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Post by Blunashun on May 3, 2018 21:33:11 GMT
I recall Sandy Koufax & the crowd oohing & awing. Dean Chance making contact & the crowd giving him the Bronx cheer. No wonder I'm sarcastic. Then there was LAX in 1966 when Dad went & got Willie Davis & brought him back to sign our autograph books. I was trading baseball cards by 1967, at the age of 7.
But the first Dodger season I remember from start to finish was 1973. We lived a block off Washington Blvd. in Mar Vista. Every morning I would get up & walk in the dark to the corner news stand to get a paper & read the stories & box scores. A family friend worked at a butcher's shop. He would give me butcher's paper to write on. We didn't have a lot, but Mom got me a drafting board to draw with. I was halfway decent as an amateur artist. School counselors suggested an artistic career. But mornings were reserved for stories & calculating. Extrapolating numbers. If this guy keeps going at this pace, etc. It's when I began to learn you can't extrapolate in baseball. By the end of May, 1974, Reggie Jackson was hitting close to .400 for the Oakland A's. He wound up at .289. So much for that.
But 1973 kept me captivated. First full seasons by Lopes, Ferguson & Cey. Bill Buckner became a regular. Andy Messersmith was a Dodger. He had the best change-up before Eric Gagne. They were young & full of beans. They held their own with the mighty Cincinnati Reds until September. They came unglued that month, as the Big Red Machine rolled past them, with all their Hall of Famers. I KNEW we would be back though. That team was too good & too young not to. Who else could have competed with Pete Rose, Davy Concepcion, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, & later George Foster & Ken Griffey Sr?
I love this game! What is your first season in full?
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Post by 88bulldog on May 4, 2018 2:54:25 GMT
First season in full has to be 1981 for me.... I would like to say 77 or 78 but that's not real.
By 1981 for sure I was saving every single box score from every single dodgers game, plus various articles and such, into a scrap book. Probably did this for at least 3 -4 years. Being on the east coast, if my newspaper didn't have the box score they would print it the next Ray. No problem. Exchange Sometimes they wouldn't do it though, so I would have to wait until The Sporting News to come in the mail. They printed every box score for the week. Amazing.
Fernandomania was unforgettable., . From start to finish. 1981.
If I had any scrap books from earlier years, I don't remember them. Prob because we lost in 79 and 80.
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Post by azulblues on May 6, 2018 20:09:46 GMT
1977. First pitch of the season, Gary Thomasson hits a Sutton hanging curve over the right field wall.
First pitch.
Dodgers still won the division and went to the World Series.
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Post by Bklyn_LA on May 7, 2018 12:09:20 GMT
It's a combination of three:
1948, which was a continuation of the 1947 season in some ways, and my first time at Ebbets Field. Now, a lot of trades were made by Branch Rickey in the previous offseason around Christmas as; Dixie Walker, Hal Gregg, and Vic Lombardi were traded by Brooklyn to the Buc's for Preacher Roe, Billy Cox, and Gene Mauch and this was the year I started my Baseball scrapbook that was a continuation of a school project!
This {blockbuster} transaction was the first trade I ever remember happing in baseball, as my dad explained the situation to me and the controversy "house-cleaning" at hand while teaching me the back-end operations of the game, player set up and general preparations for the season to come.
Looking back at the above transactions these actions really set the Dodgers up the 1949 season as Hodges, Campy and The Duk took their place and cemented themselves into the framework of the Dodgers and Brooklyn had a legit World Series Championship contender plus squad and could have won more of the World Series outcomes, if it wasn't for the combined efforts of - Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Smokey Joe Page all played a part in holding off the Dodgers bats in relief.
With two years of setup under the Dodger's belt, a poised Brooklyn - was coming into their own and peak prime age years physically by nearly every position player for the next five to six years as both; Burt Shotton and Charlie Dressen deserved better and could have added at least three more WS trophies to their award closet case!
But thank the LORD for Johnny Podres, Walter Alston and the Dodgers of 1955!!
