Don’t take the gig, Donnie Baseball!

Joe Torre is stepping down from the Dodgers gig, never reaching the goal of leading L.A. to the World Series and having the last laugh over the Yankees.

Why is he stepping down?
Is it because he is too old? Please. Yeah he’s 70 and is the same age that Casey Stengel was when HE was fired by the Yankees. But he’s in great shape and clearly still wants to win.

He’s leaving because he has surveyed the landscape and realized that the McCourt divorce is going to get uglier and the Dodgers are going to be the little child crying on the stand during the hearing.

Next season is going to be a dumpster fire in Los Angeles. The payroll will be slashed again and the players can read the writing on the wall.

Matt Kemp wants out and trust me, no free agents will want in.
One of the proud franchises in baseball playing in one of the true major media markets could be doing their 1998 Marlins fire sale impersonation.

What are they selling now? Not Torre bringing glory back to Dodgertown. Mannywood is, for the time being, in the South Side of Chicago.

Dodger memories? They’ve been tough to remember since Kirk Gibson, which was 22 years ago.

The 2011 Dodgers have disaster written all over them.

Which is why I am telling Don Mattingly to NOT take the job as manager.

It won’t be your FAULT but the team will collapse under your watch. Truth be told they are already collapsing.

After 2 straight Division Titles and NLCS appearances, the Dodgers are sleep walking to a losing season. Their offense was nonexistent in San Francisco and the last few innings of the game last night, the team looked like an 8th grade algebra class waiting for the bell to ring. They were physically there, but bored out of their minds.

Is that Torre’s fault? Perhaps a little but the team has been assembled by orders of a guy is going through a Henry VIII level marital spat (except he doesn’t have the beheading option.)

If the McCourt’s could have been civil these past few years, the Dodgers could have acquired an ace pitcher. Roy Halladay was traded in the time Joe Torre was manager. So was Danny Haren. CC Sabathia changed uniforms twice. Cliff Lee moved three times.

With an ace pitcher, I am convinced the Dodgers would have made either the 2008 or 2009 World Series and be a contender in 2010.

Instead they are a near miss team… like the George Bell/Dave Steib Blue Jays… a team with talent but can’t put it together.

You want THAT gig, Mattingly?
You want all the bad of the McCourt Dodgers without the Manny crowds or playoff appearances?

A gig like this should go to one of two candidates:

1. A lifelong minor leaguer who would be just itching to get their first shot in the bigs of any kind.

2. A career big leaguer who every once in a while lands a gig, does little or nothing there, and winds up on someone’s coaching staff. (That was Jim Riggleman’s job for years… keeping managerial seats warm.)

But Mattingly supposedly is a big managerial candidate.

Is he though? Could he be a little overhyped as a managerial candidate just like his career was overhyped a little in New York?

His lone chance to show us his managing chops, he screwed up the whole “trip to the mound” concept.

I mentioned Mattingly as a Dodger manager candidate to my dad.
He shook his head.

“He doesn’t strike me as very smart.” He said.

Prove my dad wrong, Donnie… and turn this job down.
It’s shoddy and designed to fail. Have it fail on someone else’s watch.

Hell, Grady Little isn’t doing anything!
Tell the Dodgers to hire him.

I guess I have to address the Derek Cheater incident

Derek Jeter did the whole Caddyshack “Ow my arm” routine a few days ago and frankly I didn’t give a damn.

Yeah, I thought it was kind of silly but all I cared about was the Yankees lost the game.

Of course if the Yankees WON the game (and they took the lead after Granderson’s homer) I would probably be a little P.O.ed, but I saw it as karma.

But man, if you read my e mail box, you would have thought I was Walter Cronkite not giving his opinions about the moon landing.

I only have 3 thoughts on the subject:

1 – JETER SHOWS THE ADVANTAGE OF HAVING GOOD WILL IN THE BANK.

Take note, Colby Rasmus, who thinks he is already good enough to be making waves in St. Louis. If you act like a pro for 16 years and do everything right, you can get a pass when you do something kind of Bush League.

The great Lisa Swan pointed out the double standard between how Jeter has been treated in this situation and how A-Rod was treated on things like yelling “HA!” or slapping Arroyo’s glove in the 2004 ALCS.

Imagine if Manny Ramirez, Milton Bradley, Miguel Cabrera or A. J. Pierzynski tried to pull this off.

2 – INSTANT REPLAY ANYONE?

We ALL saw almost instantly (and while Joe Maddon was still arguing) that the ball hit the bat. It wasn’t a matter of opinion… it was a matter of fact. EVERYONE on the planet Earth could see what the correct call was, except the people who actually make the calls.

Folks, this could have been all taken care of in one minute with zero controversy.

But of course that would make too much sense. We CAN’T have that!
(Insanity).

3 – THIS IS A REFRESHING CONTROVERSY

It wasn’t that long ago that when people called out cheaters, it was because they were injecting hormones designed for horses into their buttocks.

This is more fun. It’s silly and in the end harmless. There will be no Senate panels and parents of dead kids saying “My son pretending to be hit like a pitch like Derek Jeter… AND NOW HE’S DEAD!”

And it goes to something I wrote before… cheating will ALWAYS be tolerated in baseball. People will just have trouble with things that are against the law.

It’s subtle.

That’s all I got.
Back to baseball.

The Giants win on June 7th looms large now

I bet when the Giants came from behind to beat the Reds on June 7th of this year, neither Giants nor Reds fans thought it was a big deal.

There was still 2/3 of a season left to play and who was going to remember a game that Enerio Del Rosario let up a go ahead RBI single to Juan Uribe?

It looks pretty important now…

Hear me out.

Right now, I think nobody in the National League wants to face the Phillies in a best of 5 series. Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels are all pitching like aces. Good luck winning 3 out of 5.

Stretched out over 7… maybe you can pull it off.

With the National League as tight as it is, home field advantage in the Division Series (and avoiding Philly’s big 3) right now would come down to the NL Central leading Reds and the NL West leading Giants.

Both teams have identical records, 83-64.

So playoff seeding and essentially home field advantage (and avoiding Philadelphia) will be decided by their head to head record.

The Giants and Reds are done playing each other in the regular season. Their final season series record?

Giants 4 wins… Reds 3 wins.

So because the Giants won one more game head to head, THEY would open the playoffs at home and the Reds would travel to Philly.

Each win the Giants had over the Reds is now looming large… especially that 1 run come from behind win in June that I bet nobody noticed.

15 games left Giants. They are ALL big now… as big as the June 7th game.