Kershaw's 300th Strikeout

Mamma Cora caught Kershaw's 300th strikeout pitch. 

Attack of the Fernando Valenzuela Bobblehead (Sept 16, 2015)

Like last time, video from SoSG AC.

At-Game Recap: Attack of the Uribe Bobblehead (July 11, 2015)

Video by SoSG Alex Cora! Remember, tonight's Game Thread is here.

At-Game Recap: 2015 Blogger Night, Part Deux

My view for the evening. Not bad at all.
After a year off in 2014, the Dodgers reinstated Blogger Night with a special 2-night affair on June 8th and 10th, 2015. The team continued their streak of being incredibly generous to this here site by allowing us to split our four invitations and attend both nights. SoSG Alex Cora and Franklin Stubbs attended the first night (read AC's recap here, if you haven't already) and I attended Wednesday night's festivities. (SoSG Dusty was sadly and unavoidably detained.)

This was a different experience from past Blogger Nights I have attended, but still a very enjoyable event. The evening kicked off with a presentation in the Hall of Fame conference room on the Club level. It's always interesting to see areas of the ballpark that the general public does not have access to. The presentation was two-fold: To introduce us to the extensive lineup of summer promotions and to show off some of Dodger Stadium's new culinary options for 2015. In attendance from the Dodgers front office were Steve Brener from Public Relations, VP of Ticket Sales David Siegel, VP of Marketing and Broadcasting Erik Braverman, Director of Advertising and Promotions Shelley Wagner, Director of Digital and Print Content (and Godfather of Dodger Bloggers) Jon Weisman, Social Media Coordinator Matthew Mesa, Marketing and Broadcasting Coordinator Claire Miller, and Assistant Director of Public Relations (and Blogger Night mainstay) Yvonne Carrasco.

Siegel started off by walking us through the very strong lineup of upcoming Dodgers promotions and giveaway items. He mentioned always wanting to give the fans "added value" for their ticket dollar. He promised that the fireworks show after the July 4th game will be the "best fireworks show in Los Angeles." That game will have a 4pm start, and Siegel indicated that there will be entertainment for the fans in the downtime between the end of the game and the 8:45 (or 9pm) start of the fireworks show. There was a huge assortment of the upcoming giveaway items laid out in the conference room, ranging from beach bags to barbecue tongs to hampers(!) to, of course, bobbleheads. The prize piece, in my opinion, was this absolutely gorgeous Sandy Koufax perfect game bobblehead, which will be given away August 13th.


Here are a few of the other items coming later this year.


Dodger Headphones. Siegel said (jokingly?) that they got special permission to make them look Beats by Dre-ish.

Father's Day BBQ Set. I'm guessing this will be a post-game giveaway. (Also, unless I misheard, the Father's Day Catch returns this year.)

A great-looking Maury Wills bobblehead, though the angle of the slide is perplexing. Is he sliding *back* to first?
Also on display (but my camera failed me) were the Juan Uribe Bobblehead (which appeared to be staring at me the whole time, making me sad), a new Yasiel Puig bobblehead, where he's making a diving catch, and the rest of the Cy Young pin collection. Also mentioned, but not on display, was a new Vin Scully bobblehead.

The second part of the presentation revolved around Levy Restaurants' new food options at the stadium. (AC covered this pretty well in his post, but we did get a couple of items that the Monday group did not.) Unfortunately, head chef Jason Tingley was not available this evening, and I did not get the names of the people who talked to us about the food. I enjoyed everything I got to taste (everything tastes better when it's free, but I would actually pay for all this stuff). The wings and sweet corn nachos AC mentioned were indeed great. I also sampled a full slice of the pepperoni pizza from Lasorda's Trattoria, which I found surprisingly great. Far better than standard stadium or theme park pizza. I washed it all down with my first taste of a Dodger Stadium michelada, which I didn't think I was going to like, but I really, really did. The most, let's say, "interesting" option of the night was a "concept" that the chefs are working on for the Extreme Loaded Dogs stand, the Pop Fly Dog.


It's a hot dog with "beer cheese" and popcorn, on a pretzel bun. I'm going to be brutally honest here. This one is a miss, at least in its current incarnation. The pretzel bun isn't pretzel-y enough, the popcorn doesn't really add anything except the sensation that you spilled other food on your food, and the beer cheese, while actually quite delicious, is visually off-putting (to put it politely). I get that the current stadium food climate calls for attempts to out-weird one another, but this one needs more time on the drawing board.

Here are a few more photos of the food items. I am still cursing myself for not partaking in the gelato cookie sandwiches from Lasorda's.




L.A. Street Dog, St. Louis Dog (with brisket) and the Pop Fly.






