of blown opportunities, to say the least, and if you'd like to read a compelling recap, Dodger Thoughts has got you covered.

On Wednesday, Christine and I pulled out my button maker (that's right, I have one) to make something for a friend, and we decided to make some Dodger buttons, too. So, we made a bunch. I wore four of them on my Dodger shirt last night, and completed the outfit

with my hat and Dodger pajama bottoms. Even my socks had some blue on them. I have only just realized that I own no Dodger blue underwear, but I'll get that fixed soon enough. The point is, none of that mojo worked. So, right now I'm wearing some normal old shorts and flip flops (because it's effing hot out again), along with my Dodger hat (because I always wear that), and my 1959 All-Star Game t-shirt (which features this image). Gotta switch it up in the hopes that my clothing choices can have an effect on the outcome of a game in which I am not a participant.

The Dodgers showed some fight last night, but the agony still felt all too familiar, since this is what happened in last year's NLCS. The question now is how the Dodgers will come out today. Only about sixteen hours separate the end of game one from the beginning of game two, which means the Dodgers need to forget about last night and concentrate on today. Vicente Padilla is on the mound today, and no matter how good he's been for the team this season, there is still reason to be concerned. So the Dodgers need to get to Pedro Martinez (not exactly used to rooting against him in the postseason) early and often.

Christine once predicted that Vicente Padilla would do something big for the Dodgers in the playoffs. She thought perhaps game three against St. Louis was that big thing. But if he pitches well today, that could be even bigger, and maybe Christine's prediction really meant that Padilla would be a hero throughout the postseason.

Here's hoping.

P.S. There's a chance the picture of the buttons won't open larger in a new window if you click on it. I don't know why that's happening, but hopefully you get the gist with the smaller photo.

Before We Begin, A Look Back

The Dodgers begin NLCS play in just under seven hours, and I'm just sick with anticipation. Christine is worse off, and is insisting we go out to the stadium today before the game, just to take a picture and walk around. So, that's where we're headed in a few minutes.

But first, the long-awaited pictures and videos. Christine and I were at almost all the last home games of the season, and at all three on the final weekend. So we got to see the clinching of the N.L. West on Saturday, October 3. But enough of my words. I'll let the pictures (moving or otherwise) do the talking.

First up is the video of the dude who sits in the loge section along the third base line, and sings along to "Don't Stop Believin'" in the eighth inning. He's pretty funny, and I saw him at almost every game I went to this season, except for game two of the NLDS (the Dodgers couldn't get this guy to the game? He's a crowd pleaser). Here he is, for your amusement:

As you surely now by now, the Dodgers won the game. And the celebration afterward was pretty awesome. Christine and I made it down to the front row near the left field foul pole, and watched on DodgerVision as the players sprayed champagne in the clubhouse. Then they came out to party with the fans. This video is raw, but in it you will see Clayton Kershaw, Juan Castro, and Andre Ethier, all giving me and Christine high-fives (while Matt Kemp snubs us):

Then Manny took to the microphone to speak to the fans, thanking them for supporting him and promising to bring the championship to L.A., before handing the mic off to Belliard:

Just two more pics from that night:

And then, there was game two. I've already done my write-up of that game, so here's your photo essay. Please note that the excitement level of this game was turned up to eleven, and the lack of focus on some of these pictures is just a byproduct of that. I hope you'll forgive Christine her sins.

Slash performs the national anthem.

Slash performs "God Bless America."

Skipping right ahead to the good stuff. Bottom of the ninth, Blake at third, two outs, Mark Loretta at the plate.

The face of a calm, cool veteran.

Loretta steps into the box. Blake stands at third.

The ball drops in the outfield. Blake scores. Pandemonium.

Aaaaahhhh!!!!

(more indecipherable screams)

Hail the conquering hero.

Loretta in the spotlight.

GO DODGERS!!!!!

WTF ESPN?

I believe I've mentioned this before, but I really hate the Angels. Thanks for showing up, Red Sox. That was a blast.

A few days ago, Sons of Steve Garvey noted an ESPN poll about Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, and how their color choices for that poll were totally unintuitive. Today, I happened by ESPN and found an entirely different poll, but with the exact same problem:

I'm not lying about giving you pictures and video from the NL West clinching game (which I attended, and neglected to mention) and from game two of the NLDS. Soon.