Mike Miller, a former Cal Poly shortstop and current professional in the Boston Red Sox system, joined the podcast this week. 

Miller told lots of stories and gave lots of background I didn’t know. Did you know he went unrecruited out of high school and attended Cal Poly on his own for a year without playing baseball?

Miller discussed life in the minors, PB&J, and an organization called More than a Game. 

As always, feedback is welcomed. 

The Benchmark for winning: Jerry Buss’ Lakers

I’m turning thirty this year. Two years before I was born, Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers. All I’ve known my whole life is the winning tradition of the team. I have early memories of Magic’s sky-hook to beat the Celtics and when Kobe threw the Game 7 alley-oop to Shaq to beat Portland I jumped through the roof of my first college apartment. With the exception of a middling few years in the 90’s, and another set of interesting, if not victorious seasons during the last decade, the Lakers have always been championship contenders.

When the Lakers traded Shaq in 2004, it was the first time I had ever openly-questioned the Lakers’ decision-making. At the time Shaq was flirting with being my favorite Laker. Ever. He still might be.

I prognosticated to anyone who would listen: “If they don’t win another champi0nship within five years, they will decline, Kobe will asked to be traded, and we’ll be back to a time worse than the mid 90’s.”

It took Kobe less than 5 years to demand a trade, but the Lakers ignored his plea, got back to the NBA Finals in 2008 and won title each of the past two seasons. The Lakers did what it took to win with savvy trades and a willingness to go over the salary cap when necessary to ensure a complete roster. Dr. Buss’ team didn’t just quietly develop a culture over 30-plus years that espoused a winning mentality. When it came time to make roster decisions, or make their product better, their actions matched their rhetoric despite a collective team salary that put them consistently over the cap.

Frank McCourt and the Dodgers

I hate to say it, but the McCourts have become a punchline. The “joke” might go something like this:

“How do you take over 50 years of solid ownership-fan relations, and in just a few years make one of the most beloved franchises in modern professional sports a laughing-stock?”

The answer/punchline, of course, is to follow the McCourt road map.

After winning with low-priced, young talent and benefiting from being at or near the top of Major League Baseball’s attendance for nearly a decade, the Dodgers fell-off dramatically last season. When young players didn’t produce, there were no solid stars for them to lean on. The icon they had come to rely on failed like a used car that ran great for a short while and then became a lemon. Of course, “Man-Ram” did come to the team “on-sale,” and proved the “you get what you pay for” adage when he missed much of the past two seasons due to injury and suspension.

Without their star to lean on, the entire house of cards collapsed like, well, a house of cards.

So what do Dodgers fans have to look forward to? If you listen to the general manager, they could be just like the Giants this year (more on why the Giants are enablers as the baseball season goes on).

Our rose colored-glasses would have us ask the following questions: Why couldn’t the Dodgers, with newly acquired Juan Uribe and John Garland, rely on their pitching and scrappy play to win the division this year? Why can’t they stay in contention for the entire season? Maybe they can even make the playoffs again, and wouldn’t that be good enough make everyone in “Dodger-land” really super-duper happy?

My sarcastic tone comes for a few reasons:

1) For a team from Los Angeles to be out-spent by a team from San Francisco is the baseball economic blasphemy. Dodger Stadium is one of the best-attended stadiums in all of baseball, in the second-largest media market in the country, and the Dodgers are constantly operating under a budget tighter than (you fill in the blank). They tried to win “on the cheap” with the genius from the A’s and when even he couldn’t win under McCourt’s budget, he became a scapegoat and was let go.

2) For the Dodgers to try to “imitate” the Giants, as they have been seemingly for the past decade, is embarrassing. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of Giant retreads. Schmidt, Kent, and now Uribe. Bleh. ENABLERS!

3) Also embarrassing: The Giants won the World Series last year. Maybe I am not, in fact, really over it. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. Anyway, moving on…

Finally, in a city that supports the Lakers with the condition of success demanded from them (the sky was falling in Laker-land before the All-Star break), fans seem to support the Dodgers unconditionally.

Whether or not the ownership makes sound decisions, we will go to games and make ourselves believe that the Dodgers have a real shot. In baseball, this may be a reality, as the Giants proved. But it shouldn’t have to be the reality in a strong market like Los Angeles.

In the spirit of being a Dodgers fan with a new season approaching, here are my baseball season predictions. As you’ll see, my rose-colored glasses are shattered as soon as I look at the Phillies’ roster (why can’t the Dodgers just be more like the Phillies!?).

Before my prediction, I’ll leave Dodgers fans with an image of a different owner. Picture this. Mark Cuban in the owner’s box. Oscar De La Hoya doing real outreach to fans in Los Angeles. Magic Johnson’s genuine smile as the new face of the Dodgers. Somebody with a LOT more money and a LOT more stable of a situation than is currently present. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Owen’s 2011 MLB Predictions –

NL West Champ: Dodgers

NL Central Champ – Cubs

NL East – Phillies

NL Wild Card – Braves

AL West – Angels

AL Central – Twins

AL East – Red Sox

AL Wild Card – Yankees

Phillies over Dodgers, Cubs over Braves, Phillies over Cubs

Red Sox over Twins, Angels over Yankees, Red Sox over Angels

Red Sox beat Phillies in 6 games. Halladay is great, but Lee and Hamels get roughed up.

