Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda suffered a mild heart attack Monday while in New York, the Los Angeles team confirmed Tuesday.
Five Cuts from the first weekend of interleague play:
Sometimes it is easier for the highly skilled, purpose driven athlete to deal with injuries that happen in the blink of an eye. You crash into the wall; you take a bad step; you throw an awkward pitch. You break a bone; you snap a tendon; you tear a ligament. As painful and psychologically challenging as those injuries can be, at least what comes next is often clear cut. You get it fixed. You don't play for a month, or six months, or a year. Then, if all goes well, you do.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball, ushered in a new era of ownership Wednesday while ending a dismal chapter of ownership under Frank McCourt, who baseball's commissioner described as "looting" the club of $190 million to fund an extravagant lifestyle.
If you told me eight years ago I'd end up writing an article extolling the virtues of Los Angeles, I would have laughed.
A bankruptcy court Friday approved the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team to a group that includes former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson.
The 2012 Major League Baseball season officially opened last week in Japan, where the A's and Mariners played a mostly forgettable two-game series, and starts Stateside on Wednesday night when the Marlins face the defending World Series champion Cardinals. Thursday, though, is when the season really begins.
Of Major League Baseball's six divisions, only the NL West has sent each of its clubs to the playoffs at least once since 2006. "There's no clear favorite from year to year," says Giants GM Brian Sabean, "which makes it interesting."
We have arrived at an exit ramp, only we cannot be certain to where it leads. Baseball in 2012, with its expanded postseason, franchise-changing TV money and the Technicolor dream of Miami as a baseball town, is headed in a new direction, as it seems to do every 10 years.
A group that includes former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson will acquire the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2 billion, the team said Tuesday night.
updated: Wed Mar 28 2012 20:23:00
Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly dresses as Mother Ginger in "The Nutcracker."
The proposed $2.15 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers to a group primarily financed by Guggenheim Partners and led by longtime sports executive Stan Kasten and NBA legend Magic Johnson is not yet a done deal. Major League Baseball and the 29 other ownership groups must formally approve the sale and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross must be assured that it will enable current owner Frank McCourt to pay off his creditors.
LOS ANGELES -- The second-best trade in the history of the Dodgers was made on July 18, 1939, when they acquired shortstop Pee Wee Reese from the Red Sox for $35,000 and four players to be named later, most notably pitcher Red Evans. Reese made 10 All Star teams and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Evans, whose career record was 1-11, never appeared in the big leagues again.
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- An unexpected thing happened late in the summer of what had once seemed a nightmare 2011 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers -- who had been undermined by the failing ownership of Frank McCourt; who had fallen to 14 games under .500, at 37-51, on July 6 -- simply did not want the season to end. They went 41-28 after the All-Star break. Each of the seven teams with better second-half records made the playoffs, and the Dodgers felt sure that they could have joined them, had only the season extended just a little bit longer.
This week, Cliff Corcoran will break down what to expect from each team's camp as part of SI.com's spring training preview. Teams are listed by their order of finish from 2011. Note: The Big Prospect is a player who will be in camp and has not yet debuted in the major leagues.
The troubled Los Angeles Dodgers, one of baseball's most storied franchises, began receiving bids from potential buyers this week in a sale that's expected to set a Major League record at more than $1 billion.
updated: Fri Jan 27 2012 05:37:00
Powerful groups loaded with sports celebrities are expected to bid for the L.A. Dodgers. CNN's Paul Vercammen reports.
If Victor Martinez had not blown out his knee working out in Florida, Prince Fielder might have been a Dodger. Los Angeles ran a stealth recruitment of Fielder for two months, beginning immediately after the December winter meetings, only to be trumped when Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, concerned about contingency plans to replace Martinez, told his general manager, "I think we should go after Prince."
The Angels and Marlins weren't the only teams getting things done at the just-completed Winter Meetings in Dallas, and Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson weren't the only players the Angels acquired. For fans of the other 28 teams and LaTroy Hawkins, here's a summary of some of the less-celebrated player transactions from the last week and a half.
Longtime talk show host Larry King says he's joined an effort to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers.
December shopping season is almost upon us, and judging by some early infield impulse buying, there could be plenty of big spending. Baseball's powers are headed back in a week to the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas for the winter meetings, the site of the wildest week of spending 11 years ago, highlighted by the $252 million, 10-year deal for Alex Rodriguez with the Texas Rangers.
