Night Owl Cards

The Dodgers and Yankees are playing a doubleheader today and the first game pretty much went the way I expected. Plan on the same thing for tonight. It doesn't matter much to me because I was around for the previous time the Dodgers and Yankees played at Yankee Stadium (although it was the older stadium). In that game, the Dodgers demolished the Yankees 9-2 in the decisive Game 6 of the 1981 World Series and my satisfied smile was all my Yankee fan high school classmates saw the next day. The Dodgers and Yankees haven't played each other in the World Series since. That is why I will always like the MVPs from that Series, Pedro Guerrero, Steve Yeager and Ron Cey. It doesn't matter to me that Guerrero wound up a Cardinal, Yeager a Mariner and even Cey a Cub. No, the worst thing would be if they wound up a Yankee. Seeing Dodgers as Yankees or Yankees as Dodgers is very disorienting to me. They are two distinct franchises who are guided by different principles and back...

The arrival of Hyun-Jin Ryu as a member of the Dodgers signaled another threshold moment in L.A. uniform numerology. His choice of No. 99 marked the second time that a Dodger has worn that number while on a major league roster. No longer an uproarious one-and-done 2008 Mannywood dream, Ryu has taken 99 from Manny Ramirez and fashioned it with his own Far East style. So far, Ryu, tonight's starter, and Ramirez are the only Dodgers to wear the final number before venturing into triple digits (They have 99 problems but their number ain't one). But that started me thinking about the progression of the uniform number through Dodger history. Wearing a number in the 90s is a phenomenon of the last 15 years for L.A. Aside from Ryu and Ramirez, reliever Joe Beimel wore No. 97, and Pirates/Jays cast-off Jacob Brumfield wore No. 94 in 1999. The 80s numerals are a virtual wasteland with only Rick Wilkins, who played catcher for the Dodgers for all of three games, wearing...