It all started when I was eight or nine years old and living near Cincinnati, Ohio.  My father had taken me to several Cincinnati Reds games at old Crosley Field and I started listening to their games on the radio at night, under the covers on an old transistor radio, since I was supposed to be asleep.  I remember Jim Maloney, Johnny Edwards, Bob Purkey, Vada Pinson, Don Pavletich, Frank Robinson, Jim O’Toole, Joey Jay, Leo Cardenas and all of the old Redlegs.  A few months later when I was nine, my father worked for a company that had a memograph machine - you know the old type that had ink and a roller and a handle that you turned to make a copy.  I could go back and research this (I won’t), but there were certainly a lot fewer major league teams in 1962 than there are now. At any rate, I wrote a letter that said something like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Many people have speculated as to why Stan Conte was hired by Ned Colletti.  The Mitchell Report, starting on page 121 to page 124 may reveal some of the reasons why Conte could no longer stay in San Francisco (all the following italic is solely out of the Mitchell Report): 

In 2000, Stan Conte became the head athletic trainer for the San Francisco Giants, having served in more junior positions within the organization before then. (Conte is not related to BALCO founder Victor Conte.) According to Conte, he first met Greg Anderson and Harvey Shields during the Giants’ spring training that year. Anderson advised Conte that he was a “strength weightlifting guru” whom Bonds had sought out for assistance. Bonds, in turn, told Conte that Anderson’s presence was not a reflection on Conte, but that Bonds needed special attention as he got older. Shields also provided personal training services for Bonds.

Conte asked Anderson for a resume during spring training. In response, Anderson supplied a one-page document indicating that Anderson had graduated from high school and that everything else was “pending.” The resume did not reveal, and Conte was unaware of, any education or expertise that Anderson might have that would qualify him to train a professional athlete.

Conte observed Anderson training in the weight room with Bonds on numerous occasions during 2000 spring training. Conte was concerned that the workouts involved heavier weights than Conte would have recommended, which, in Conte’s view, created a heightened risk of injury. When Conte asked Anderson about Bonds’s weight training program, Anderson responded that “I’m doing what Barry tells me to.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dodger fans have never seen the MVP Nomar Garciaparra in LA.  Nomar hit .283 last year, but his .371 slugging percentage pales in comparison to his .526 lifetime SLG%.  He had back-to-back seasons where his OPS were over 1.02.  Can he recapture some of that magic again?  The answer is no, but he can be a very good player for us in 2008, maybe even a key player for us if Joe Torre does one thing - make Andy LaRoche the starting 3B right about NOW! Read the rest of this entry »

I had been planning to release my own list of Dodger Top Prospects and as I gathered information, the more I thought about it the more I realized what a crock most lists are.   Of course, just like you, I read these lists and my opinions are certainly skewed by them to some degree.  It’s just that I am not sure they are any more valid than a monkey throwing darts at names on a wall. While I do find it entertaining to read these lists,  and they do have some value, I want you to consider the following:

1. Most authors of the lists have not seen the players more than once and quite frequently, they have never seen them at all;
2. Some authors are better connected to major league officials than others, but I guarantee you won’t hear a bad thing about Dodger minor league players if you talk to Logan White or others in the organization - you need to talk to scouts and officials from other organizations;
3. Most authors rely on some type of statistical analysis of players to acheive these ratings (you know how I feel about statistical analysis - it’s part of the equation, but not the most important part);

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