Digital Dodger Stadium

April 21, 2001

After a pretty brutal day at work, my Friday night turned out pretty well. First off, my digital camera finally got delivered (after much hassle and *two* cancellations due to strange bait and switch tactics). Second, I got to go to my first Dodger game of the year.

I was playing with the camera all night, ignoring the game for the most part. It was actually a very good game (Dodgers beat the Padres 3-1) but we sat through three rain delays that killed the momentum.

Even with my interest in the game waning, there were a few great stories. Kevin Brown pitched a real gem before leaving with a back (?) injury, throwing his hard sinker all night and sawing guys off consistently. The few hits the Padres could muster were lucky strokes, often inside-out hits off the hands.

After Brown left, Gregg Olson came in and pretty much saved the game. It was great to see Olson back after years of injury and ineffectiveness. When he first came up, Gregg Olson had the single best curveball I’d ever seen. It was a wicked divebomb of a pitch, rendering many hitters useless as Olson established himself as one of the great closers in the game. He blew out his arm soon after, and the hammer was gone. The curve hasn’t really returned. It breaks sooner than I remember and it doesn’t have that great 12-6 o’clock drop anymore. Still, he seems to have picked up a few new tricks and looked really good out there. Good for him.

Unfortunately, Tony Gwynn injured himself running the basepaths early, so we didn’t get to see him play very much. The Padres recently acquired Rickey Henderson, the single greatest lead-off hitter of all time, so it was kind of fun to see him stalk left field for the night. Despite Rickey’s greatness, his attitude and ego has not endeared him to fans. It’s sad to see people booing him to death as he plays out the string, while other aged mediocrities get much better sendoffs. I couldn’t help but think of Rickey as the loneliest guy on the field when I took the first picture below. The other photos are me messing around. In the last photo, note how my hands absolutely DWARF the camera.

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Posted in Endless Whining