Dodgers award themselves a title
The Dodgers are calling themselves "the defending NL West co-champs" after finishing second in the division this summer.
That weird phrase appears at the bottom of news releases we've been receiving from Chavez Ravine since the end of the season, in small type that goes on to note the franchise's all-sports record for "cumulative attendance" (172 million fans!) and its six "world" championships.
The Dodgers aren't NL West co-champs. They and the Padres finished 88-74. To identify one team as the division champ and the other as the playoff wild card, the tie was broken by the Padres' 13-5 record in games against the Dodgers.
That's the rule, and everybody knew it going in.
I realize nobody wants to trumpet themselves as Defending NL Wild Card.
Still, the Dodgers' claim to any sort of title in '06 raises more questions than it settles.
How do you mark a division co-championship, by raising a torn-in-half flag? How do "defending" co-champions go about defending a co-championship? If they win the West outright in 2007, can we say they failed in their attempt to defend?
Not to nitpick, but you have to expect this now and then from an outfit called Words & Numbers.
*
While we're talking Dodgers ...
Andre Ethier, Takashi Saito and Russell Martin received second- and third-place votes in the National League Rookie of the Year balloting, won by the Marlins' Hanley Ramirez. It's pretty rare for a team to have three rookies in the vote count (let alone six, as Florida had).
Having this many talented kids -- we'll forget for a moment that Saito is no kid -- must say great things about a club's future, right? I did some cursory research and found the none-too-encouraging answer.
Since the current Rookie of the Year voting format came in, nine teams have had three rookies get votes, including the 1995 Dodgers (winner Hideo Nomo, Chad Fonville, Ismael Valdez). None of the last eight has won so much as a pennant since its rookie trifecta. Then there are the 1981 Twins (Dave Engle, Brad Havens, Gary Ward), who went on to win the World Series -- six years later, by which time all three players had moved on.
It's never as simple as you'd like.
*
While we're still talking Dodgers ...
John Guarino of Burbank read the sports fans' ballot in my Election Day column, and cast a write-in vote.
Among the questions was, "What have you enjoyed most in 2006?" -- suggested candidates including the Dodgers' four-homer inning, the Clippers' rise, UCLA's tournament run, George Mason's Cinderella story, Roger Federer's dominance, the World Cup, Barbaro's fight for life and the Cowboys' trouble with Terrell Owens.
Guarino mailed that part of the column to me with this written in: "(Paul) Lo Duca's double tags at home plate on 2 Dodgers."
Good call, John.