Rivalry has Value

The Brooklyn Trolly Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957. Before that season, to ease the fans' pain, Owner Walter O'Malley hired the clown Emmett Kelly to perform before and after games. Kelly's character, Weary Willie, looked very much like the famous Brooklyn Bum drawn by cartoonist Willard Mullin.

At the close of Spring training in 1958, O'Malley met with New York Giant owner, Horace Stoneham, who had decided to move his team to Minneapolis, Minnesota. O'Malley didn't try to persuade Stoneham to stay in New York, but he did suggest that the Giants owner consider San Francisco. If he moved there and the Dodgers went to Los Angeles, O'Malley said, they could re-create the fierce Giants-Dodgers rivalry on the West Coast.

Yesterday the Los Angeles Dodgers finally showed up and played some hard ball. Coming back from a 6-1 deficit, at the expense of the surging Colorado Rockies, had to put smiles on many Giants' fans' faces. Up until the Dodgers 7-6 victory, in extra innings, the Dodgers were no shows.

The Dodgers can play a key role in determining who will win the west, since they play the Padres this upcoming week.

The Giants will be heading to Colorado after playing three at Wrigley Field versus the Cubs. The weekend series (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) will most likely determine who wins the west, especially if the Dodgers win their series versus the Padres.

It's good to see the Dodgers get involved. Nobody respects those teams that appear to have mailed in the final two weeks of the season. It's better for the game to have all teams represent.

It was good the Giants took care of business when the Dodgers came to town and they'll need to win both the Cub and Rockies series to have a chance at the Western Division title (before facing the Padres in their final series of the regular schedule). It goes without saying, they'll need to win that series as well.

Because the Rockies and Padres are no more than one game different winning the series is a must.

Sandwiched between the Colorado series and the final three games versus San Diego at AT&T Park is 3-games with the Diamondbacks. The Giants can't allow what happened to Milwaukee to happen with Arizona. They had better take two out of three in all of their remaining games if they expect to make it into the post season.

3 at Wrigley
3 at Colorado

Day off on Monday, September 27.

3 vs Arizona @ AT&T
3 vs San Diego @ AT&T (October 1, 2, and 3.)

(information on the move west from an article out of Sports Illustratedd)

Kevin Marquez