Without making a judgement call, far too much has transpired, and expired, since 2016, when the third edition of this 240-pager (highlighted in red) last landed. At least 16 pages worth, for starters. We reviewed that one here.
And that was already a nice upgrade from the original in 2006 (mostly all red on its cover). And that was in need of an update just two years later in 2008 (mostly in green).
For those on the color spectrum, this one’s trimmed in bold blue to stand out from the rest.
In what is presented in the cleanest of typeface, clearest of sans-serif fonts, crispest drawings and illustrations, on the highest-grade paper stock, not to mention a convenient size (9 inches tall, 5 inches wide and less than inch thick) to carry around – there’s something you don’t read every day about a ball-type book – it is, in essence, what you may expect from a field guide that otherwise instructs and enlightens and demystifies about subjects such as birds, wildlife flowers, restaurants or travel destinations.
And baseball, these days, might even cross over into any of those four topics, and more. (Right, Orioles fans?)
Page 1 of the instruction manual is even set aside for “Instruction: How to Use This Book,” with suggested entry points: Use it as quick reference, a more extended explanation of the Major League Baseball rule book, or, just read the whole thing and learn.
The screwball randomness of the Dodgers’ decades-late declaration that it will finally retire Fernando Valenzuela’s number 34 this coming August is … is ….
“It’s about damn time,” Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke wrote last February, as the team was patting itself on the back by making the announcement at their off-season Dodger FanFest gathering. That includes the irony that the announcement came issued on a piece of paper to the media “for immediate release.”
Immediately, we laughed.
“The single question I get asked more than any other is, ‘When are you going to retire Fernando Valenzuela’s number?’” team president and CEO Stan Kasten is quoted in the Plaschke piece. “The answer is, this year.”
Only 11 years after Kasten and his Guggenheim Baseball Management group leveraged a bidding-war purchase of the franchise, wrestling it away from Ballpark Frank McCourt.
At least they didn’t listen more to their marketing team wait until ’34 – as in 2034 – to get this done.
Roger Owens’ whereabouts inside Dodger Stadium on any given game may be as much a minor miracle as it is a logistical challenge. It remains one of our most logical pursuits whenever we get the nerve to navigate the traffic inside and out of the ballpark these days.
Why go to a game? One good reason: Check in on Roger Dodger. For love of the game.
Through any stadium entrance, get to the loge level and survey which odd-number aisles of the third-base side Owens may be traversing like some kind of garden maze. Get in his line of vision. Then sheepishly strike up a conversation, even if it causes him to pause from his duties as the iconic peanut vendor performing one of the city’s most noteworthy deeds of the day. For his satisfaction and employment, and for our entertainment experiences.
Owens has given us enough nifty insights into his career over many decades – specifically in 2008 when the Dodgers returned to the L.A. Coliseum to commemorate their 50th anniversary in the city by staging an exhibition game against the Red Sox, and then catching up prior to the Dodgers-Red Sox 2017 World Series. It finally led to local city government proclamations recognizing his impact on our lives.
He’s got his own Internet Movie Database resume — “Men In Tights” in 1993 came about because Mel Brooks knew his work and his role in a crowded gathering — he brought the joy. He’s made several appearance on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” back in the day. We own a bobblehead — signed — created for him in his honor by a local company — and still not yet distributed at Dodger Stadium in a night that might honor him instead of some marginal relief pitcher.
Roger Owens, right, explains how life is going these days with me and my friend, Chuck, during the Dodgers’ first Sunday home game of the 2023 season.
What’s relevant in 2023 is that Owens is, among others, unnecessarily taking the brunt of the residual effects of baseball’s attempt to improve its overall commerce.
New rules extract so-called dead time and try to wrap up nine innings in less than three hours. Great. But it’s only natural that Owens (and other vendors) have less time to sell and generate income. They have to work quicker. That isn’t fair, or easy, for someone like Owens, who just turned 80 on Valentine’s Day and has to deal with arthritic ailments that naturally come from years of going up and down stairs, being in the sunshine as it affects the skin, and also having issues with his hearing. He’s also still wearing the surgical mask because he feels safer.
On top of that: A bag of peanuts has soared to close to $8 a bag with tax.
