Dodger dreamin'

Los Angeles, Ca

It's a warm 74˚ night in LA and the stadium at Chavez Ravine sits empty under the stars. It's Thursday September 17th, and the Dodgers are tops in the National League with an impressive 88-59 record. Only the New York Yankees, the team last headed by LA's current skipper Joe Torre, have a better mark in all of baseball. (94-53) This ball club that plays it's games 2.8 miles from the nearby Venice Beach has no Mr. October, and certainly no Mr. November. What this team does offer is a lineup chalk full of talented, hungry players anchored by two young home-grown studs in Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Oh yeah, they have a character named Manny Ramirez as well, and he's pretty good at this baseball thing.

Tomorrow starts a three game series with arch rival San Francisco. As the players are surely spending time with there families resting and slumbering before a weekend workout with the team by the bay, GM Ned Colletti should be resting easy. He is the man charged with putting this squad together and he has done a fine job. Mr. Frank McCourt owns the team, Joe Torre manages them, but it is Mr. Colletti that has been busy piecing together talent for a championship run. Los Angeles last won a World Series in 1988, 21 long years ago, too far off for such a large market team with throngs of amazing fans that keep the turn-styles spinning year after year in record numbers. Through 75 home games this year, the Dodgers lead the league in attendance drawing 3,442,261 fans. That's a lot of Farmer John Dodger Dog's, in fact as of 2005 at least 1.61 million per season.

"When a team plays hard and puts itself in position to win, they deserve to see that you're trying to get them more tools to win." -- Ned Colletti

This weekend's matchup will feature two pitchers Vicente Padilla (picked up after the Rangers released him) and Jon Garland (acquired via trade for Tony Abreu Aug. 31) who GM Colletti recently brought in to help push the Dodgers further through the playoffs. Sunday afternoon the man on the mound facing off with SF's ace Tim Lincecum, will be Randy Wolf. It was Colletti again that re-signed Wolf for $5 million back in February after pitching last for the Houston Astros. The three have combined for a 15-6 record with neither the newly acquired Garland or Padilla recording a loss for Los Angeles thus far.

Offensively speaking Manny Ramirez was brought in at the trade deadline last year in a three way deal with the Pirates and Red Sox. Not only did Colletti get Boston to pay Ramirez's remaining salary, he only had to give up Andy LaRoche and pitching prospect Bryan Morris. Manny promptly hit .396 with 17 HR's and 53 RBIs in as many games down the stretch. This year he's hitting .302 with 18 HR's and 56 RBIs in 91 games. (he missed 50 games for violating the leagues substance abuse policy - human chorionic gonadotropin) Our young guns, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier have done nothing but blossom into fine ball players this year. Kemp is sitting at .305 with 24 HR's and 94 RBIs, and has vastly improved his outfield play. Ethier continues to be one of the premiere clutch performers in baseball. He leads all big leaguers with six walk-off winners this year, four by way of the home run ball.

With October looming and the rosters set, it is now up to the Dodgers players to do the rest. Joe Torre has the pieces. Now it's his turn to fit them into this post season puzzle and hopefully come out on top. His resume speaks for itself. With two AL Manager of The Year awards sitting atop his mantelpiece next to 4 World Series trophies, Mr. Torre is a proven winner. Now all of Los Angeles is hoping to share some of that success. The Series is tentatively scheduled to start Oct. 28, the latest start ever, now in it's 105th edition.