LOS ANGELES -- Only now, with the divorce trial settled and the bankruptcy court satisfied, with tens of millions spent on legal fees and hundreds of millions taken in personal loans, with the franchise finally up for auction and buyers mercifully preparing bids, Frank McCourt is doing something for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers and general manager Ned Colletti, with his three decades in baseball, have gone sabermetric. In September the Dodgers hired Alex Tamin, a graduate of Johns Hopkins and UCLA School of Law, as Director of Baseball Contracts, Research and Operations. That was a confirmation that Los Angeles is joining the "new school" franchises with a strong belief -- not just an obligatory nod -- that quantitative analysis plays an important role in building a winning team.
Embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has agreed to sell the team, the owner and Major League Baseball announced Wednesday.
The couple who bought the Los Angeles Dodgers seven years ago announced Monday they've agreed that the husband, Frank McCourt, will get the baseball team in their pending divorce.
In the previous four days, the Red Sox, Rays, Angels, Braves and Cardinals all lost games in the eighth inning or later. The wild card races have become such wars of attrition that rumor has it the Mariners are back in it. Throw in the longshot Giants, and the six wild card contenders have gone 8-13 this week. It's absurd enough to root for the ultimate in chaos: the first-ever three-way tie in major league history.
LOS ANGELES -- Two All Stars approaching career crossroads sit in opposite clubhouses at Dodger Stadium. In one, the team wants to keep the player but doesn't know if he wants to stay. In the other, the player wants to stay but doesn't know if the team wants to keep him. Such is the backward business of baseball, at least in Southern California's National League cities, where the organizations either can't convince their stars to stick around or can't afford them to.
Lawyers for the Los Angeles Dodgers fought back against a lawsuit attempting to implicate the baseball franchise in the severe beating of a man outside its stadium, according to court documents.
The uncertain future of the troubled Dodgers baseball team continued Thursday when a Los Angeles County judge canceled a one-day trial that ultimately was supposed to determine whether the team was community property in the divorce between owner Frank McCourt and wife Jamie.
Los Angeles authorities said Friday that they had arrested three people for an attack this spring outside Dodgers Stadium, adding that the man they'd arrested exactly two months ago and described as the "primary aggressor" was not responsible.
The embattled Los Angeles Dodgers' ownership suffered a major setback on Friday, when a Delaware judge rejected the baseball team's $150 million refinancing plan.
The narrative for the once-proud Los Angeles Dodgers franchise has been hijacked this season by a series of ugly headlines: a bankruptcy proceeding that is part of the ongoing mess surrounding owner Frank McCourt; the beating of a Giants fan on Opening Day at Dodger Stadium; a drop in average home attendance by more than 7,000 fans per game; and a 42-54 record that has left them in fourth place in the NL West and headed toward their worst mark in almost 20 years.
PHOENIX -- It was an interesting first half. Two managers quit. None were fired. Two managers were hired. The average age of them was 74. The heavily-favored Phillies did what they were supposed to do, and the Red Sox pretty much did, too. But surprises abounded, led by none other than the usually pathetic Pirates, who are capturing a city and threatening to post a winning record for the first time since Barry Bonds left town. The Indians are right in the thick of things, too, to nearly everyone's surprise. And the Nationals would be, if they weren't in the same division as the Phillies and Braves.
Dodgers players generally deny that the team's ongoing financial troubles (a.k.a. the McCourt mess) are affecting them. But at least star right fielder Andre Ethier is said by several sources around the team to be unhappy with what's going on with the last-place team.
Chapter 11 will help the bankrupt Dodgers protect their assets from creditors, the largest of which -- in every sense of the word -- is Manny Ramirez, who is owed nearly $21 million in retirement. But which of the Dodgers' many assets are most worth protecting, not merely from Manny, but from the self-harming hands of owner Frank McCourt? Before the Dodgers disappear entirely in a pyre of acrimony and alimony, these priceless assets should be rescued from the flames, beginning with:
Embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt scored a partial victory in bankruptcy court Tuesday, but the judge left the door open to giving Major League Baseball the ultimate victory at a hearing next month.
Six-time World Series winners and one of Major League Baseball's (MLB) most successful franchises, the Los Angeles Dodgers, filed for bankruptcy in an American court on Monday
The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy court protection early Monday, less than a week after Major League Baseball blocked the team from signing a new television deal to provide it with the cash it needed to meet the team's payroll.
LOS ANGELES -- Note to Bud Selig: Next time somebody tries to buy one of your crown jewel franchises, make them show you the money.
A Dodgers game beating victim improved Wednesday from critical to serious condition, according to the San Francisco General Hospital's media hotline.
updated: Thu Jun 23 2011 12:00:00
Would increased security have prevented a Giants fan from being attacked at Dodger Stadium? HLN's Prime News reports.