The presentation wrapped up there, and there was a brief time to mingle (which I kind of missed out on, due to continuing to eat and take pictures) before moving on to watch the game. All of us in attendance were given tickets on the Club level (a first for me, other than having been in a suite before) and wristbands that gave us unlimited food and non-alcoholic beverages from the Club level concession stand. (Wait, what's a non-alcoholic beverage?) I took FULL advantage of the free food. I'm still full two days later.

I kind of fell in love with the Club level Wednesday night. It's a great, intimate environment with a really good view and a full bar. Plus, its proximity to the Dodgers' offices make for fun people-watching. I spied Andrew Friedman milling about a few times during the night, but never worked up the nerve to bother him. I did work up the nerve to talk to Molly Knight and Lana Berry, though, so that was cool. Two of the nicest people you'd want to meet at a game, those two.

All in all, it was a spectacular evening, accentuated by the late-inning drama and walk-off heroics. Yes, it wasn't quite the same as past blogger nights (less socializing amongst the bloggers in attendance), and David Siegel was transparent (his word) enough to tell us that the team sees bloggers and social media people as promotional assets, but it was still special to be included in this great event. Thank you so much to the Dodgers front office for always being so kind to us Sons.

At-Game Recap: SoSG AC Finds A New Friend (May 12, 2015)

Doesn't get much more beautiful than this, on Clayton Kershaw Bobblehead night. Photo by SoSG AC.

How Bad Are Things For A.J. Ellis?

A.J. Ellis, last year's starting catcher for the Dodgers, has always been regarded for solid defense, general poise and presence, and on-field leadership. However his woeful batting average (.191 last year in 93 games) led the club to pick up Yasmani Grandal for the starting catcher role this year. Although Ellis' OBP was relatively more positive (.323, in the range of reasonable relative to last year's starting lineup), his OPS+ of 67 was by far the worst of any position starter last year. And this year's OPS+ of 22 isn't going to make much of a case for Ellis to get back to a starting role anytime soon.

But yesterday, Ellis got the start, and so the Dodgers' scoreboard operator had to put up some interesting facts about Ellis for the game. According to SoSG Dusty Baker, who was at the Stadium yesterday:

In-game stat for A.J. Ellis is that he reached the 1000th tweet mark on April 5 2015

Ouch. Can't believe the Dodgers' stat guys can't even find something else, like Ellis' ability to hit well during day games against teams with red caps who have two starters whose last names start with "Go". Not much more in those dregs one can find, I suppose.

Living The Suite Life

I had the fortunate opportunity to watch last night's game in one of the Dodger stadium suites last night.  Many thanks to my good friend, lets call him "Davey Lopes", for letting me and Mrs. Cora crash his party.  Of course the all you can eat suite food is nice, both with healthy sandwich options and not so healthy stadium fare (but oh so good Dodger dogs).  And the dessert cart never disappoints.  It was nice to be able to move around and talk with people, which proves to be a little harder when we all sit in a row.  But if you decide to sit, the chairs in the suites are nice and comfy.  I had a wonderful time and the home run barrage didn't hurt.  They have some great wall decorations on that level and I thought people would like to see them since it is kinda difficult to tour that level.   Enjoy the pictures below!

Club Entrance

Media Guide Covers

Hey, Its Dad

Beautifully Framed Jerseys

Program Covers

Yearbook Covers

More Yearbook Covers

Wonderful Collection of Tickets

Nice Addition to the Tickets

Inside the AM570 LA Sports Suite

Nice View

Fans Over the Dodger Dugout

Nomo vs. Technology: An Opening Day Tale

The ongoing stalemate between Time Warner Cable and other TV providers over distribution of SportsNet LA has stretched into its second season. This has left those who are unable (like me!) or unwilling (like people who hate crappy cable service!) to switch to TWC with no real option for watching Dodger games. Sure, there are less than legal ways to view the games, but my brief experiments with those links ended with pretty poor video quality.

Last season, I was able to see a handful of games on my TV, at no cost. This was due to two things: the generous loan of an MLB.tv login from a friend of the blog, and a weird anomaly with my home IP address that somehow made it immune to local blackout restrictions. This year, I wanted to give the MLB.tv route another go. It's really difficult to be a Dodgers blogger/Twitterer if you can't see the games! Not wanting to seem greedy, I ponied up for my own subscription, in the hopes that the IP address anomaly would still work. If it didn't, I was aware of options for working around the blackout restrictions with services like Unblock-US and Unlocator. (I grabbed a free trial of each, just in case.)

My first mistake was not testing my IP address before the start of yesterday's game. I signed up for MLB.tv on Friday morning, but Friday's and Saturday's games were not subject to local blackouts. I also figured I wouldn't be able to try it for Opening Day either, since I would be at work. Lo and behold, I found myself at home yesterday with a sick child, so I was ready to take in Opening Day on my TV. Shortly before 1pm, I logged into MLB.tv on my Amazon Fire TV, selected the game, and...I was blacked out. Strike one.