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Post by Blunashun on May 8, 2018 4:25:21 GMT
1974 brought change. They traded Claude Osteen & Willie Davis. We got Jimmy Wynn & Mike Marshall. The ironman reliever. Not the later outfield wuss. Jimmy had one great season left in him. Marshall was unbelievable. He logged more innings than most starters do today. He appeared in 106 games. All in relief. Steve Garvey was moved to first & won MVP. Buckner hit a little over .300, but it seemed like everything was a rope. Tommy John got hurt & we now have Tommy John surgery. He was 13-3 at the time. I think Sutton got off to a slow start & then caught fire. I trusted Cey's arm at third like no one before or since. He would throw a rising fastball right on target to first. His range could be chalked out in square feet. But he handled everything in that box. Good thing too because Bill Russell was an adventure at SS. Lord only knows how many errors Garvey saved him. Lopes was a dangerous base stealer. High percentage.
Another reason I hated Howard Cosell was the 1981 World Series. He first grew silent when a Dodger victory was imminent. Then he was bitter. Gene Micheal had to remind Howard that Walter O'Malley made a shrewd business decision by moving out here. Cosell remained silent.
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jrgreene6
Legend
Married . . . With Cats
Posts: 7,438
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Post by jrgreene6 on May 8, 2018 5:56:27 GMT
First season in full has to be 1981 for me.... I would like to say 77 or 78 but that's not real. By 1981 for sure I was saving every single box score from every single dodgers game, plus various articles and such, into a scrap book. Probably did this for at least 3 -4 years. Being on the east coast, if my newspaper didn't have the box score they would print it the next Ray. No problem. Exchange Sometimes they wouldn't do it though, so I would have to wait until The Sporting News to come in the mail. They printed every box score for the week. Amazing. Fernandomania was unforgettable., . From start to finish. 1981. If I had any scrap books from earlier years, I don't remember them. Prob because we lost in 79 and 80. I’m right there with you, dog. Although I officially became dedicated and hardcore “true blue” in the mid-70’s, 1981 was the “dream season” for me and I was in the same boat, checking the Cincinnati Enquirer every day for scores, waiting for my weekly Sports Illustrated magazine, watching every game they played (which were few and far between back then!) on TV. Bought my first official Rawlings Garvey jersey that year at Koch Sporting Goods here in Cincinnati. Grandma thought I was “insane” paying $85 for a “t-shirt”. I almost killed her when she spilled a few drops of Clorox bleach on the big blue number 6 on the back which left a white streak line in the satin. Was luckily able to colour the streak back in with a blue Sharpie like permanent marker. No internet; no ESPN; certainly no MLB-TV. Wasn’t going to every game back then as I was in college, but did make it to a number of games at Riverfront Stadium that year. LA won every game I went to that year, but then again, they’ve only lost once in all the games I’ve attended in LA and have always played well here in Cincy. If I’m not mistaken, their record at the GAB is better than any other team that plays at least 3 or 4 games there annually. I can only remember one series they got swept here and that back in 2013 during the Pete Rose / Big Red Machine anniversary celebration. Kinda always felt those outcomes were “pre-determined”, although the Redlegs were pretty good that year, winning 90 games. GO DODGERS!!! |
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Post by Bklyn_LA on May 9, 2018 16:10:26 GMT
1974 brought change. They traded Claude Osteen & Willie Davis. We got Jimmy Wynn & Mike Marshall. The ironman reliever. Not the later outfield wuss. Jimmy had one great season left in him. Marshall was unbelievable. He logged more innings than most starters do today. He appeared in 106 games. All in relief. Steve Garvey was moved to first & won MVP. Buckner hit a little over .300, but it seemed like everything was a rope. Tommy John got hurt & we now have Tommy John surgery. He was 13-3 at the time. I think Sutton got off to a slow start & then caught fire. I trusted Cey's arm at third like no one before or since. He would throw a rising fastball right on target to first. His range could be chalked out in square feet. But he handled everything in that box. Good thing too because Bill Russell was an adventure at SS. Lord only knows how many errors Garvey saved him. Lopes was a dangerous base stealer. High percentage. Another reason I hated Howard Cosell was the 1981 World Series. He first grew silent when a Dodger victory was imminent. Then he was bitter. Gene Micheal had to remind Howard that Walter O'Malley made a shrewd