2008 Los Angeles Dodgers!

:eek:

Vin Scully clarifies remarks on retirement
'It's not the end, I believe, or anything like that,' he says, deferring a decision until later this season. It's no surprise he'd like to cut down on travel to spend more time with his family.
Bill Plaschke

May 2, 2008

I wish you could have answered my phone.

I wish you could have answered the Thursday afternoon call from a Denver hotel room and listened to a greeting that would have made you smell popcorn, taste Dodger Dogs and feel chills.

"Hello, Bill? This is Vin Scully."

I've talked to the most trusted voice in the history of our city at least a dozen times over the phone during our long working relationship, and it never fails.

When he calls me, I freeze. When that voice fills the phone, I subconsciously expect it to break into a melodic description of a summer evening or a forlorn pitcher, so I wait.

"Bill? Bill?"

This time I didn't wait long. This time it was urgent, and I actually interrupted him in mid-poetic stream to ask a question.

"Are you retiring?"

I hated to ask it, because, goodness, I didn't want to put any ideas into his forever-red head, but I didn't have a choice.

This week, for the first time in, oh, about 59 years, Scully did not rule it out.

"There's a lot of hoopla in this job, but it's lonely for the wife," he told the New York Times during an appearance in Manhattan. "So I want to talk seriously with [Sandy] about her feelings, I want to know what's in her head. We'll talk it out over the long summer and then we'll talk to Frank" McCourt."

I saw the quotes, tracked him down, called his hotel room, he answered and said he would call me back, and he always, always calls back.

So he did, and I interrupted him in hurried fear.

"Are you retiring?"

He sighed. He said that print interviews sometimes fail to capture the proper tone in someone's voice.

"It came out a little heavy handed, and it really wasn't like that," Scully said.

"So, um, ah, are you retiring?"

Scully sighed again.

"It's not the end, I believe, or anything like that," he said.

I wish you could have answered my phone, then seen me toss it high in the air with relief.

Scully's contract ends this year, but apparently his career will not.

Yes, he get lonely for his wife and bevy of children and grandchildren.

Yes, at age 80, it's not much fun to spend much of your summer reading books in a hotel room.

But that's what contract negotiations are for, and Scully plans to hold them this fall with the McCourts to work a deal that could perhaps alleviate that travel.

"You could write, 'He's going to wait until August or September and evaluate how he is feeling,' " Scully said. "I think that's smart, that's wise, just let it ride, then have a meeting with the McCourts and see what happens."

And what does he think will happen? "I sense something good is going to come out of that meeting," he said.

It should. It will.

The McCourts have already proved their devotion to Dodgers tradition, and for Dodgers fans Scully is the definition of that tradition.

"I fully recognize Vin's importance to Dodger fans, to everyone, and I'll be thrilled to do my part to help that continue," McCourt said in a later phone interview Thursday. "We're going to work it out like we've done before."

Two years ago, according to McCourt, Scully's contract extension talks took "all of five minutes. We have a good relationship, very open, Vin knows how I feel about him."

These negotiations might take longer, but they should not be any more difficult.

Scully's road work has already been reduced to trips no farther East than Denver. If he wants to spend more time with the charming Sandy -- if you met her, you wouldn't blame him -- then why not cut out his road work altogether?

Let Scully announce only the home games. It's not ideal for Dodgers fans who still wish he worked every inning of every game on both television and radio, but it's better than the alternative.

A half of a season with Scully is better than a full season with anyone else.

Now, more than ever, the drought-stricken Dodgers need him.

Now, more than ever, a city with few sports or civic leaders worth trusting needs him.

Vin Scully has the only sports voice in this town that really matters, doesn't he?

Vin Scully is this city's last civic treasure that everyone still believes, isn't he?

This is why I reacted so swiftly to his innocuous quotes. This is perhaps why we all should listen to Scully the way we've never listened to him before.

He apparently won't retire after this year, but one day he will, and it will come sooner than we think, making every syllable worth cherishing.

Did you ever wish that a batter would foul off a couple of more pitches so Scully could finish telling a story before the end of the inning?

