The stuff you find when you’re moving

I might have mentioned a time or two that I am trying to move in the middle of all this playoff coverage. Last night, while in the process of doing so, I was purging a bunch of stuff from this one drawer where I keep a ton of old greeting cards, handwritten notes and correspondence from readers (yes, back in the day, I used to get actual LETTERS from readers, like that came through the U.S. mail). Anyway, I ran across a note I received while working at the Rocky Mountain News in the late 1990s. During that time, one of my baseball-season responsibilities was a regular Monday feature called Colorado Connection, in which I would pick a minor-league player from Colorado, try to get in touch with him and write a brief story about him. Well, the note I found had a return address from Ralph T. Lidge of Englewood, Colorado, and it read as follows:

Dear Tony,
I wanted to thank you for the recent article you wrote concerning Brad. We are very grateful to you and Tracy (Ringolsby) for continuing to cover him and for your effort to contact Brad and the Astros in order to present some insight regarding his activity in Kissimmee. Thank you, Tony. Please feel free to call us at any time.
Sincerely,
Ralph Lidge

Brad Lidge, a former standout at Cherry Creek High School in Denver, was an Astros prospect pitching at Single-A Kissimmee of the Florida State League that year. And now, he is someone Dodgers fans have gotten to know all too well over the past few days.

Anyway, here is tonight’s lineup

Dodgers:

Furcal. SS
Ethier. RF
Ramirez. LF
Martin. C
Loney. 1B
Blake. 3B
Kemp. CF
DeWitt. 2B
Billingsley. RHP