dB's Blog

Dodgers Win in LA

2008-10-12T21:54:00.001-07:00

Following suit with the rest of the year, the Dodgers beat the Phillies back in LA again. The Dodgers did everything right, with Hiroki Kuroda pitching a great game for most of the night, and the few times he made mistakes, he got out of it relatively unscathed, going 6 innings with only 2 runs and 5 hits allowed.

Cory Wade did well out of the bullpen, pitching two excellent innings, as did Jonathan Broxton in the 9th.

The offensive hero of the night was Blake DeWitt. Although he still has a low batting average, his bases-clearing triple in the first inning broke the game open to a 5-0 lead, and giving him 6 RBI in post-season in his rookie year.

There was a strange animosity between the teams, with Russell Martin being hit by pitches twice in the game, and a lot of up-and-in pitches to both teams. At one point it looked like there would be a brawl, but the fire was quickly put out.

Attendance was a new record for Dodger stadium, 56,800, which eclipsed the old record. I guess the Dodgers renegotiated their contract with the city that limits them to 56,000 per game.

The whole team looked good. Let's hope they keep the offense alive tomorrow for Derek Lowe!

105 dB for Dodgers!

2008-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

The program Decibel for the iPhone measured the crowd at 105 dB when Broxton made the final out for the Dodgers, sweeping the heavily favored Cubs in the NLDS. The Cubs were the best team in the NL throughout the season and were expected to go to the World Series. The Dodgers barely won their division and were only a few games above the .500 mark, but they managed to fire on all cylinders against the Cubs. The Cubs on the other hand were feeble in all three games. LouPinella angrily said Fukudome would never play again, then used him to pinch hit tonight, showing how desperate he was a for a hit.

Manny was not the player of the night, but had two home runs in the previous two games, and was the needed boost for the second half of the season (along with Casey Blake). James Loney's grand slam was probably the highlight of the series, but the pitching in all three games was really the reason they won. Kuroda was excellent tonight, getting out of trouble several times, and gettings stronger throughout the game, until he was removed in the 7th.

Wade has been a pleasant surprise from the bullpen, having started the season in AA, and now an important reliever. Broxton showed excellend confidence (which he had clearly lacked earlier in the year) and also mixed his slider into the pitches well.

This marks the first time in 20 years that the Dodgers will advance to the Championship Series. It was a stellar night for the sellout crowd, with many people staying after the game was over to see the Dodgers celebrate, and excited fans screaming and honking in and out of the parking lot long after the game had finished!

D'backs Beat Rockies

2008-09-20T20:46:00.000-07:00

Although tomorrow is the last home game for the Rockies, today was my last baseball game of the regular season. It was somewhat sad to see it fizzle with a 9th inning loss by the Rockies' young closer Brian Fuentes, who had an excellent season after replacing Manny Corpas. Corpas had fallen apart halfway into the season.

Once again I was impressed with several defensive plays by the young Rockies. Unfortunately the win keeps the D'backs post-season hopes alive, and I am hoping to see the Dodgers go to post-season, along with my hometown Red Sox.

Only a week left in the season to see who makes it.

Rockies Beat Snakes

2008-09-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today marked the 40th baseball game I've attended this year.

The Rockies looked pretty good against the D'backs. De La Rosa pitched himself into trouble but got out of it unscathed, giving up only 1 run in 6 innings of work, with 3 walks being the biggest damage.

Ian Stewart made seeral excellent defensive plays at 3rd. He looks like a young star. I think we have a lot to look forward to next year.

Rockies Lose to Dodgers Again

2008-09-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

20-year old Clayton Kershaw pitched 6 great innings at Coors field, giving up only 1 run an striking out 7. Chan Ho Park's relief work continued to impress as he pitched two scoreless innings and struck out 4.

The Rockies continue their slide into the end of the season, looking like the opposite of last year's team.

