Tony Jackson, Dodgers baseball writer, was laid off Thursday by the L.A. News Group. LANG getting rid of solid, veteran journalists is nothing new. It’s what Dean Singleton’s collection of imploding SoCal suburban newspapers have been doing for more than a year now. The L.A. Daily News, the San Gabriel Tribune, the Long Beach Press […]

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Everyone who has seen this movie before, raise your hand. Wow. One hundred percent of you with your arms in the air. We couldn’t get 100 percent agreement that this is Friday. I feel badly for Milton Bradley because I really don’t believe he can control himself. I am convinced he has serious issues with […]

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I was reading David Sedaris in the New Yorker (how’s that for a snooty start to an item on a sports blog?), and he was writing about train travel a quarter-century ago and the cars in which people were allowed to smoke. And it brought to mind a memory I thought I may already have […]

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I’m conflicted about Tommy Lasorda. He is arguably the most profane public person I ever have been around. (I wasn’t in the Oval Office when Richard Nixon got cranked up.) I’ve seen him bully reporters and players, and try to intimidate them. It’s not pretty. Tommy really, really likes Tommy, too. But then he goes […]

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It’s nice when baseball players take the time and effort — and it’s usually not all that much time and pretty much someone else’s effort — to lend their name to a community program. And I’m sure it made sense for the Dodgers to encourage Juan Pierre to be involved in this sort of thing, […]

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Harry Kalas died today. He was found unconscious in the press box at Washington, and died at 73. The news story can be found here. Fans in Philadelphia are in some distress because Kalas had been the Phillies’ broadcaster since 1971. That’s a long time. And I’m sure they will miss their guy, perhaps better […]

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And, no. It’s not Cosmo Kramer. I’m linking to Cosmopolitan magazine, which is to sports what Sports Illustrated is to hedge funds. Cosmo usually is about how to find a man or steal one from someone else, and how women can manipulate men. Key stuff. Anyway, Cosmo strayed into baseball this week, and it’s not […]

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This is the team I grew up with and, in theory, remain a fan of. As noted before on this blog, anyone who has spent time covering a professional sports team as a working journalist … well, that person loses the ability to think of pro athletes with any regard. Let alone admiration or (gag!) […]

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We had the 28th annual Sun Baseball League draft the other night. And before I go any further, I am reminded of a comment I overheard while covering the 2006 Winter Olympics at Turin — and may even have had on this blog somewhere, sometimes. I’m not exactly sure who said this, but I believe […]

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Tommy Lasorda, gotta love him. Well, actually, you don’t. Even Dodgers fans I think find him a little over the top. I can tell you for certain that any journalist who covered the Dodgers during Lasorda’s two decades as manager … well, the “bleeding Dodger blue” and “the Big Dodger in the Sky” lost its […]

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