A Big BN Welcome To So Cal to Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez

by Ajax on Aug 2, 2008 7:05 PM PDT in Baseball Comment 18 comments

The Angels and Dodgers both made huge trades in the last few days to grab two of the best hitters in baseball.

The Angels, who recently swept the Red Sox at the Big A then again at Fenway, went out and got Mark Teixeira from the Braves in return for fan favorite Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek. Look for Arte Moreno, the best owner in all of MLB, to make a serious push at signing Teixeira long term. The Angels were already poised to make a deep run in to October. Now they have the bat to protect Vlad that they have been missing.

Not to be outdone, the Dodgers jumped at the opportunity to land the best right handed hitter of this generation and future HOF, Manny Ramirez. Manny's famous for his eccentric and at times kooky behavior, but nobody can deny that the guy can flat out mash. The NL West is up for grabs, and the addition of Manny may be enough to push the Azul over the top. Manny has already publicly announced that he'd like to finish his career in Dodger Blue. (As an Angels fan, I'm just happy he's out of the AL so he can no longer torment Angel pitchers.)

The addition of Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez to the Angels and Dodgers is sure to guarantee an exciting play off run.

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Cool post A

Added some tags to it.

by Nestor on Aug 2, 2008 7:23 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Seeing Manny in blue

was really, really weird.

by Tydides on Aug 2, 2008 7:31 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I heard ...

He was going to cut off those locks? Is that right?

by Nestor on Aug 2, 2008 7:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I haven't been staying on top of the rumors

I just watched the game to see the spectacle.

by Tydides on Aug 2, 2008 7:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think I heard that

while watching the Angels-Yanks this afternoon. But I could be wrong. I don’t follow baseball with the same obsessive nature I track UCLA. But it feels damn good to see both of our Southern California teams staying in contention!

by Nestor on Aug 2, 2008 7:40 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

A Yahoo article mentions that

He’s going to cut his dreadlocks because, he said during a madcap introductory news conference behind home plate at Dodger Stadium on Friday, "They got some rules here, and I don’t want to be treated differently than anybody else."

LINK

by SuperBruinMan on Aug 4, 2008 12:27 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Living in South Boston as I do ...

There are a lot of Saaaaaax fans here in Tampa. The report is that they are relieved that Manny is no longer with their team. I am glad that he’s gone from the AL East because he was a big weapon that we (we being the Rays) had to deal with. But as much as I’m glad he’s gone for that reason, I think I’m happiest at not having to listen any more to the Manny apologists say “Oh, that’s Manny being Manny.” I thought it would have been more accurate to say “That’s Manny acting like an ass.”

That said, I hope the guy straightens himself out. He’ll hit whether he’s acting like a jerk or not. But it will be more fun for Dodger fans to be able to root for someone who acts like a man rather than a toddler who needs a time out.

by Fox 71 on Aug 2, 2008 9:27 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

He had better be on his best behavior

It’s a contract year, and it’ll probably be his last one give his age.

by Tydides on Aug 2, 2008 9:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

manny's going to get paid

whether or not he acts like a jerk or not. he’s been a jerk his entire career and that hasnt stopped him from getting 20 mill.

by brewin05 on Aug 2, 2008 10:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're probably right

Though behavioral flareups in LA destroys the excuse that Boston is the reason he was a malcontent. I believe that this will directly affect either the monetary value or the length of his next contract. Maybe both.

by Tydides on Aug 3, 2008 9:16 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

manny's a great hitter, no question

and makes the dodgers better THIS season….but they’re awful this season, so all this does is make them ok. and at this point ned colletti has given away essentially the Dodgers entire minor league system. 2 years down the road, they’ll be surviving solely on free agents, and that doesn’t even work for the yankees anymore.

always been a Dodger fan, but MAN the Angels are such a better-run franchise the last decade or so. you make a deadline trade for a bat when you’re lookin at a world series….not when you’re sub-.500.

by jjreicher on Aug 3, 2008 8:00 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Mike Sciosa should be

into his second decade of tenure as Dodgers skipper by now. And, assuming warranted say in personnel decisions, very likely would have avoided such franchise-weakening-and-team-wrecking decisions as trading Pedro Martinez and Mike Piazza, and throwing rafts of money at the likes of Jason Schmidt and Andrew Jones.

Boy, Blue. You had the perfect guy, for years to come, in your own pocket. You weren’t just short-sighted. You were ignorant.

by Bruinut on Aug 3, 2008 5:34 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Andruw, that is

by Bruinut on Aug 3, 2008 5:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The O'Malley factor

I don’t know when it was that the O’Malleys sold the team, but it seemed to me that just about every decision made thereafter was a bad one. The Dodgers never seemed to have another Fernando or Cey or Garvey or anyone like that in their minor league system. They also seemed to sign big name free agents just a tad too late. Andrewuewu (or however he spells it) Jones is by no means an isolated incident. And it’s not just on the field. The Dodgers were one of the last teams to have one radio or TV guy in the booth. Now they have two, and therefore I stopped listening. It’s been so long ago that I can’t remember if they made Vinnie have someone in the booth to make sure there was no dead air time.

Anyway, it’s a shame that they stink and have done so for so long. I rooted for them for half a century. But I’m now hard core Rays, who play like the Dodgers did when I was just a lad.

by Fox 71 on Aug 3, 2008 7:35 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Vin still does the broadcasts

all by his lonesome. It’s still just as fantastic as it was when I was young. I think the silence sometimes makes things even more heart-wrenching. And his stories are just fantastic – I could subsist on just a steady diet of those for four hours and be just fine, thanks.

However, if I ever have to hear Charlie Steiner call games I immediately want to claw my eyeballs out with my fingernails. I can’t stand listening to him.

by CAJason80 on Aug 4, 2008 11:50 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Why on earth can't the Dodgers learn from Vinnie?

Vinnie can do a game in his sleep and it would be a more enjoyable time than listening to the constant banter. And a lot of the banter just doesn’t need to be there. Has no one in the Dodger front office listened to Joe Morgan or Tim McCarver say idiotic things roughly once every five or ten minutes? Rick Monday doesn’t need a side kick, and obviously Vinnie doesn’t.

And it’s no different here in Tampa. We have two guys on radio who I just won’t listen to. They are just no good. The two guys on TV are pretty good (Dewayne Staats and Joe Magraine) but either one alone would be better than they both are together.

Give me one guy in the booth, give me real baseball (i.e., no DH), and for the next two months give me the Rays winning about two out of every three and I’ll be very content.

by Fox 71 on Aug 4, 2008 1:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs