Week of 2006-11-11 17:00 to 2006-11-18 16:59

Whatever the faults of the Dodgers as a business, whatever their mistakes over the years, they can at least be proud of one thing — their instrumental role in breaking the color barrier in sports. And one of their original heroes is still around, and going strong, at 80 years old.

Don Newcombe wasn’t just one of the first black pitchers in the bigs, he was one of the best pitchers of that era, period. He won Rookie of the Year and was an All-Star in 1949. Two years serving in Korea interrupted his baseball career, but he came back and was an integral part of the glorious 1955 Brooklyn World Championship team.

Newcombe is the only major leaguer to be a Rookie of the Year, MVP (1956), and Cy Young winner (in fact, he was the first winner of that award) — no one else has ever accomplished that trio of honors.

An article earlier this week in the LA Daily News catches up with this living legend, now a member of the Dodger organization and busier than most men half his age — working on causes that are just as important now as back then.

“Sixty years ago, I became a part of changing the makeup of baseball with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella,” Newcombe said. “They can’t talk about it now. I can. I wish more people would know about the Dodgers and what they did and the rich history they have.

“Jackie, Roy and I felt like people needed us. We had to succeed. So many people depended on us - people of color all over the world.”

Newcombe is troubled because Jackie Robinson isn’t in many historical textbooks that schools use. So, he brings books about Robinson to schools when he has speaking engagements and sends books to other schools, particularly in the South.

Thank goodness Don is still around, and hats off to him.

Continue reading at “True blue ambassador”

Matthew Cheney over at The Mumpsimus has an intriguing post on one of my favorite books by my favorite writer:

I’ve been subjecting my Advanced Placement students to Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading, and it’s been fun to see their responses, because many more of them enjoyed the book than I expected. I introduced it by having them read Azar Nafisi’s memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which most of them found engaging, and it helped give them a grasp of some of what Nabokov was up to before they plunged into the bewildering world of Cincinnatus C. and his prison cell.

Inevitably, there were students who were convinced Nabokov was insane or a drug addict or both. This accusation comes up all the time when we read anyone who is not among the hardest of hardcore realists, because imagination is something that has come to be associated only with the stimulus of drugs or madness. That someone could think up a story like Invitation to a Beheading — where a man is imprisoned for “gnostic turpitude” in a fortress of porous walls and fake windows and rules against improper dreams — without being addicted to hallucinogens or lacking a couple of screws is at best inconceivable to many people, if not threatening.

Oh the irony.

Update #2

It’s official! Garciaparra returns to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers on Monday will announce the re-signing of National League Comeback Player of the Year Nomar Garciaparra to a two-year contract.

Already looking for one power hitter, current management’s interest in retaining Garciaparra soared after getting blindsided by the departure of right fielder J.D. Drew, who earlier this month exercised an option to void the final three years of his contract and took his 100 RBIs to the free-agent market.

I’ll take credit for the news coming out this evening since I wore my Garciaparra t-shirt to the grocery store. ;)

Update

Things are looking clearer: “Dodgers still courting Garciaparra”

Nomar Garciaparra’s desire to continue to report for work at Chavez Ravine has eroded reluctance within the Dodgers front office to the point that he could agree to a multiyear contract as soon as today, baseball sources said.

The deal would be for two or three years and would call for a significantly higher base salary than he received last year, when he played for a guaranteed $6 million and earned another $2.5 million in incentives based on plate appearances.

Rumor has it

These are newspaper rumors, so take them with a grain of salt. Risky or no, it would be awesome to have Nomar back.

Press-Enterprise: GM: Dodgers make one offer

After the second official day of the general managers’ meetings in Naples, Fla., Colletti said he has “made one offer to one guy.”

“We hope to make a couple more in the next few days,” he said. “There’s some real good players around the free-agent market, but there’s a lack of depth to it.”

Colletti wouldn’t confirm or deny if the offer was made to Nomar Garciaparra. But after Drew became a free agent, the Dodgers’ willingness to re-sign Garciaparra appeared to rise.

New York Post (last paragraph)

Agent Arn Tellem said client Nomar Garciaparra was not planning on pursuing offers aggressively until he knows for sure whether the Dodgers want to retain him. The Yanks had interest last year in Garciaparra as a first baseman and have the same need again.

NY Daily News

FIRST GLANCE AT NOMAR: Cashman has talked about possibly acquiring a right-handed hitting first baseman so Jason Giambi could primarily be a designated hitter and Nomar Garciaparra, whom the Yanks courted last winter, could be a possibility.

But there were indications at the GM meetings yesterday that Garciaparra’s first choice is to return to the Dodgers, where he enjoyed a comeback season in ‘06, batting .303 with 20 homers and 93 RBI and playing first exclusively.

Tacoma News Tribune (first of the “Short Hops” at bottom)

One of the hitters Seattle had interest in – Los Angeles infielder Nomar Garciaparra – is close to re-signing with the Dodgers. Los Angeles is also the early frontrunner in the chase for pitcher Jason Schmidt.

Check out this sad story in the LA Times, courtesy of Bill Plaschke: “Contrite Beimel wants to mend shattered hearts”.

Any day now, the tattoo will be carefully needled into his upper right arm.

Don’t tell Joe Beimel he’s crazy, because he’s not changing his mind. Of all the strange things that have happened to him in the last couple of months, nothing makes more sense.

That tattoo will be there if he’s ever again tempted to use that arm to pick up a glass filled with beer.

The tattoo will be there if he’s ever again tempted to use that arm to open a barroom door at 2 a.m. on the day before a playoff game.

What happened to him in New York in the early morning of Oct. 3, he hopes everyone will eventually forget. But he knows he can never forget.

“It’s a tattoo of a heart,” Beimel said in a recent phone interview. “The heart is broken in two.”

I would tell Joe to have the heart tattooed in Dodger blue. But, as Colletti says later in the story:

“He’s contrite, he’s accepted responsibility, he’s making changes, so what happened with him is not going to change any of our off-season plans,” Colletti said. “The world is full of people getting second chances.”

Speaking of broken hearts, there’s also this TJ Simers story on Ross Porter, former Dodger announcer. Former Dodger fan. “Porter is having his say and making a difference”

The voice remains unmistakable, and even comforting in such a familiar way.

And yet it has been two years since most of us have heard from Ross Porter, 28 years a Dodgers broadcaster, the irrepressible statistician who sometimes sounded as if he were purposely challenging himself by speaking with a mouthful of marbles.

Right now, Porter is flanked by two of his 14 grandchildren, each wearing an Angels cap, and is waiting for friends like Vin Scully, Don Sutton, Rafer Johnson and others to arrive at the Calabasas Country Club for a tournament to raise money for Stillpoint Resources, an organization that helps families of special-need children.

The voice was there to embrace each arriving golfer, as it had been for so many years for anyone who included the Dodgers as a part of their lives. All those wonderful nights, but not once in the last two years, Porter said, has he returned to Dodger Stadium.

And never again, he continued, “as long as the current ownership is in place.”