The Beginning

And so it begins.

When you're retired you sit around and read the Internet. When you've followed the L.A. Dodgers for  50 years or so you end up stopping at Dodger blogs on the Internet. When you stop at Dodger blogs on the Internet you find that these are places kids go to show how smart they are using baseball statistics. And then you laugh out loud at how little they know about baseball.

After awhile you stop laughing because it's so irritating.

Then you reach for your blood pressure medicine.

And if you don't get to the bottle in time you stroke out.

Well, you don't want to stroke out so don't go to Internet blogs.

Fortunately there are good Dodger blogs with a lot of valuable information. And with the continuing demise of newspapers and other traditional media they're actually improving the news flow for even the most obscure baseball activities.

I find the True Blue LA blog to be of the most use by far. It gives solid game info along with updates on weekly and monthly player results and strong coverage of the Dodger minor league players. If I could only go to just one Dodger blog this would be the one. I have a lot of respect for Eric Stephen - the beat reporter for the site - who puts everything on the line to cover his passion.

The other thing about True Blue LA is that it's not overly biased like, like say, Mike Scosicias Tragic Illness. I don't know if that's by design or what's required to get press credentials from the team. Either way I'm glad it is the case.

I like to read Jon Weisman's Dodger Thoughts. He's a professional writer so he has a more, well,  THOUGHT-ful approach. And his chat room is far more civilized and knowing than some. Not a lot of info compared to others but he doesn't profess to be that kind of blog.

That's about as far as I go Dodger blogwise on a daily basis. I don't find the ESPN Dodger blog very useful. And their LA coverage is generally late and ordinary. But one funny thing. I find that the uber-stat kids despite all their self-legislated genius what they're really in it for is to get tweeted by somebody.

I check the LA Times of course but just mostly out of respect for the good old days of newspapers. Back in the day I was an editor at a large daily, and, well, it's just sad. Don't get me wrong. Newspaper management got just what they deserved for their smug and egotistical view of themselves and the digital future. But I hate thinking about all the people that have been forced to go down with the ship.

I'm a contrarian by nature. I don't mind people who don't know what they're talking about. But I do  mind people who aggressively don't know what they're talking about.

That would encompass lots of people who get on the Internet and pass judgement on politics, religion and, yes, the state of the Dodgers. So I'm going spend the rest of this baseball season taking people to task about what crap they might be spewing that day about baseball and I hope to do it not using a single statistic.




p.s. I was a writer/editor many years ago but I no longer care that much about grammar, punctuation, style rules, etc., so you will have to get use to that.