Pride Cap Fuss Shows Why Pride is Needed

It’s just a ball cap. But oh, how some people get triggered!

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that for the first time, the players will all be wearing a Pride cap featuring rainbow colors on the interlocking LA logo during the team’s LGBTQ+ Night on June 3 at Dodger Stadium when they face off against the New York Mets. Moreover, the following week at Oracle Park in San Francisco, both the Dodgers and the Giants will for the first time wear their respective Pride caps during the game.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers are proud to stand with and recognize the LGBTQ+ community in Los Angeles and globally,” said Stan Kasten, President & CEO, Los Angeles Dodgers in a statement. “The Dodgers have a history of breaking barriers and we’re proud to be a part of another chapter in MLB history as the Dodgers and Giants each wear their team’s pride caps on June 11. While our organizations have a long-storied rivalry on the field, we stand together when it comes to equality for all.”

Adds Gabe Kapler, the manager of the Giants, “It is an honor to be a part of this moment. I hope everyone watching the game on June 11 sees the clear statement being made — we stand for equality and respect of all people, regardless of sexual orientation. Wearing the Pride logo is both a reminder of the discrimination the LGBTQ+ community faces and the importance of supporting and creating a more inclusive environment.”

Most major league baseball clubs have held similar Pride celebrations at their ballparks but never had players taking the field wearing such attire. According to Outsports.com, a site that focuses on LGBTQ+ athletes in sports, only the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros did not host a Pride event during the pre-Covid 2019 season.

Not everyone shared in the celebration of the new ball cap to be worn by the Dodger players.  When the Dodgers unveiled the cap on Instagram, there was quite a number of negative comments sprinkled among the many who voiced support. Some were benign as in juliannavaaa’s post, “Why can’t we just play baseball?” Others were more sinister (reported to Instagram as hate speech) like “We should have taken them [gays] out years ago.”

Then you have the typically juvenile homophobic snark by commenter richnowlandrn “Brings a whole new meaning to ‘Switch Hitter.’” Or the genius of aliyahsdead, “need the dodgers and the giants to make out to truly express their support for pride”.

But responding to one of the haters, sdotarick wrote, “You can tell who woulda booed Jackie back in the day too.” On that same theme, baserobber posted, “All the people hating now would have been the same people hating on Jackie Robinson. Be open to new ideas and other people being different.”

It is encouraging that nearly 88,000 liked the announcement on Instagram and the unveiling of the Dodger’s new Pride cap with many speaking up to defend it and calling out the homophobes.

Homophobic comments frequently appear on fan pages and message boards all over. One jerk on the Baltimore Orioles Facebook group lamented the Orioles Pride Night last year and inquired why there wasn’t a Christian pride event. I guess he was bothered by so many Christians being physically attacked or fired from their jobs or bullied at school or kicked out of their homes by family members for being Christian. Or maybe he believes the manufactured war on Christmas is real.

Whatever the reason, there are too many folks who resent that the LGBTQ+ community being celebrated. Surveys have been positive in recent years regarding LGBTQ+ acceptance. In the macho world of sports, however, we haven’t made enough progress though leagues and teams have become very supportive. Still, there is no open LGBTQ+ athlete currently playing in any of the four major male sports leagues.

There are going to be ignorant buffoons and haters no matter what, especially those who are shielded by the relative anonymity of the internet. The stereotyping and homophobia are palpable on these platforms.

And this is exactly why the LGBTQ+ community needs Pride.  A tip of the cap to the Dodgers, Giants and all the MLB teams who celebrate diversity and equality and do so in a public way.

In Defense of Kershaw

There was plenty of blame to go around in yet another Dodgers elimination.

Photo: Star Tribune

Following the Washington Nationals’ stunning comeback victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the final game of the best-of-five National League Divisional Series, the blame game ensued in full earnest.  Much of the blame by annually disappointed Dodger fans and media has been directed towards manager Dave Roberts but the remainder appears to be aimed at future Hall of Fame pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

Indeed, Kershaw whose performances in post-season are far less successful than his regular season stats (he has a 2.44 ERA during his career, but in 158 ⅓ career postseason innings, he has a 4.33 ERA), served up back-to-back home runs in the 8^th inning that nullified Walker Buehler’s scintillating effort after he came in to relieve. Kershaw dispatched Adam Eaton on 3 pitches to end the rally in the 7^th inning only to return in the 8^th.

On the second pitch to Anthony Rendon, a notorious low ball hitter, Kershaw threw a slider down at the knees—a good pitch to a more mortal batter—and Rendon, in his walk year, reached down and yanked the ball over the left field wall.  The next pitch was a cookie slider to Juan Soto, 20, a budding super star in the league, crushed it 449 feet in the right center pavilion to tie the game.

So, based on Kershaw’s mediocre record in post-season games, the finger pointing headed Kershaw’s way—an inescapable occurrence that Kershaw acknowledged.

“When you don’t win the last game of the season and you’re to blame for it, it’s not fun,’’ he said following the loss to the Washington Nationals. “…Yeah, it’s just a terrible feeling.’’

