Nothing Is Happening

Nothing is happening with the Dodgers, unless you count ridiculous rumors, photo opportunities and vaguely reassuring interviews by top officials. The rumors have beaten me down, even though I try not to pay them any attention. I know they're garbage, and yet still the thought that there are people out there who think trading Kershaw, Kemp, LaRoche and Loney for Miguel Cabrera is something the Dodgers would do is very unsettling. These rumors are the product of having lots of good young players and prospects and having an iffy GM who seems to value veteran players too much. It's good and bad, together, creating hysteria.

So, I haven't had anything relevent to say about the team. This is because nothing is happening. And that's good, because nothing should happen with this team. I don't want any substantive issues to write about in this blog. I don't want there to be any trades or signings to talk about, because almost anything the Dodgers could do would be bad, a step backwards.

They broke the ground on the new spring training site in Arizona. I guess that was something happening. They had a picture of Vin Scully with a shovel. That was pretty goofy. I don't care about Spring Training, though. Should Spring Training be capitalized, perhaps as a way of making it seem more important than it really is? I don't care where the Dodgers play their springtime pretend games, though I am mildly unsettled at the thought of them sharing a field with another team. The best part of spring training is that it means the real games are coming up really soon.

The real games are so far off now, though. Maybe Dodgerama should have an offseason, just like the team it kind of covers. It has been several weeks since I posted anything. But blogs aren't supposed to have offseasons.

The Face of the Dodgers

Joe Torre is the new face of the Dodgers. That's the biggest change his hiring brings. From the perspective of all the national writers he's now the most important part of the team, even as some of them may say that he can't do it all himself, that the Dodgers are far from a sure thing next year. The Dodger season of 2008 will be about Joe Torre's quest for redemption, even if he denies it. Even though it's the players who matter, not the manager. I think most of the baseball writers out there know this, but they can't help themselves. The Joe Torre redemption quest makes a great story, and it involves the Yankees. It's always going to be one of the angles whenever anyone non-local talks about the Dodgers. The truth is Joe Torre is now the most famous current Dodger. Number two is Nomar. I guess Vinny is number three.

The only way Torre doesn't remain the most famous current Dodger is if the team signs A-HRod or if one of the young players becomes a mega-star next year. Or maybe if they traded for someone like Johan Santana. I think fame is a good quality to look for in your manager. It's not as if there's much else separating all of them. Having a famous manager is fun for the fans. I don't know if it's worth 5 million a year, but it's worth something. It gives an irrational sense of hope. In the backs of our minds we all know that famous people always win. Things go their way. Even though we know baseball doesn't work this way, it's still a shock to think Joe Torre's ballclub could lose. He's Joe Torre! It would be like OJ going to jail.