AL Cy Young – John Lester

NL Cy Young – Roy Halladay

AL MVP – Carl Crawford

NL MVP – Matt Kemp (Had to do it and he’ll have to have an MVP year for the Dodgers to win the West…)

Yep. My rose-colored glasses are intact.

owen@fansmanship.com

It is news that means rather little to your life, that is, unless you believe Susan Lucci to be the greatest actress since Faye Dunaway.

According to Manny Ramirez, he and past teammate Johnny Damon, “are back.”

Back from what? Last I checked both had become irrelevant, and overpaid. Back in Beantown? Not a chance. Back together? Absolutely. Do I hear the making of a Brokeback sequel?

Today Johnny Damon knotted a one year, 5.25 million dollar contract, and Ramirez, a one year, 2 million dollar deal with the crumbling Devil Rays.  They join a solid pitching rotation, boasting the likes of David Price, and do it all third basemen in Evan Longoria.

Any other off-season, signing two veterans like Ramirez and Damon would only strengthen your team. Both have won World Series’, and know what it takes to get there.  But this off-season, is not your normal off-season for the Rays. They’ve watched many of their central components go elsewhere. The biggest of these, Center fielder Carl Crawford, a rare breed of both speed, defensive prowess, and occasional power. Last year the star hit .307, with 19 homers, and 90 runs batted in, and over the last 8 years,  has averaged 50 stolen bases, making him the most sought after base stealer in the league. He was the set-up for a team in the top five in every major offensive category. Not to mention, a fan favorite, a guy who had built a name for himself in the Rays small market. Crawford’s positive locker room presence will be sorely missed for a team with a long list of young players. His nine seasons with the Rays, made him the longest tenured player on the club. Drafted in 1999, in the 2nd round, Crawford had stayed true blue to the organization that believed in him first; so losing him, is like losing your heart.

Another missing piece this season, will be first baseman Carlos Pena. Pena, who inked a one year deal with the Cubs, is best known as a defensive-minded first baseman, but also, a guy who can hit the long ball. Over the last four years, Pena has belted 144 homers, giving the Rays legitimate pop in the middle part of their lineup. He and Longoria were the pieces looked at to drive in runs, and create pitching problems for the opponents in the later innings. Now that Pena is gone, Longoria will have to pick up more of the slack–which  can lend itself to burn-out, then a few poor years, and ultimately a young player who never fully blossoms into the kind of player he could have become.

The burden is not only felt in the lineup. It is also felt on the pitching side of things. Losing Middle-reliever Juaquin Benoit to the Tigers, may not sound as serious as it is. But Benoit was the go to middle guy, who held opponents to a .147 batting average. He was the guy who kept things close if Price, Davis, Garza, or Shields had an off-night.

So let the Soap Opera begin.

Whether we want to admit it or not, Ramirez can still hit. The problem has never been getting one of the greatest hitters this league has ever seen to hit the ball out of the park, or drive in runs. It has always been his focus, his wayfarer attitude, his incessant need to spout ridiculous comments in the media; comments like “we’re back.”

Since being dealt to the Dodgers in 2008, Ramirez legacy has been severely tainted. After an incredible second half with L.A. in 2008, when the future Hall of Fame out-fielder hit .396, with 17 homers and 56 RBI, Ramirez spent a quarter of 09′ on the bench with both a league suspension, and a quandary of random injuries.  His sudden decline was not physical, rather a mental paradigm made of a growing disconnect between Manny, the man with 555 career home runs, and little “m” manny: the hippie, off-beat, Ricky Williams of Baseball.

The funniest thing about Manny Ramirez is the dude could hit the ball with one eye, high on cocaine. The last 100 games of 09′, the star hit .290, with 19 home runs, and 63 RBIs. He then came into training camp in 2010, with a bad attitude and a misery of peculiar injuries. Despite playing only 63 games with the Dodgers the first half of 2010, he hit .311. But when is enough, enough? When the Dodgers grew tired of little “m” manny, they gave him away to the Chicago Whitesox, where he played the most uninspired baseball of his life. It was like watching Bob Marley swing a bat with his dreads, then as he whiffed, do an Irish jig in a mini skirt.

Now that we are primed for 2011, to watch the high-on-self Ramirez, play his former team the Red Sox, 25-30 times, it will be an intriguing process to wait for Ramirez’s self-destruction, and his flammable comments in the media. I wonder what the small-town Rays will think of a figure like Ramirez, a man who finds little value in anything but to bother others with his naturally-lazy- ability to hit the baseball.

I hate saying it, but Ramirez is arguably the best hitter on the Rays. Yet as always, it will be a waiting game, as we determine which Manny will show. If big “M” decides to rear his mysterious head, another 40 homer, 125 RBI season, could be in the making. And sadly for a guy like the hardworking Longoria, he will probably be swallowed by the belly of a man who has always been able to steal the show from the just about everyone he comes in contact with.  But even if he does, it does not mean we will see a repeat of the 2010 Rays, a team of role guys, willing to sacrifice for every bit of their American league best 96 wins. With a pick-up like Manny, you know for every loss of a ‘w’, a willing television agency will be knocking on your door, asking to create a T.V. show based upon your life.

And sadly, in today’s sports world, money talks.

*Note that I am aware I did not talk about Johnny Damon in this article. And let me ask you, considering the brittle, overrated, thirty seven year old “has been”… do I really have to?

—Luke Johnson