Dodgers Beat Rockies

2008-09-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

Jeff Francis did not pitch poorly, giving up 3 runs in 6 innings, but it wasn't good enough for the weak offense of the Rockies last night. Billingsly allowed 6 hits, 3 walks and a hit batsman, but the Rockies could only bring 2 people home in the game. They also committed 3 errors in the game. "Closer" Manny Corpas gave up 3 runs in one inning of work.

This drops the Rockies to 9.5 games back of the Dodgers, and the Dodgers' magic number is 13. The Dodgers timely hitting last night brought in 7 runs off of 6 hits and 2 walks. They look good!

Hearing Loss Update

2008-09-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

The correct numbers for what I quoted off my head in class:

Noise Exposure
Level - Time
90 dB - 8 hours
95 dB - 4 hours
100 dB - 2 hour
105 dB - 1 hour
110 dB - 30 min
120 dB- 7.5 min
130 dB - potentially instantaneous

Hearnet.com
HEI.org

Pitchers' Duel at Coors Field

2008-09-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Jeff Francis made one mistake pitching to the Houston Astros: a 2-run homer in the 6th. In the 5th, he had gotten out of trouble with no outs and men on 2nd and 3rd, by getting 2 strikeouts and a pop-up.

Roy Oswalt pitched a complete 9-inning shutout, giving up only 1 hit and 2 walks. He looked great all night.

The Dodgers beat the D'backs to rise to first place by half a game. They play again tomorrow.

ROCKIES WIN IN 12

2008-09-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

The Rockies looked like they had an easy win in the 4th inning when they led 5-0, but things quickly fell apart when they needed 3 pitchers to get through the 6th inning. Tied at 5, they went into 12 innings and 7 pitchers before Ryan Spilborghs finally knocked in the winning run.

Hernandez looked good for 5 innings but gave up 4 runs in the 6th inning while getting only 1 out and leaving 2 men on base. Rusch came out and threw 4 balls to load the bases, then was pulled for Vizcaino, who struck out the first batter, but then allowed consecutive hits to tie the game.

Because the D'backs lost, they have now pulled to 5 games back, and 3.5 back of the Dodgers. There's still a (very small) glimmer of hope for Rockies fans.

Great Punctuation Blog

2008-08-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

As a fan of punctuation, I found this blog interesting. It covers one of my pet peeves, the extraneous use of "quotes." ("Irony" intended.)

INVESCOBAMANIA!!!

2008-08-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

_________________________

See all 150 photos we took at Flickr!

It was an amazing evening to be there. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have not only lived to see it... but to get tickets to be there in person.

They were urging people to get there as early as 1PM, but I knew that would create a rush to beat the rush, so we looked at the schedule and decided to try to get there at about 5PM. We ended up leaving later than expected, but there was plenty of parking at the light rail, and the trains were almost empty. We were forced to get out a stop early, apparently there had been a huge backlog of people earlier in the day, so they were making people get off further to alleviate congestion, and it worked. We walked straight into the stadium in about 15 minutes.

I was surprised by a lot of things. I expected a lot of nutty protesters, and although there were a few (I was not surprised to find out that I'm going to hell), there are more at Laurel & Ventura on a Friday night.

Security was weird. We had been told that all tickets had been registered with names and that they would be scanning and checking IDs at the gate, but they did neither. No one scanned our ticket, no one asked for ID. I could have sold (or bought) my tickets on Ebay.

Security was weird. The metal detectors were pretty much it. They did look carefully at my keychain; I think they thought the mini flashlight was a crackpipe and would not let me through until I lit it up. (The flashlight, not the crack.)

We got there at about 6. I was excited to see a number of the speakers. We got there just as Sheryl Crow started her set. I'm not a huge fan, but she was pretty good until she sang a song that wasn't hers and her vocal weakness cut through.

Mark Udall was good. Tim Kaine was better, and Bill Richardson was great. I think he would have been a good VP choice. We were seated on the top level, behind the stage, and although we still had a good view, it was hard to hear, particularly when a speaker got a good crowd response. It looked like they did very little sound reinforcement, so it was probably loud on the field and soft and muddy up top. It's too bad, they could have easily told people to bring AM radios and played it on a local station with no delay, as well as add captions to the large video boards (everyone was speaking from a TelePromTer, even the singers' lyrics).