Realignment remains little more than theory for now. Neither commissioner Bud Selig nor his 14-man special committee has studied the idea, and there have been no negotiations about it between owners and players in talks toward a collective bargaining agreement, according to high-ranking sources in baseball. But that hasn't stopped baseball people from yakking about it.
As one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball history, the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the 2011 season with a victory over the World Champion San Francisco Giants. The nationally televised game was nearly sold out with a seating capacity of 56,000 fans.
updated: Fri Jun 10 2011 13:53:00
Major League Baseball takes control of the L.A. Dodgers after team owner Frank McCourt borrowed money to make payroll.
The family of Bryan Stow, the San Francisco Giants fan who was severely beaten at Dodger Stadium, filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday claiming faulty security measures and defective facilities contributed to his attack, court officials said.
The primary suspect in the brutal beating of a of a San Francisco Giants fan at Dodgers Stadium is a documented gang member on parole for a number of convictions, the Los Angeles Police Department said Monday.
The man alleged to be the "primary aggressor" in the brutal beating of a San Francisco Giants fan at Dodgers Stadium was arrested Sunday and ordered held on $1 million bail, Los Angeles police said.
updated: Mon May 23 2011 05:50:00
A man alleged to be involved in the beating of a San Francisco Giant's fan at Dodgers Stadium was arrested.
NEW YORK -- The Mets and Dodgers were said not to have been discussed in the general sessions at baseball's owners meeting here this week, but commissioner Bud Selig acknowledged he met with embattled Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and both of baseball's uncertain ownership situations surely hung over the entire proceedings. By the time it was over, two things became clear: MLB's powers are comfortable with how what's happening with the Mets-owning Wilpons and as uncomfortable as ever with McCourt's Dodgers stewardship.
With an RBI infield single Monday night against the Cubs, the Dodgers' Andre Ethier became the first man to collect a hit in 28-straight games since the Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman hit in 30 straight in early 2009 and just the 10th man to assemble a streak of 28 or more games since the turn of the millennium. Impressive as that might be, Ethier is only half way to Joe DiMaggio's record of 56 straight games, a record he can only tie by duplicating the feat he has already achieved, something it seems safe to say isn't going to happen. In the 92 seasons since 1919, which is as far back as Baseball-Reference.com's game logs go, there have been 65 streaks of 28 or more games, not counting Ethier's; 28 of them didn't even make it to 30.
Commissioner Bud Selig has an attendance problem. It's not a problem with the actual attendance, but a problem with perception people take from the snapshot of a wet, dreary April and extrapolate into doom and gloom for the sport. Far from worried, Selig offered a bold promise to SI.com: major league attendance will rise this year.
Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who's in the process of one of the most public and ugliest divorce proceedings on record, is eager to go to the altar with Fox Sports.
The reason baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed Tom Schieffer as emissary to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers while leaving the New York Mets alone for now is the vastly different history of the teams' ownership groups.
What does the MLB takeover of the Dodgers mean for the baseball operations of the club? "Business as usual" is the operative phrase around the offices of Dodger Stadium -- and that might not be a good thing.
Los Angeles Dodgers' co-owner Jamie McCourt welcomed Major League Baseball's takeover of the financially troubled franchise Thursday, but there are signs her ex-husband will not easily accept the move.
Frank McCourt is still technically the owner of the Dodgers. But his ownership seems less viable after his messy seven-year stewardship grew much messier during the past year. Commissioner Bud Selig has shown no inclination to approve McCourt's multiple Fox proposals for a new multi-billion-dollar TV contract he thinks could keep him afloat, and on Wednesday evening Selig announced that he was going to appoint a representative of the commissioner's office to oversee the finances and day-to-day operations of the franchise.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants black and the Dodgers blue blended together on the green infield on Monday night when the teams set aside decades of bitter rivalry to make a unified statement. To let fans know that, at the end of the day, what they're doing is just playing a game.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made an emotional plea Friday asking the two men suspected in the recent brutal beating of a visiting San Francisco Giants fan after a Dodgers game to "turn themselves in."
The family of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow, critically hurt in an unprovoked attack at last week's season opener at Los Angeles' Dodgers Stadium, expressed gratitude Tuesday for the outpouring of support and sympathy they received from baseball fans around the country.
A San Francisco Giants fan remained in critical condition Monday following an unprovoked attack on opening day at Dodgers stadium, hospital officials said.
