Weekend Buzz: City of L.A. shakes baseball world with Manny, Tex
The Weekend Buzz while you were barbecuing to Kid Rock's All Summer Long. ...
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| The addition of Manny is already taking its effect on the Dodgers fans. (AP) |
The baseball world felt the ground shaking to the west, too, as the Los Angeles Angels traded for Mark Teixeira and the Los Angeles Dodgers dealt for Manny Ramirez.
Maybe you viewed the quake as some sort of natural phenomenon, or even as another precursor to the entire state falling off into the Pacific Ocean -- but by the time the trade deadline passed, it was fairly obvious that there are baseball gods and they do communicate with us.
"The thing that sucks is adding a player of that caliber to a team we're competing with," said Arizona pitching coach Bryan Price, whose Diamondbacks now must contend with Manny in their hair after failing to add Teixeira to their lineup. "That sucks, but it's whoever plays best for the next two months."
Arizona escaped L.A. with its one-game NL West lead intact, though it's about as stable as the supermarket shelves that spilled their contents onto the floor during the earthquake.
Talk about instantly becoming the epicenter of the game's buzz.
The Dodgers sold 12,000 tickets to sell out Friday's Manny Debut in the 24-hour period following the trade, and on Saturday night, the standing ovations continued as a crowd of 54,544 asked for -- and was granted -- a curtain call following Ramirez's first home run as a Dodger. Then he went 4-for-5 with a homer and three RBI Sunday.
Overall, in the first 24 hours after acquiring him, the Dodgers sold 30,000 tickets to home games the remainder of this season and nearly 300 season-ticket packages for the remainder of '08. All-Star catcher Russell Martin said the Dodger Stadium crowd Friday night was the loudest he's heard this year.
"It brought new life to the ballpark, that one player," Martin marveled. "It's amazing what one player can do. I think everyone is really excited about it."
Said manager Joe Torre: "He's special, there's no question about it. He's going to do some exciting things here."
Though Teixeira possesses neither the marquee value nor the dreadlocks of Manny, he smashed a grand slam Sunday in Yankee Stadium that lost some of its drama when the Angels dropped what probably was their sloppiest game all season.
Still, the team with baseball's best record won an astounding seven of 10 games on a trip through Baltimore, Boston and New York, including their second three-game sweep of the Red Sox in two weeks.