The crowd got increasingly louder throughout the night, until Obama was imminent, and then they became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The crowd was a little sparse when we got there, but by 8 there were hardly any empty seats.

Stevie Wonder was good as always (we've seen him at the Grammys), he's the consummate pro as a musician.

I've also heard Al Gore speak in person before. I said it in a previous blog post, but his media image is completely different from what he's really like. He's an extremely engaging speaker, intelligent, funny, and animated. I don't know how or why the media has made him look so bad. He was very, very good tonight, going on the offensive on a lot of important topics. His speech had more substance than any of the other speakers I saw, other than Obama.

Michael McDonald thankfully was limited to one song. Alas, he stole Ray Charles' signature song and butchered it.

Susan Eisenhower also had good text, but was not a dramatic speaker.

It was VERY smart to get the retired military on stage with him. So much for lack of experience. These guys could have waged a war without leaving the stage.

The 6 Average Americans were also great. It seemed a little heavy on the women - Obama's already got the woman vote - it seemed that it would have been smarter to get more middle aged white guys on stage; they are his weakest following.

However, it was great to see the mix of people in the crowd. Young, old, male, female, white, black, Latino, you name it. There was a sense of camaraderie not only in the crowd but even on the train home. People were really excited that change might finally happen.

Dick Durbin was good too.

But the night belonged to one man. He has a huge presence. I think the applause for him could have gone on for an hour. The video tribute before his entrance was very moving. The crowd of about 85,000 people was silent, and many moved to tears.

_________________________
It was an historic night that I will never forget.

Dodgers Beat Rockies

2008-08-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

The Dodgers squeaked out a victory over the Rockies after losing 2 in a row to them. They are still back from the D'backs.

Lowe gave up a run in the 1st but the rest of the day looked quite good. Kuo did well in 2 innings of relief, and after a leadoff hit, Broxton struck out the side with many of the pitches clocked at over 100 mph.

Rockies Road

2008-08-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Rockies looked better tonight, with Brad Hawpe going 3/3 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Francis gave up 3 runs in 6 innings, but Manny Corpas blew the hold, so the win went to Taylor Buchholz.

It was a really beautiful night at Coors Field.

THE CUBE

2008-08-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

For years I had intended to buy THE CUBE, which is a really nifty way of storing a lot of CDs or DVDs. I have a lot of both, and they take up a lot of space. I just never got around to reorganizing them until my recent move, and now I've compressed a lot of storage space. It's a really nice, solid piece of furniture. Definitely worth the price, and highly recommended.

Rockies

2008-08-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's game was rained out.

Friday's game lasted 2 innings before the rain stopped play for an hour. The Rockies ended up beating the Padres' best pitcher, Jake Peavey, 6-3.

Saturday's game vs. the Padres appeared threatened by rain at first, but it turned into a nice night for baseball, until a 5-run 6th inning broke the 1-1 tie and gave Greg Maddux the win for the Padres.

The Rockies have a lot of young talent, but this year pitching seems to be the major problem, even their best starters are not making the best of it.

The Manny Trade

2008-08-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

As a life-long Red Sox fan, and a Dodger season ticket holder of the past few years, people have asked me my opinion of the Manny trade.

Manny is one of the best hitters in the game. But off the field, he has always been a mess. He never liked playing in Boston, where he felt the media intruded on his personal life. (Good luck dealing with TJ Simers in LA!)

Boston put up with it because he was a great player, and even when he twice asked for trades, Boston kept him. However, this year he brought his problems onto the field. First he refused to swing at pitches, then he called in "sick" when he appeared to be fine. The Red Sox had had enough and put him up for trade.

It's a very strange scenario, because he's in the final year of a contract, so any team that picks him up gets two months out of him. It's a good move for the Dodgers. They gave up practically nothing for him. Andy LaRoche, who has been a bust at 3rd base, and a minor league prospect.