My father's family was from Brooklyn. Flatbush. Church Avenue. The Dodgers were the nexus that connected the brothers and sisters, the aunts and uncles. There supposedly is a picture of my grandmother kissing Gil Hodges outside of Ebbets Field that ran on the front page of the Brooklyn Eagle after the Dodgers had clinched one of their pennants in the early 1950s, but I never have seen it.
Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame center fielder Donald "Duke" Snider died Sunday at a convalescent hospital in Escondido, California. He was 84, according to team officials.
'Tis the season of the owner. Forget players. Owners are all the rage in sports. They're threatening to close down the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. In Washington, they're threatening the First Amendment. In New York, the Mets owners are accused of being in cahoots with Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. In Los Angeles, they're even making a fine mess of the Dodgers by getting divorced. I can't recall the last time owners made the tabloids getting divorced. And, incredibly, owners are doing all this without George Steinbrenner being able to contribute a whit to the goings-on.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- It was one wild winter meetings. Only a handful of teams made major moves, but oh, what deals they were.
This year's National League pennant races are the kind that could one day inspire songs: Dour songs, about futility and lack of meaning, sung by moping teenagers.
Five cuts from Wednesday night's action ...
LOS ANGELES --- One final shred of dignity was peeled from the Dodger facade Friday night, Joe Torre announcing that he would not return to manage the team next season, and Frank McCourt claiming that the decision had nothing to do with him. They sat across from each other at the press conference, an employee who restored credibility to the franchise, and a boss who stripped it away. McCourt thanked Torre for his service --- specifically, consecutive division titles and NLCS berths --- but his gratitude should have extended much farther. Torre did for McCourt what his legion of image makers and PR consultants could not: he put a respectable face on a sullied franchise, and now, that face is gone. McCourt no longer has Torre to play front man. He sits alone atop the Dodger brand, along with his wife Jamie, the couple from Boston who bought the club on borrowed money, used it to borrow more money, and are fighting over it in one of the most expensive divorces in California history. The
SI.com spoke with Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci on Friday afternoon to discuss news of Joe Torre's retirement as Dodgers manager. Torre and Verducci collaborated on two books, Chasing the Dream and The Yankee Years.
Don Mattingly will replace Joe Torre as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at season's end, SI.com has confirmed.
He will quit on the White Sox just the way he quit on the Red Sox and the Dodgers. Sooner or later. Bank on it.
Los Angeles Dodgers stories in the SI Vault
BOSTON -- It's time Manny Ramirez deserved some credit.
With the exception of the accepted waiver claim of Manny Ramirez by the White Sox, the waiver trade deadline was a real dud, with change-of-scenery-type trades of Manny Delcarmen and Jeff Francoeur the only deadline-day moves. It was a year when GMs were especially aggressive with their claims and blocks, severely limiting deals. But Manny has spiced up trade deadlines before (take the 2008 non-waiver deadline, when he went to L.A. in a memorable three-team trade, for instance), and he could well spice up the AL Central race, executives predict.
SI.com has learned that 38-year-old slugger Manny Ramirez has been sent to the Chicago White Sox in a pure waiver claim. That means the Dodgers get no players in return for Ramirez while the White Sox assume the balance -- about $4 million -- of the two-year, $45 million contract he signed before the 2009 season.
LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers could apparently handle only one freak show at a time, so Manny Ramirez had to go, ceding the stage to Frank and Jamie McCourt.
There could be more big-name managers on the open market than ever this winter, with several marquee names potentially on the move, setting up several interesting scenarios. Yet, at least three men with great playing pedigrees but no major league managerial experience could yet wind up with big-league managing jobs -- Ryne Sandberg (Cubs), Ted Simmons (Mariners) and Tim Wallach (Dodgers).
If the currency of the game today is young players under contractual control, the instinct of most clubs is to hoard such currency. Even draft picks, lottery tickets such as they are, have become so valuable that the next round of collective bargaining is likely to include a reworking of the free-agent compensation system. No one anticipated that the market value of some Type-A free agents would be harmed because clubs don't want to give up a draft pick or two as compensation.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired outfielder Scott Podsednik from the Kansas City Royals for a pair of minor leaguers, SI.com has confirmed.
ANAHEIM -- Before this season began, the Dodgers purchased space on approximately 300 billboards around Los Angeles, advertising their inter-league series against the Yankees under the slogan: "Rivalry Renewed." It was to be New York vs. L.A., East Coast vs. West, a reprise of World Series past. But for all practical purposes, it is Joe Torre vs. Joe Torre and nothing more, the team he manages against the team he will always be known for managing. The only conflict is the one inside of him.