business decision by moving out here. Cosell remained silent. I always look at the 1974 Dodgers as the season that could have been; with that "World Series," every game was 3-2 and Sutton got the Dodgers only win and the calisthenics master Marshall the save. The O’Malley(s)s really wanted the Dodgers to stay in Brooklyn if weren't for that megalomaniac Robert Moses and the city council, only would have approved of the conditions and development area for the New ballpark, which was supposed to be a domed enclosure since Ebbets Field was crumbling into the dust and in dire need of major repairs but Moses "the bully", he blocked it but in doing so, it began Moses downfall as New York's power broker of the City as he made a lot of enemies in blocking social and community programs seemingly from that point on, that he thought interfered with his vision business acumen and getting the Dodgers out of Brooklyn did not sit well with the people who knew the real reason the Dodgers moved here to Los Angeles, as his power base shrunk for the next decade. |
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Post by Blunashun on May 9, 2018 16:50:50 GMT
1974 brought change. They traded Claude Osteen & Willie Davis. We got Jimmy Wynn & Mike Marshall. The ironman reliever. Not the later outfield wuss. Jimmy had one great season left in him. Marshall was unbelievable. He logged more innings than most starters do today. He appeared in 106 games. All in relief. Steve Garvey was moved to first & won MVP. Buckner hit a little over .300, but it seemed like everything was a rope. Tommy John got hurt & we now have Tommy John surgery. He was 13-3 at the time. I think Sutton got off to a slow start & then caught fire. I trusted Cey's arm at third like no one before or since. He would throw a rising fastball right on target to first. His range could be chalked out in square feet. But he handled everything in that box. Good thing too because Bill Russell was an adventure at SS. Lord only knows how many errors Garvey saved him. Lopes was a dangerous base stealer. High percentage. Another reason I hated Howard Cosell was the 1981 World Series. He first grew silent when a Dodger victory was imminent. Then he was bitter. Gene Micheal had to remind Howard that Walter O'Malley made a shrewd business decision by moving out here. Cosell remained silent. I always look at the 1974 Dodgers as the season that could have been; with that "World Series," every game was 3-2 and Sutton got the Dodgers only win and the calisthenics master Marshall the save. The O’Malley(s)s really wanted the Dodgers to stay in Brooklyn if weren't for that megalomaniac Robert Moses and the city council, only would have approved of the conditions and development area for the New ballpark, which was supposed to be a domed enclosure since Ebbets Field was crumbling into the dust and in dire need of major repairs but Moses "the bully", he blocked it but in doing so, it began Moses downfall as New York's power broker of the City as he made a lot of enemies in blocking social and community programs seemingly from that point on, that he thought interfered with his vision business acumen and getting the Dodgers out of Brooklyn did not sit well with the people who knew the real reason the Dodgers moved here to Los Angeles, as his power base shrunk for the next decade. Wouldn't they have been the Queens Dodgers? |
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Post by Bklyn_LA on May 9, 2018 23:13:19 GMT
Can you imagine the Queens Dodgers - that just sounds wrong, but it is off the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and The dome park was going to arouNd Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn which is now called the Barclays Center where the Brooklyn NETS play.
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Post by azulblues on May 11, 2018 22:57:21 GMT
Can you imagine the Queens Dodgers - that just sounds wrong, but it is off the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and The dome park was going to arouNd Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn which is now called the Barclays Center where the Brooklyn NETS play. O'Malley chose the right spot. Worked out for us in LA. |
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20DodgerMiracle24
Legend
Rob Manfred is a disaster to our national pastime.
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Post by 20DodgerMiracle24 on May 12, 2018 3:18:42 GMT
1977. First pitch of the season, Gary Thomasson hits a Sutton hanging curve over the right field wall. First pitch. Dodgers still won the division and went to the World Series. I was listening to that game. We went 22-4 to start that season and never looked back. I remember Garvey going 5 AB, 5 R, 5 H, 5 RBI that summer vs the Cardinals. |
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20DodgerMiracle24
Legend
Rob Manfred is a disaster to our national pastime.