For Frank McCourt, in the 24 following the signing, they sold 11,000 tickets to tonight's game, making it a sellout. Compare that to the anemic crowd from last Friday, when they had so many leftover bobble-heads that they were still giving them out on Sunday.

For the team, it's the big bat they need.

However, there are still problems. Manny is probably the only outfielder in the game whose defense is worse than Juan Pierre's. There's a LOT more field to cover in Dodger Stadium, and it will take him a while to get used to it. You can't put them both him and Pierre in the game at the same time. Neither can play center or right. So you lose your lead-off batter when you put Manny in, and you lose your cleanup man when you put Pierre in.

And we're still stuck with Andruw Jone$.

The infield is a bit of a mess as well. Furcal is gone, Nomar is in and out, and Kent's showing his age.

Worst of all, the pitching is a much bigger problem. There is only one starting pitcher on the team with a winning record, Billingsly, and he's 11-9. Granted some of that is poor offense, but let's face it, without Penny at All-Star caliber, and Schmidt a complete bust, there is no ace on the staff. And without an ace, there's not much to hope for.

As for the Red Sox, they lose an irreplaceable player. They get Jason Bay, who has tremendous talent and will do very well in Fenway.

If tonight is any indication, the Red Sox got the better of the deal. Manny grounded into a double play in the bottom of the ninth with the potential tying run on base.

Jason Bay went 1 for 3 with Boston, walked twice, and scored both Red Sox runs and 12-inning game. His triple in the bottom of the 12 allowed him to score the winning run.

MAMMA MIA

2008-07-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since I saw MAMMA MIA, but I've still got those damned songs stuck in my head. The problems with this film are so plentiful that it's almost impossible to list them all.

First off, when the hell is this movie supposed to be taking place? The lead girl is 20, supposedly conceived 20ish years ago, which would be 1988. But photos of the potential parents sure look like the 60s! Except that ABBA's songs did not exist until much later... nothing in any timeline makes sense, unless the film is supposed to be a period piece, and it's never explained if that's supposed to be the case.

Then there is the awful lighting and makeup. The three older women should sue the makeup artist. Streep looks about 100 years old... and about 50 pounds overweight! The lighting makes the whole movie look like it was shot green-screen even though it wasn't!

The plot is a lame sitcom plot. Admittedly, most musicals have stupid plots, so I would have bought the story if the rest of the movie had been better. There are WAY too many characters for them to be developed well enough to be anything more than stereotypes.

Then there's the music. ABBA had about 4 good songs. (And by good, I mean they had a decent hook and a memorable melody. It ain't great art no matter how you slice it.) Once you get past the title song and "Dancing Queen," it's a long, long wait for "Take a Chance" (which is thrown away) and "Waterloo," which makes no sense in the movie. The rest of the songs are completely forgettable, and very, very similar in sound. I think all of them are in C major.

If the music in a musical isn't worth listening to, there's no movie.

iPhone, uPhone, weAllPhone

2008-07-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

After waiting for several days for my iPhone to come in, I finally gave up on the AT&T Store, who apparently lied to me when they told me that I was on a waiting list for an iPhone, and went to the Glendale Apple Store last Thursday to get one.

There was a line, which surprised me a week after the release, and they told me it would be a 90 - 120 minute wait. I got a sandwich, came back and waited about 20 minutes. There were a few blips because I wanted a family plan with the other line we had started at the AT&T store, and I wanted the union discount, which they aren't supposed to do at the Apple store.

After buying it I got home, called AT&T, and got someone here in America on customer service (much to my surprise), and he fixed everything.

So far, 4 stars on the phone. It makes my Treo suck by comparison. And I liked my Treo a lot. The Internet access is great on the iPhone, and so far everything works well as advertised. It's definitely an enormous leap forward in technology.

MOZART AT THE BOWL

2008-07-22T23:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight's concert at the bowl was probably the weakest of the season so far... and a sorry choice for me to be finishing my season. A little Mozart goes a long way, particularly when none of the pieces on the program are the "best" of Mozart.