To ring up sales, Owens needs to lug around a portable credit card scanner – which often is faulty and has to be swapped out for another one. Tips are tougher to generate that way as well. That leads to a jam up of employees trying to replenish during the game.
Owens says he can only get through two cases of peanuts, which have 36 bags each, because of limitations, slower sales and all else that factors in.
This is all on top of a backward edict, still unresolved and unaddressed, that prevents him from tossing fans their bags of peanuts as he has done since the 1950s when he was a teenager at the Coliseum. Or else he’ll get in trouble. Obviously, a bag of nuts he tosses from 20 feet away, by way of a right arm going between his legs, around his back, or over his head, could really, really hurt someone, right? Especially those whose noses are pressed to their cellphones and aren’t paying attention.
All things considered, it would hardly seem to be worth the effort. But this is Roger Owens. Resilient. Persistent. Never shell-shocked by all these distractions. The last homestand, he even had a scary moment when he stumbled over a obstacle meant to keep people in line, went face-first onto the pavement, scratched his glasses, busted up his mouth and came out of it with a bruised left eye. But he came back to pitch after spending some time in the stadium infirmary.
Owens will always defy the odds and figure out how to do his circus-type work, no matter what clowns are running the show.
David Newhan, who managed to get eight solid years in as a Major League Baseball infielder and outfielder with San Diego, Philadelphia, Baltimore, the New York Mets and Houston, between 1999 and 2008, deviated from a recent career path as a big-league coach so he could jump in as the head coach at Maranatha Christian High School in San Diego. He’s been there since mid-season 2022 after the team got off to a 1-9 start.
Maranatha Christian’s Nico Newhan, left, and David Newhan in Feb., 2023 in San Diego. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
The impetus for the change: His son, Nico, plays there now as a senior, and will be a shortstop heading to the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship soon.
David could see the writing on the wall. Perhaps, because his father, Ross, is in the writers’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, recognition for his career as a journalist with the Long Beach Press-Telegram and Los Angeles Times covering the Dodgers, Angels and then the game in general.
“The fact is I spent every spring training and summer at the ballpark,” Ross says in the story. “So naturally, baseball was a way for me to be closer to my son … The players were great to (David). He worked in the clubhouse, he got to be the bat boy. I never pushed David into baseball. He just gravitated to the game.”
Same story with David and his son.
“He was running around the clubhouse when I was with the Mets and Astros,” said David. “I could see he was driven. I’m not surprised by his success.”
Adds Nico: “Not many kids are blessed with a dad who played and coached in the big leagues. For my dad to take time away from his coaching career to be with me and this team is a blessing.”
The baseball thread that can connect grandfather to father to son isn’t one seen all that often on the big-league level, so appreciate it when it happens – or could. In any scenario.
Mark Braff, a retired media PR professional from New Jersey looking for a project to work on, came up with this idea even though he says in the acknowledgements that, before this book began in January 2021, “I did not know a single ‘son of baseball’ … so, challenge number one was to figure out how – or even if – I could connect with the people whose stories are collected in this book.”
He explains more how one contact led to another. Dodgers’ assistant PR director Jon Chapper thought he might have more than something with Jerry Hairston, Jr., the current Dodgers’ SportsNet LA studio analyst.
As Braff tracked down and interviewed 18 sons of former MLB players, Hairston and his 16-year MLB career with Baltimore, the Chicago Cubs, Texas, Cincinnati, the New York Yankees, San Diego, Washington, Milwaukee and the last two with the Dodgers in 2012 and ’13, warranted inclusion. He’s the only one of a three-generation baseball family mentioned.
Or, Jack, if that’s the best way to reclaim the real man in the 21st Century.
And why wouldn’t it be?
That’s how his name appears on his Baseball Hall of Fame plaque. The nickname is singled out because, well …
That’s just the fact, Jack.
Every year, we wonder what is also left to fight for in trying to find anything — anything — new about the man honored again on this day by Major League Baseball, 76 years after making headlines for walking onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn with a Dodgers’ uniform on, and now honored with everyone in the game sporting No. 42 on their backs?
Maybe we look at this all through the eyes a faith journey.
Or, how a young reader might want to discover his authentic story.
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