Keeping Up with the Dodgers

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - Sitting in the pre-dawn hours adjacent to a Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers treasure I scooped up for 50 cents as a kid, we find the hometown team on the precipice of its season blowing up. They're down 0-2 to the Atlanta Braves in a best of seven series that resumes this afternoon at Dodger Stadium at 2 pm, so there's no better time to dump these random musings before we find out which team advances to the World Series.

Trevor Bauer Might Extend Clayton Kershaw's L.A. Career

Alleged dirtbag girl beater and defending National League Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer was supposed to help bring a second consecutive World Series championship to L.A. Whether or not Major League Baseball suspends or permanently bans him in the off-season for allegedly beating the crap out of his date, consensual rough sex or not, his career is most likely over despite plenty of talent remaining in his mega-million-dollar arm.

With that, those who predicted that this would be the final season in a Dodger uniform for good guy, philanthropist and future Hall-of-Famer Clayton Kershaw might now think twice. The $31 million he was paid this season, which essentially compensated him for his underpaid Sandy Koufax-like earlier years between 2011 and 2017, is up for renewal.

Kershaw hasn't been that pitcher in quite a few seasons.  While just 33 years old (Koufax retired in 1966 at just 30), he isn't worth anywhere near that amount moving forward, at least not in L.A.   Note: Both southpaws won three Cy Young Awards and an MVP award.

While Koufax didn't become an all-time great until his final four seasons, Kershaw's best years are long gone. Still, the banishment of Bauer might keep Kershaw, a still-capable but not incredible player, in Dodger blue, but not at the same price tag.

Speaking of Kershaw, How About Matthew Stafford?

ABC-7 recently showed new L.A. Rams' quarterback Matthew Stafford at a Dodger home game that Kershaw started.

Big deal, right?

Except that the two are friends dating back to childhood, and the station also posted a great photo of them from way back.

Pretty awesome.

The Fresh Princes of L.A. and Atlanta

Your hearing is not off if you watch the Dodgers/Braves in Game 3 today and the announcers describe Will Smith batting against Will Smith.

Both teams have players by those names.

Whatever Happened To......

The Dodgers are well-represented in the playoffs, though those doing the best are former Dodgers.

Take, for example, our old friend from the 2020 championship team, Kiké Hernández, who now sports a Boston Red Sox uniform in the American League Championship Series.

Hernandez is batting 18 for 36, a .500 average, with five home runs over the playoffs against the Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, and Houston Astros, the Red Sox' current opponent. His batting average got progressively better with each series with no end in sight.

And his glove and arm are equally as impressive.

His Red Sox teammate, Alex Verdugo, who the Dodgers coughed up in the Mookie Betts trade, is also doing well in the playoffs after a solid regular season, going 12 for 34, a .353 average.

And lastly, there's former Dodger Joc Pederson, who went to the Atlanta Braves via the Chicago Cubs and returns to Dodger Stadium this afternoon (but not in our dugout). He crushed the longest playoff home run so far this season, estimated at 454 feet, as you might remember, to tie Game 2 against the Dodgers, which ultimately helped his team win. 

Ouchie.

The Dodgers may have the best team on paper, but the Red Sox are playing and looking better than everyone else, thanks especially to Kiké. They need to pull it together, like right now, because only one team in MLB playoff history ever came back from an 0-3 deficit, and it was the guys from Boston back in 2004.

Tell your friends to follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and the Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine, among other publishers.)

 

Presently using mi amigo Scott's sign-in until our new Mayor Sam 2.0 tech matters are ironed out.

Did Will Smith Copy Zuma Dogg's Look?

Will Smith portrays a reluctant superhero in his latest film, Hancock.  Do you think he owes Zuma Dogg some residuals?

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Rick Orlov has a piece on the Mayor's challenge to convince voters he deserves another term.  Though Antonio Villaraigosa is working hard to build momentum for next year's election battle, the shine is off the penny following the Mayor's previous mis-steps and lack of results.  Most notable about the Orlov piece is his using our "Summer of Love" catch phrase given to the Mayor's affair with Mirthala .



City Councilman Dennis Zine was supposed to be there but did a no-show; however at least a few hundred voters showed up to mayoral candidate Walter Moore's "Rally in the Valley" at Cal State Northridge Saturday.  Valley Doll provided on the scene reporting and said there was huge interest in the effort to get Jamiel's Law on the ballot.  Following up to inquiries from the Sister City, the Moore campaign reported raising nearly $5000 in small contributions at the event and is now close to having raised $110,000 as part of it's grass roots effort to unseat Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.



Rich Alossi of Curbed LA has an LA Times op-ed piece about the big boondoggle know as the Grand Avenue project.  With delays and missteps driving schedule creep on the project further and further, Alossi has a remarkable idea: let the free market handle the project.  Alossi says the yet to built and way portions of the project should be turned over to other developers as opposed to putting all the eggs in the basket of one city sanctioned and funded developer.



Activists in South LA are planning to oppose a ballot measure that would significantly increase sales taxes in the name of public transportation.  The activists say they're tired of funding projects on the Westside and in the Valley and not having input into the planning of transit lines that pass through their communities.



Reverend Lewis Logan is the President of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, the City panel that oversees the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and the City's system of Neighborhood Councils.  Turns out Logan moved into a new home without realizing it's outside the City of Los Angeles boundaries, hence making him ineligible to serve on the panel.  No problem though, all Logan has to do is say he shops in the City, thus affirming his factual basis for being a stakeholder right?



Goofy Jan Perry is about to go postal on fast food joints in the hood.  Apparently she thinks Black and Hispanic people are too stupid to make appropriate food choices, ergot she will make them for them.  Goofy Jan plans to attempt a permanent ban on fast food joints across a wide swath of South LA.





Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses are often not on time to their scheduled destination  - as much as 63% off schedule - especially in heavy transit dependent coordinators.  Studies show that MTA supervisors oversee far more buses than their counterparts in other cities.  In an attempt to address the problem the MTA Board of Directors have voted to add ten more supervisors to the lines with the worst schedule problems.





Arizona Daily Star reporter George Sanchez will be the new reporter on the beat at the LAUSD for the Daily News starting next week.  Sanchez has covered schools in Tuscon and reports that this final piece for the Star will be a personal recount of his experience with testicular cancer.



As rising gas prices send more and more commuters from their cars to public transit, many are frustrated that the MTA does not allow transit users to bring bicycles on board during rush hour.  Using a bicycle to get from home to the station and from the station to work makes public transit work for many attempting to take advantage of LA's patchwork system.  Therefore Council President Eric Garcetti has called upon the transit agency to find a solution to allow bikes during rush hour.



South LA wants a Trader Joe's store in their area.  Councilman Bernard Parks has been working on it for some time.  According to Bitter Bernie, Trader Joe's won't put a store in South LA because everyone who lives there shops at the Culver City Trader Joe's helping to make it the number one store in the chain.  So here's a tip to those in South LA who want a Trader Joe's: stop shopping in Culver City and soon you'll have one of your own.



And finally it's not another goofy charter school but an effort by actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith is inspiring just as much buzz.  The former "Fresh Prince" and current box office superstar is defending charges that the private school he and Mrs. Smith are starting is not a Scientology school even though New Village Academy in Calabasas will use teaching techniques pioneered by L. Ron Hubbard and some of the teaching staff are practicing members of the church.  Sounds like sort of a rich man's version of Academia Semillas del Pueblo.