Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Bobby Valentine Documentary Tonight

Former Dodger, Bobby Valentine, is in a new ESPN documentary about Bobby and the team he manages the Chiba Lotte Marines. It should be a fun show. It's on ESPN2 tonight at 6:00 PST (9:00 EST). Below is a promo video.







Video Link: ESPN:

An Unassisted Triple Play

Asdrubal Cabrera snags an unassisted triple play. It happened so fast it's easy to miss. Check out the video here from ESPN. ESPN then does a long analysis of the event below.



Video Link: ESPN:

UPDATE: I ran across an usual signed ball that is very pertinent to yesterdays unassisted triple play. Below is Seth Swirsky's signed Baseball featuring the signatures of all 13 players (not including Cabrera) to achieve an unassisted triple play. This has to be one of the rarest odd-ball signed Baseballs in existence. On top of that, he also has the glove Jimmy Cooney used to perform the unassisted triple play in 1927. Check it out here. Woops! I think I got this wrong. His ball has only the signatures of the 4 of the players: Furcal, Valentin, Tulowitzski and Valverde. It's still a great item nonetheless.Website Link: Seth.com:

Down Goes Furcal

Our team spark plug is down and out for at least another 8 days. Rafael Furcal has been placed on the DL retroactive to May 6. That means the earliest he can come back is May 21 against Cincinnati. This is the same type of injury that laid him out late last season. As some of us know a lower back injury has the ability to sap all the life out of you. Doing simple task like getting out of bed, using the bathroom and just walking can be difficult. Hopefully Furcal can bounce back after having a chance to rest his weary back.

As Jon of Dodger Thoughts points out, the last time we panicked over a middle infield injury we went after Julio Lugo. (We gave up highly touted prospect Joel Guzman and CSUF Alum Sergio Pedroza to get him.) Fortunately, neither of these guys have become Major League regulars yet so it hasn't hurt us, but it could easily become fodder for years to come. On the flip side, Lugo really didn't provide the kind of relief trading two perceived strong prospects would garner. The lesson we can learn here is not to panic. Don't start trading away our prospects for overpriced veterans. We still have a long way to go and I remain hopeful that within a couple of weeks Raffy will be back to his old self.