Joe Garagiola used to say "Baseball is a funny game." Even wrote a book with that title. Well, there are different kinds of funny. There's funny ha-ha, there's funny peculiar and there's funny downright bizarre.
We've had them all in the last week.
The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy Monday. Apparently, this is the financial kind of bankrupt. The dictionary also lists a definition for "bankrupt" as "somebody without quality." The Dodgers and their owner, Frank McCourt, have had that definition for quite a while now.
The Dodgers' biggest creditor at $21 million is Manny Ramirez, likely described in the bankruptcy filing as "the devil to whom we sold our souls." Next biggest is Andruw Jones at $11 million. He's producing about as much for the Dodgers since he left the team as he did when he was with it.
The Dodgers. Bankrupt. I never dreamed I'd ever see those two words together. I'm telling you, the only reason Peter O'Malley isn't spinning in his grave right now is because he isn't dead.
Also last week, two managers weren't fired by their teams. Well, actually, I guess you could say that about all 30 managers. The two I'm talking weren't fired, but they still left. They resigned.
As I said, there are only 30 major league managers; it's a very exclusive job market. So for two of them to resign in the same week, from the same National League East Division, is very unusual.
And the two managers resigned under very different circumstances. Edwin Rodriguez -- the majors' first Puerto Rican manager -- left the Florida Marlins after the team suffered through a 1-17 stretch in June. Jim Riggleman walked away from the Washington Nationals four days later, after his team had just earned its 11th victory in 12 games. Riggleman left because the Nationals wouldn't discuss giving him an extension on his contract, which was to expire at the end of the season.
The two managers' replacements warmed the cockles of AARP members' hearts everywhere: 80-year-old Jack McKeon took over in Miami, and 68-year-old Davey Johnson in Washington.
Strangely enough, the Angels wound up being the first team both new managers faced.
Then on Sunday, the Seattle Mariners beat the Marlins on an intentional walk.
Already this was a wacky series: It was moved from Miami to Seattle because Sun Life Stadium was being set up for a U2 concert. The Marlins were the home team and Sunday's game had to start at 7:10 p.m. West Coast time because of an MLS game across the street at CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) Field.
In the 10th inning with the score tied 1-1 and Seattle's Dustin Ackley at third base, Florida pitcher Steve Cishek began to intentionally walk Carlos Peguero. Ackley began noticing Cishek's pitches were getting wider and wider, wide enough in fact that one went to the backstop, Ackley was prepared and scored what turned out to be the winning run.
"I was pretty ready and when I saw it go by I just told my eyes run as hard as you can and hopefully I can get there," Ackley said.
Apparently Ackley talked his eyes into running pretty fast.
It's a funny game.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Now, if you please, talk your eyes into reading about these moments from the week just past:
-- Three times during Saturday's game against the Angels, the Dodgers put Marcus Thames in the on-deck circle as a potential pinch hitter. He never came up and now he's day to day with a calf injury. Must have gotten hurt walking up the dugout steps.
-- As in everything else surrounding the former manager's life, the uniform number retirement ceremony in Detroit for Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson on Sunday was filled with class.
-- Great ovation for Joe Torre at Yankee Stadium for the annual old-timers game. First he escapes New York to manage the Dodgers. Now he escapes L.A. to return to New York.
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