If May seemed like an especially confrontational month for umpires, you should know that it wasn't. Ejections were the lowest of any May in the past seven years, according to an MLB Incident Report. Here are the ejections for May over the past seven years:
Brilliant right-hander Stephen Strasburg looks so flawless in the minors, he seems more machine than phenom.
If Albert Pujols is as proficient a scout and talent evaluator as he is a ballplayer, the rest of the National League could be in trouble. Pujols thinks this Cardinals team is special, way better even than they have performed so far. And so far, they haven't been too bad at all.
An early soap opera has broken out in Hollywood. The Dodgers, good enough to win the NL West and reach the NLCS each of the last two years, are 8-14, dead last in the division, with a declining payroll and in desperate need of some veteran leadership. And now they're facing a new issue.
Peter King and Don Banks are two of the 50 AP voters who will revote for the 2009 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award. Read Banks' contrasting view here.
This article appears in the April 5, 2010, issue of Sports Illustrated.
This spring, SI.com writers are filing postcards from all 30 major league spring training camps. To read all the postcards, click here.
The Dodgers have reached agreement with Vicente Padilla on a one-year deal, SI.com has confirmed. The deal is for $5 million, SI.com has learned.
The news that Los Angeles Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt are divorcing came with a bitter kick: Team chairman Frank's first move against his soon-to-be-ex was to fire her from her job as the Dodgers' chief executive.
It's 1988. What a slice of time in Los Angeles!
NEW YORK -- Star Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, an amateur Jimmy the Greek, says his Phillies are going to win the World Series in five games. Rollins is on a few-year roll with his predictions, although the Yankees generally seemed more amused than concerned about Rollins' latest. "Nostradamus,'' Jorge Posada called him, though it was hard to tell whether Posada was lauding or mocking Rollins.
PHILADELPHIA -- When the NLCS was over, and the Dodgers were done again, eliminated just like the year before in five games by the Phillies, iconic Dodgers manager Joe Torre gathered his mostly young troops together, and he spoke of progress. It seems like a tough sell job, with the result from one year to the next being exactly the same. But Torre could sell parkas in L.A.
When it ended, there were no massive dog piles, no exuberant displays of over-the-top-excitement and no outward sign that their second consecutive National League pennant signified anything more than what they had said it would be all week long: just another step on their journey to what they, and a growing number of others, are envisioning as a second straight World Series championship.
PHILADELPHIA -- Wherever Joe Torre went when his team arrived at Citizen's Bank Park on Saturday, he saw it. When he went to the weight room, it was on the treadmill. When he went to his office, it was cued up on the television on his desk. If Torre had successfully blocked out his Yankees' 2004 American League Championship Series collapse to the Red Sox, Dodgers first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, a first baseman on that Boston team, made sure he was reminded of it when the team got to Philadelphia. At the time, it was meant as playful payback for Torre recently watching Aaron Boone's home run that beat the Red Sox in 2003, but now it serves as a potent, if somewhat unpleasant, reminder that compared to Torre's situation in '04, the Dodgers are in a relatively comfortable 3-games-to-1 hole to the Phillies in this season's NLCS.
PHILADELPHIA -- Pedro Martinez held court in the corner of the Phillies clubhouse for 20 some minutes today, answering questions in English and Spanish, referring to himself and Raul Ibañez as the club's "old goats," proclaiming Boston's 2004 ALCS comeback "the greatest in the history of the game" and riffing on Jimmy Rollins' youthful appearance ("he looks just like he did in that 'Beyond Baseball' commercial").
Team owner Frank McCourt and his CEO wife Jamie's split is getting nastier than a playoff series!
PHILADELPHIA -- One Dodger was going over the possibilities and permutations following the heartbreaking Jimmy Rollins-authored 5-4 Game 4 defeat that left Los Angeles on the cusp of elimination, and that Dodger mentioned having to win a game here in Philly, then two more back in L.A. Then that Dodger mentioned having to beat Cliff Lee, who they couldn't touch, if they even get to a Game 7.
PHILADELPHIA -- Part of being a closer, the most mentally taxing job in baseball and perhaps all of sports, is knowing that eventually it will be your turn to fail. Sooner or later, a ball is hit where they ain't, or an outfielder loses a ball in the lights, or a hitter who knew exactly what you were about to do rips a game-winning double into the gap, and then you lose. And when that happens, you look very much like Jonathan Broxton did just before midnight on Monday: head down, shoulders slumped, eyes on the ground, the pain of defeat stabbing you anew with every step and with every cheer of the crowd.
Loading weather data ...
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|