Posts: 1,790
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Post by 20DodgerMiracle24 on May 12, 2018 3:24:38 GMT
I recall Sandy Koufax & the crowd oohing & awing. Dean Chance making contact & the crowd giving him the Bronx cheer. No wonder I'm sarcastic. Then there was LAX in 1966 when Dad went & got Willie Davis & brought him back to sign our autograph books. I was trading baseball cards by 1967, at the age of 7. But the first Dodger season I remember from start to finish was 1973. We lived a block off Washington Blvd. in Mar Vista. Every morning I would get up & walk in the dark to the corner news stand to get a paper & read the stories & box scores. A family friend worked at a butcher's shop. He would give me butcher's paper to write on. We didn't have a lot, but Mom got me a drafting board to draw with. I was halfway decent as an amateur artist. School counselors suggested an artistic career. But mornings were reserved for stories & calculating. Extrapolating numbers. If this guy keeps going at this pace, etc. It's when I began to learn you can't extrapolate in baseball. By the end of May, 1974, Reggie Jackson was hitting close to .400 for the Oakland A's. He wound up at .289. So much for that. But 1973 kept me captivated. First full seasons by Lopes, Ferguson & Cey. Bill Buckner became a regular. Andy Messersmith was a Dodger. He had the best change-up before Eric Gagne. They were young & full of beans. They held their own with the mighty Cincinnati Reds until September. They came unglued that month, as the Big Red Machine rolled past them, with all their Hall of Famers. I KNEW we would be back though. That team was too good & too young not to. Who else could have competed with Pete Rose, Davy Concepcion, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Johnny Bench, & later George Foster & Ken Griffey Sr? I love this game! What is your first season in full? Remember that game in September against the Gnats? We were leading 8-1 going into the 7th, when the Gnats chased Tommy John. They scored 6 runs that inning. Pete Richert struck out the side in the 8th, and in the 9th, The Gnats loaded the bases with no outs. Jim Brewer came in to face Bobby Bonds (you might have heard of his son), and he hit a walkoff grand slam. I can still hear my dad swearing. |
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Post by azulblues on May 12, 2018 20:56:27 GMT
1977. First pitch of the season, Gary Thomasson hits a Sutton hanging curve over the right field wall. First pitch. Dodgers still won the division and went to the World Series. I was listening to that game. We went 22-4 to start that season and never looked back. I remember Garvey going 5 AB, 5 R, 5 H, 5 RBI that summer vs the Cardinals. I watched it on TV, channel 2 Oakland up in the Bay Area. First pitch. Boom. Perhaps the highlight of Gary Thomasson's career. This is was the April that Ron Cey hit over .400. And had 9 HR. Rick Monday had been on the cover of Sporting News posed in front of the flag that spring. It it was the Dodgers year. Dusty Baker hit his 30th on the last day of the season. I couldn't believe the Yankees won the WS. |
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20DodgerMiracle24
Legend
Rob Manfred is a disaster to our national pastime.
Posts: 1,790
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Post by 20DodgerMiracle24 on May 13, 2018 2:58:13 GMT
I was listening to that game. We went 22-4 to start that season and never looked back. I remember Garvey going 5 AB, 5 R, 5 H, 5 RBI that summer vs the Cardinals. I watched it on TV, channel 2 Oakland up in the Bay Area. First pitch. Boom. Perhaps the highlight of Gary Thomasson's career. This is was the April that Ron Cey hit over .400. And had 9 HR. Rick Monday had been on the cover of Sporting News posed in front of the flag that spring. It it was the Dodgers year. Dusty Baker hit his 30th on the last day of the season. I couldn't believe the Yankees won the WS. Oh yeah, 1973. What a heartbreak! We had an 11 game lead and blew it to the Reds, as you mentioned with many hall of famers. Do you recall that first game of a double header in Cincy? We led 3-1 with 2 outs in the 9th. The next two Reds got on base and then an unknown pinch hitter, Hal King, hit that three run walk off homer. The Reds won the second game, and again the next day. That pinch homer sparked the Reds on their way to catching and passing us in September. The Reds were as hot as the volcano in Hawaii that second half. |
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