No problem, I thought. I could just try those unblocking services everybody is raving about. I logged into Unlocator first. I was greeted with a screen that said, "Trying to unblock MLB games? See our list of compatible devices here!" I clicked the link and...no Amazon Fire TV. Strike two. But Unlocator's site did have a page for setting up an Amazon Fire TV for use with the service, so I figured I'd try that. I followed all of the instructions to the letter and...nothing. It would not connect. Strike three, one out. So, I decided to try Unblock-US. I logged in and discovered...Amazon Fire TV is not supported. Strike four. Meanwhile, it's approaching 1:30 at this point and I'm missing Vin, Kershaw, et al. I threw on Gameday Audio to be the soundtrack to my frustration.

Undaunted, I moved to the living room and attempted to get Unlocator working on the PS3 (even though the PS3 MLB.tv app has always been awful for me). Again, I followed the instructions to the letter and..."Connection Error." Strike five. Sick child is now wondering why I turned off Disney Junior just to yell at the PS3. So, I moved on down the line to my Macbook, which is now so old that it has to stay plugged in all the time to work. I went through the Unlocator steps once again and...SUCCESS! A flare single over the second baseman's outstretched glove! I couldn't leave well enough alone, though. I really wanted to watch the game from the comfort of my room, but didn't want to unplug everything and move it. So, I pulled out an old work laptop, brought it to the room, and...waited almost 20 minutes for it to boot up. Thrown out trying to stretch the single into a double.

When the laptop was finally up, though, I was able to get the game running on it, and gleefully watched from the sixth inning on. I think I could have saved myself a ton of pain and sorrow, had I done a little more research on how the unblocking services work, and made sure I had all my devices (both old & busted AND new hotness) ready to go ahead of time. I've decided to subscribe to Unlocator for the season, because when it did finally work, it worked really well. At the end of the day, I finally got it working on the PS3 too, so I have that for the living room, the laptop for the bedroom, and I'm going to continue to try to get the Fire TV to work. In total, I'm paying $157.50 to watch Dodger games for the season. Huh. A customer willing to pay real money for content? You'd think a cable company would want to take advantage of that.

And that's the real issue here: I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO ALL THIS TO WATCH A DAMN BASEBALL GAME ON MY TV. For the millionth time, TWC and the Dodgers, I am begging you to get your shit together. I mean, you've already pissed off Ice Cube. You might not have much time left.

It's Opening Day! Time Warner Cable and Directv - get it together so I can see my Dodgers! https://t.co/MB7e7ohKq2

— Ice Cube (@icecube) April 6, 2015

Opening Day Reflections

I was lucky enough to go to Opening Day this year as I bought a 20-game mini plan.  We got there really early and parking going in was a snap.  We arrived about 11 am and the lanes were wide open!

I was getting pretty hungry so I was able to get my first Dodger Dog of the season.  Ah, back at home.  Nice to be at the park. Because we were top deck, we could not go down to the other eateries.  I am still craving to try this fried Dodger Dog!

It was a beautiful day for a game, partly cloudy, kind of cool, great for a day game.  It was actually cold in the shade for me.

All the pageantry was there, from the fireworks to the flyovers.  The flag shaped as America was neat, but I like the huge, take up the whole outfield flag.  It was a pretty good crowd out, but didn't seem like it was totally packed.  I think with more of the standing room only tables in the back of each level, the seats seem more open.

Below is Kershaw's first pitch.  He looked a little off, especially at the start, but with 9 strikeouts, you can't complain.  Seemed like Kemp had his number.  Oh, and it was nice that people cheered for Kemp at the start, but towards the later innings, they were booing.

Some observations:

1. The Tinashe mini concert at the start seemed forced.  Her dancing and singing on top of the dugout seemed almost inappropriate.  I'd rather listen to Nancy Bea.  #FreeNancyBea

2. The outfield grass looks awesome.

3. The audio seemed very low.  I remember last year it was WAAYYY too loud.  Seems like they turned the dial too much to the right as I couldn't hear anything that the video board was displaying.  

4. The game was a little tense and I still can't believe that JRoll knocked that one out.  Phew.  

5. Leaving the stadium was pretty bad, but was to be expected on opening day.  

6. Give the top deck more food options.  Maybe one of the specialty places like La Taqueria.

7. Holy crap there is a lot of advertisement around the stadium.  Remember when that outfield wall was just blue?  Or even with just the player silhouettes? 

8. Stadium wifi was pretty good.  Didn't run out of battery life!

9. The usher uniforms are green.  Yuck.  I get it though.  If they wear blue or white, no one would know that they work for the stadium.  But green?  

In any event, it was great to be back at the park.  Great to get that win.  I'm very hopeful for this year!

Go Blue!