“There’s no excuses. Just didn’t make pitches,’’ Kershaw said and later added, “Everything people say is true right now, about the postseason. I understand that.’’

Those two pitches only tied the game at 3-3.  Why is he blamed for the loss?  The Dodgers had every opportunity to break the tie in the bottom of the 8^th and 9^th innings but failed to do so. In the 10^th the underappreciated Nationals, with their own post-season miseries until this year, had shocked the baseball world with veteran Howie Kendrick blasting a grand slam over the center field fence to give the Nats a 7-3 lead, which held up for the win.

Davey Martinez, the Nats manager, always said as most managers do, that it takes 25 players to contribute to team’s success. It’s not about one guy or two guys. Everyone has a role to play and they all need to step up.

Howie Kendrick blasts game winning grand slam.
Photo: Los Angeles Daily News

Clayton Kershaw is only one of the Dodgers’ 25 man roster. He’s getting the blame for allowing the game to be tied but some of the other players need to be called out. 

For one thing, Joe Kelly loaded the bases in the 10^th including a dubious intentional base on balls then delivered the game winning gopher ball to Kendrick.   MVP candidate Cody Bellinger batted .211 in the series with zero RBIs. AJ Pollack went 0-13 with 11 strikeouts, an amazingly horrendous performance. Corey Seager batted .150.  Rookie catcher Will Smith hit .077. Chris Taylor .125…I can go on. Except for the outlier game, a 10-4 thrashing of the Nats in Nationals Park in Game 3, the Dodgers were extremely feeble with men in scoring position.

Roberts, for his part, is getting eviscerated in the press and on social media for his in-game decision making. Much of the second guessing regarding the usage or lack thereof of the bullpen is legitimate.  In addition, I found two instances whereby he blew it and I said so prior to the consequences from those decisions.

The first is not having veteran catcher Russell Martin start in this key game when he was so potent in Game 3.  The other was giving the intentional pass to Soto in the 10^th.  Left-handed specialist Adam Kolarek should have faced Soto again as the young phenom had been 0-3 against him in the playoffs. If successful, Roberts could then choose to intentionally walk Kendrick setting up a double play possibility with Kenley Jansen coming in to face a DP-prone Ryan Zimmerman.

Regardless of the second guessing and finger pointing, there was a ton of blame to go around, but Clayton Kershaw cannot and should not be considered the reason the Dodgers lost.

Baseball is a team sport.

The Pressure is More on the Dodgers in Game 5

Any elimination game in a playoff series regardless of the sport is a pressure cooker for sure.  The 2019 NLDS is no exception as both the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers face different types of pressure in the win-or-go-home scenario.

The final game of the best of 5 series on October 11 will feature two of the league’s most formidable starting pitchers: seasoned veteran Stephen Strasburg of the Nats, who was lights out in game 2 winning 4-2 to even the series in LA, and young Walker Buehler, who was even more dominating in a 6-0 blanking, yielding only 1 hit in 6 innings in the opener, will face off in what should be a tension-packed, epochal finale.

For the Nationals, they are seeking to escape the NLDS for the first time in five tries. The team has failed in previous attempts despite their gaudy records during the regular season. 

Three of the four eliminations occurred on their home field as the dismayed and disappointed fans endured the inglorious experience of watching the opposition (Cardinals, Dodgers and Cubs in 2012, 2016 and 2017, respectively) celebrating on the infield at Nationals Park.

There is added pressure to finally move on to the League Champion Series and beyond as the Nats are facing a future that will likely not include free agent star 3^rd baseman Anthony Rendon and maybe Ryan Zimmerman—the  original Nat and considered the face of the franchise—among others who will probably depart.

The Dodgers have a different story and have felt the mounting pressure to win.  They have not won a World Series since the Kirk Gibson-Orel Hershiser-Mickey Hatcher phenomenon in 1988. Dozens of playoff games had ensued during these three decades including two World Series appearances (2017 and 2018) without a ring despite the team’s high payroll for many of those seasons.

In the World Series elimination games, both at Dodger Stadium, the opposition scored early that succeeded in deflating the crowd’s energy, and both the Astros and Red Sox never looked back. 

Angelinos were forced to witness the victors exchanging their uniform shirts and caps for World Champion t-shirts and caps right in front of them as the Dodgers despondently meandered to the clubhouse from the third base dugout.

The feeling in LA, as I have read, is this better not happen again this year.  Holding a 2-1 advantage, the Dodgers had the chance to put the Nats and their rightfully maligned bullpen away. But fiercely competitive Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young award winner, would have none of it. And Zimmerman, perhaps playing his final home game as a National, struck the decisive blow in a 6-1 Nats victory, forcing game 5.

The Nats Stephen Strasburg will try to help advance the team
to the next round

The Dodgers are the better team with a deeper bench and jaw-dropping defensive versatility. Their 106-56 record in the regular season attests to their superiority as a club, and they ran away with the Western Division by a record 21 games. They possess strong starting pitching, a powerful line-up and more options in the bullpen than the Nats have. The Dodgers, an offensive juggernaut, broke a National League record for home runs in a season with 279.