Did you ever hope the TV cameras would leave the field and capture a malted-milk-stained child in the stands, just so Scully could say something sweet about the kid?

With Scully in their ear, Dodgers fans are the only ones in the country who wait for their baseball games to turn into a history class or a Hallmark card.

And when something truly spectacular happens on the field? The next day at work, isn't somebody always asking, "How did Vinny describe it?"

Like nothing the Dodgers do is real until we hear it from him?

So we can relax now, he says he's staying. But make no mistake, he's also leaving.

His recent comments remind us that the voice of the dawning of baseball in Los Angeles has become a deep, glowing, wondrous sunset.

We need to sit still for a while and stare at it, embrace it, cling to it in hopes of keeping it there forever.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-plaschke2-2008may02,0,517702,print.column

one of the darkest days in dodger history when he was traded.....what a great guy and player and like tommy i hope mike goes into the hall in a dodger cap.....:)


Former Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza to retire 'with no regrets'
From the Associated Press

May 21, 2008

Mike Piazza is retiring from baseball following a 16-season career in which he became one of the top-hitting catchers in history.

"After discussing my options with my wife, family and agent, I felt it was time to start a new chapter in my life," he said in a statement released today by his agent, Dan Lozano. "It has been an amazing journey ... So today, I walk away with no regrets.

"I knew this day was coming and over the last two years. I started to make my peace with it. I gave it my all and left everything on the field."

The 39-year-old Piazza batted .275 with eight homers and 44 RBIs as a designated hitter for Oakland last season, became a free agent and did not re-sign. He was not available to discuss his decision, according to Josh Goldberg, a spokesman for Lozano.

Taken by the Los Angeles Dodgers on the 62nd round of the 1988 amateur draft, Piazza became a 12-time All-Star, making the NL team 10 consecutive times starting in 1993.

He finished with a .308 career average, 427 home runs and 1,335 RBIs for the Dodgers (1992-98), Florida (1998), New York Mets (1998-05), San Diego (2006) and Oakland (2007).

His 396 homers are easily the most as a catcher, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Carlton Fisk is second with 351, followed by Johnny Bench (327) and Yogi Berra (306).

Piazza thanked his family, teams and managers, some of his teammates -- and even owners, general managers, minor league staffs and reporters.

"Within the eight years I spent in New York, I was able to take a different look at the game of baseball," Piazza said. "I wasn't just a young kid that was wet behind the ears anymore -- I was learning from other veteran guys like Johnny Franco, who taught me how to deal with the pressures of playing in New York, and Al Leiter, who knew what it took to win a world championship."

He did not bring up two of the more memorable moments in his career: When the Yankees' Roger Clemens beaned him on July 8, 2000, and when Clemens threw the broken barrel of Piazza's bat in his direction in Game 2 of the World Series that October. Clemens denied intent both times.

"Last but certainly not least, I can't say goodbye without thanking the fans," Piazza said. "I can't recall a time in my career where I didn't feel embraced by all of you. Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and Miami -- whether it was at home or on the road, you were all so supportive over the years.

"But I have to say that my time with the Mets wouldn't have been the same without the greatest fans in the world. One of the hardest moments of my career, was walking off the field at Shea Stadium and saying goodbye. My relationship with you made my time in New York the happiest of my career and for that, I will always be grateful."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-piazza21-2008may21,0,6132683.story

Piazza: the blue-plate special
He retires without a team, but it should have been as a Dodger
By Bill Shaikin
ON BASEBALL

May 21, 2008

The great ones should not bid farewell via e-mail. Mike Piazza deserved to tip his cap and bask in the applause, secure in his place as one of the Dodgers' brightest stars.

His place would have been between Tom Lasorda and Sandy Koufax, on opening day, at the end of the Dodgers' stirring parade of players through the decades. Dodger Stadium went nuts when Koufax appeared, and the place would have gone only slightly less berserk with Piazza in the house.

But he was not retired then, just unemployed. He never did find a job, and he retired Tuesday, at 39. No standing ovation, no public appearance, just a statement sent to media e-mailboxes.

"I walk away with no regrets," Piazza said. "I knew this day was coming and, over the last two years, I started to make my peace with it."

It is difficult, even to this day, to make peace with the idea that Piazza did not play out his career with the Dodgers, that they traded perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in history -- and Lasorda's godson, no less.

The Dodger Way was no more. It is a decade later, and the Dodgers have yet to recover the tradition, the loyalty and the championships.

Piazza was a homegrown superstar, with a story made for Hollywood. The way Lasorda starts to tell the story, five clubs scouted Piazza.

"Every one of them said he couldn't play," Lasorda said.

So, as a favor to Lasorda, the Dodgers drafted Piazza in 1988, in the 62nd round. Of the 1,433 players selected, he was No. 1,390.

He made himself a decent catcher through hard work but, boy, could he hit. As a rookie, in 1993, he hit .318 with 35 home runs. In 1997, his last full season with the Dodgers, he hit .362 with 40 home runs.

"He brought the offensive level of what a catcher can do to a level that I don't think can be matched," said Mike Scioscia, his predecessor as the Dodgers' catcher.

Piazza loved L.A. -- the fans, the night life, the perennial promise of October -- and L.A. loved him back. But free agency loomed after the 1998 season, initial negotiations did not go well, and all of a sudden L.A. knew he wanted a record-setting contract.

Fred Claire, the general manager, figured he had all season to make a deal. The new Fox ownership wanted to rid itself of Piazza and buddy up to the Florida Marlins for television rights purposes, so the corporate suits traded Piazza to the Marlins in May, then told Claire what they had done.

"Mike couldn't have been any more shocked than I was," Claire said.

"He never wanted to leave," Lasorda said. "He cried."

Piazza did get his record contract. The Marlins flipped him to the New York Mets, and the Mets gave him $91 million.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Peter O'Malley had told us a family could no longer afford to run a major league team. So he sold to a corporation with deep pockets, and Fox promptly sold off Piazza.

But, a few months after portraying Piazza as greedy, Fox signed Kevin Brown for $105 million.

Claire and Bill Russell, the manager, were fired one month after the trade. So were three coaches. The Dodgers are on their sixth general manager and fifth manager since then, with no pennants.

"The trade changed the whole scope of the Dodgers in the way they had been operated," Claire said.

In the various organizational purges, the Dodgers dumped Scioscia, Mickey Hatcher and Ron Roenicke from their minor league staff, Gary Sutherland and Eddie Bane from their scouting staff. They all work -- and win -- in Anaheim now.

Piazza did not win a playoff game in L.A., but he got to the World Series with the Mets. He finished his career with the most home runs of any catcher in history, one of eight to hit .300 with 30 homers in a season. He did it six times. Roy Campanella did it three times. No one else did it more than once.

"Just to put yourself in the same ballpark as Roy Campanella is saying something," Scioscia said, "and Mike belongs up there."

In his statement, Piazza thanked all the teams, managers and fans for which he played, but he singled out the Mets' fans as "the greatest fans in the world."

Lasorda, the Dodgers' chief salesman, said he was not offended. He said Piazza was stung by boos at Dodger Stadium, before and after the trade. He would try, he said, to persuade Piazza to wear a Dodgers cap on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Persuasion should not have been necessary. The late, great Times columnist Jim Murray called it, two days after the trade:

"The Dodgers always have adhered to the Branch Rickey theory of roster cutting that it's better to deal a player a year early than a year late. But in Piazza's case, 10 years early?"

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-piazza21-2008may21,0,5245023.story

xavier mcdaniel wrote:

do the dodger fans think that fox wasn't screwing up the organization at the time, they'd have re-signed him?

don't get me started on fox....o'malley would have resigned him and i think mccourt would have too....that second column i posted reminded me of those dark days of fox ownership....talk about incompetence....:mad:

xavier mcdaniel wrote:

i remember that, especially the 1999 team. it's too bad they can't split his cap or something because he really is associated equally with the mets and dodgers.

yeah my wanting him to go in as a dodger isn't a slight at the mets....but if it weren't for tommy and the dodgers he may never have had a career in baseball...it bums me out that mike still has ill feelings towards the dodgers....it was fox that fucked him, not the franchise....