The Overture to La Clemenza was light; as well as forgettable. Conductor Andrew Davis was fine; perhaps the best conductor of the ones I've seen this summer from a technical standpoint. However, all the music was very restrained emotionally. I know some purists insist this was the way Mozart was meant to be played, but I disagree. His melodies ache for interpretation.

Mezzo soloist Isabel Leonard did the best job of the evening, particularly on Exutate Jubilate. Her voice was absolutely gorgeous. Perhaps her only flaw is that her low notes do not project well, but then who does in the Bowl.

Piano soloist Orion Weiss showed a few moments of sympathy in the 2nd movement of the Concerto No. 17, but the whole concert felt poorly programmed. It ran long, yet was unsatisfying. The crowd was weak as well, and they will be playing the same concert on Thursday night.

ANGELS SWEEP RED SOX

2008-07-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Home runs on Back-to-back pitches in the 2nd inning were not the demise of the sox. They were able to score 2 in the 3rd to tie it, then 1 in the 7th to take the lead. But Tim Wakefiled lost it in the 8th, giving up 3 runs to lose the game.

K-Rod got his 36th save of the season.

RED SOX LOSE 2 TO ANGELS

2008-07-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

The Angels whomped the Red Sox last night in an 11-3 runaway game, showing great offsense for a team that otherwise has lacked it.

Today it looked to be a Red Sox victory, with Josh Beckett pitching another complete game, but losing a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the 7th. He ended up losing a well-pitched game, 4-2.

Looks like the Red Sox need David Ortiz more than they realized.

LANG LANG

2008-07-18T01:04:00.000-07:00

An excellent concert at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, featuring a Chinese composer, conductor, cello soloist, and pianist.

The highlight of the night was Lang Lang performing the Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1.

I have mixed feelings about him as a performer. At times, he has brilliant technique, especially when playing the block-chord melody sections; his wrists were moving so fast they were a complete blur. But he has several flaws in his performance style. One is his obvious hand motions that are overly exaggerated even in the simple sections. At times I feel like I'm watching Chico Marx playing his one-fingered solos with flourishes.

But more problematic is his insistence on playing at breakneck paces; even sections that are supposed to be slow. He uses it as an excuse for sloppy playing; I think he assumes we won't notice if the notes go by quickly. The tempi are so fast that they remove musicality from the performance.

Yet the night was a pleasure. Tan Dun's Crouching Tiger Concerto was fun, and the fireworks at the end of the night were even more fun.

MENDELSSOHN & DVORÀK

2008-07-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Hollywood Bowl concert had a nice mix of classics. The highlights included Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, performed by Renaud Capuçon, violin. He began the first movement a bit off (intonation is always a problem at the bowl with cold instruments), but by the time he got to the cadenza, he owned the piece. His tone was gorgeous, especially in the high register. The third movement in particular was great; the conductor, Andris Nelsons, took a ridiculously fast tempo, and Capuçon played it fluidly and flawlessly. Nelsons, on the other hand, made some of the most ridiculous faces I've seen on a conductor. He looked "special" at times.

The Dvoràk Symphony #7 was also well played by the ork, with a broad emotional range, and pulsing rhythms.

Dodgers 9, Marlins 1

2008-07-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

Chad Billingsly pitched a career-high 13 strikeouts today. With a 6-run first inning for the Dodgers, it was good to see a clear lead from the beginning, held throughout the game. The team batted around in the first and played well through the game.

Dodgers Lose Third Straight

2008-07-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Dodgers blew plenty of chances to win one against the hot-hitting Marlins, but the biggest blow came when tied in the 9th with 2 out; closer Takashi Saito had to leave the game with an apparent elbow injury.

It took the Dodgers 6 pitchers and 11 innings to lose the game. Andruw Jones struck out 5 times (although he ran out a dropped 3rd strike and made it to base once).

Kemp & Ethier each had home runs, and DeWitt had 2 hits. Small highlights in a weak loss.