The Nats, however, appear to be taking on the proverbial “team of destiny” mantle.  Starting the season 19-31, they managed to finish with a 92-69 record despite the worst bullpen in the league, closing with an 8-game winning streak that grew to 9 after the amazing, improbable comeback victory over the Brewers in the Wild Card game.

Their good fortune surfaced again in game 4 of the current series as a gust of wind intercepted a Max Muncy deep drive to center in mid-air and was caught easily instead of leaving the park. And later in the game with the bases loaded, Joc Peterson’s smash down the right field line was foul by an inch. Had the ball been fair, the hit would have cleared the bases and changed the complexion of the game in a major way.

So it comes down to what should be an exciting game 5 on Wednesday. The Dodgers’ longer history of not capturing the title puts them in a position where the pressure will be intense. The Nats feel the pressure, too, but in a different way.  Playing at home, the Dodgers will feel it more.

One thing is for sure: one of these teams will be celebrating on the infield and donning NLDS championship shirts and caps and popping champagne in the clubhouse and will move on to the next round.  The other will ponder what might have been and go home to face the media and a disappointed fan base yet again.

Nationals 'Managed' Historic Win in Wild Card

The Washington Nationals celebrate following 4-3 win over Brewers

There’s an old adage in baseball: managers can’t win games; they can only lose them. In the case of second year manager of the Washington Nationals, Davey Martinez, he proved clearly in the Wild Card game of this improbable major league baseball season that managers can, in fact, win games. It was the first time in the Nats history since they moved to Washington from Montreal in 2005 that they ever advanced in the postseason  

It is rare to see a situation whereby a manager can push all the right buttons at the right time.  Yet, in the National League Wild Card game on October 1 before an uncharacteristically raucous crowd at Nationals Park in which the home team came from behind to defeat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-3, Martinez did just that.

The magic that Martinez demonstrated actually began in late May when the Nats sunk to 12 games under .500 through the first 50 games—nearly a third of the season had transpired. He faced severe criticism from fans on social media and in the press for his managing of a frustratingly incompetent bullpen in which viable options were scarce.

Undaunted he guided the team—a blend of veterans and young players including 20 year-old phenom Juan Soto and eventual hero of the Wild Card game—to finish second in the Eastern Division and not only sealed a Wild Card berth but secured home field for the do or die game. The team finished the season with a flourish winning their last 8 games.  The victory in the Wild Card extended that streak.

Martinez skillfully crafted the 25-player roster for this game envisioning all the likely scenarios in a win or go home proposition.  He kept more bench players than usual to insert them in key spots, such as pinch running, pinch hitting or defensive replacements while paring the usual bullpen contingent in favor of as many as three starting pitchers that may be needed in relief.  There was no margin for error.

He assembled a batting order that was the best he could have used. Martinez opted to play Howie

Nationals manager Davey Martinez could not have done better.

Kendrick, a consistent hitter all season long in favor of Ryan Zimmerman, the longest-tenured National. Starting Zimmerman would have been a sentimental choice given the first baseman’s iconic position with the team. But Kendrick, who batted .344 during the season, was the correct pick.

For his part, Zimmerman would come off the bench when the situation warranted.  In a couple of spots Zimmerman was slated to pinch hit, but Martinez pulled him back in favor of other batters. In the eighth inning when the Nats rallied for 3 runs to take the lead, Zimmerman finally had his chance, and he came through with a broken bat single to center that kept the winning rally going.

As it turned out, all three pinch hitters selected by Martinez reached base safely and the one pinch runner he inserted scored.  You can’t do any better than that.

The pitching side of the ledger was also well-managed by Martinez. Starting the fiercely competitive Max Scherzer was the correct decision despite the right hander’s rather unsuccessful past post-seasons and a troublesome injury he endured a couple of months ago. Yet, Martinez was not about to allow Scherzer, who served up two home runs for the Brewers 3-0 early lead,  to stay in the game past the fifth inning (there is nothing to suggest that Scherzer protested his removal but Max never wants to leave a game he starts).

Instead, Martinez gave the ball to Cy Young candidate Stephen Strasburg, who completed three scoreless innings in smooth fashion and ultimately was credited with the win.

Juan Soto striking the decisive hit in the 8th inning

The ninth inning save opportunity was afforded Daniel Hudson, a trading deadline acquisition who was arguably the most consistent reliever on the staff, to seal the deal. The manager could have easily gone to southpaw starter Patrick Corbin but decided (again correctly) to allow Hudson to close out the game thereby saving Corbin for the opener in Los Angeles.

Another option was the heretofore regular Nats closer Sean Doolittle, but his performance has been erratic, and his recent injury appears to have had an effect on him. With no margin of error   Martinez made the right move one more time.

It is unclear how the Nats will fare against the powerful Dodgers in the Divisional Series as that team has one of the most potent line-ups in baseball and three previous and potential Cy Young starters taking the hill. But one thing is for sure, the Washington Nationals appear to have one heck of a manager to guide them through what comes next.