Pete's Arboblog: August 7th evening edition

[GarryP]

Thursday has come and gone, the grand experiment now over, I got home another 1:40 minutes after practice taking the bus home to Venice. This time, the first driver gave me the wrong transfer, which was refused by driver #2, so I had to pay another full fare. That, plus the bus heading to Venice from Vermont Blvd. passed us by, all 20 of us waiting for 15 minutes because his bus was full.

Sop we waited another 15 minutes. Then I got to stand for the first 15 minutes. Not complaining, it is the way it is. It's no fun, and it takes a LOT of time, and does not save much money. I'll try the train from LAX to the Harbor Fwy and another train north next week perhaps.
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I talked with Chris Galippo and he says he's been working out as much as he can for his cardio vascular conditioning, but there was not a lot else he could do, and he is pretty sure he'll be ready to practice in about two weeks, then ready to play two weeks after that.

I talked to Pinkard and KeTo again today about how good it is to see them out there again. We joked that each could be trainers in their future after spending so much time under the tent last year.

I was right on top of the play where big #70 got hurt, looked like both knee and ankle, he was limping around, and they put ice on it right away.

Lots of hard hitting again today, despite no pads. Somebody's gonna get hurt out there if they don't watch out!

--Talked to several fans at practice about their travel plans to Virginia and Oregon. John Papadakis was hanging out, so was Big Dave Baker,who says he likes the feeling of being out of work. Says Sammy is working with the first team right now. Baker was standing next to former AA lineman and movie mogul Alan Graf and his giant soon-to-be Trojans son, and made them both look like regular sized humans. Baker is a BIG man. With a huge heart.

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I spent about five minutes with Dodger owner Frank McCourt. We talked about the play yesterday where the Dodgers and Cards got involved in a rule dispute over when a player is officially entered into the game. I am somewhat of an expert on this, and told McCourt what had happened when I was P.A. guy there in the 90's.

The Braves wanted to force the Dodgers into a pitching change, the Dodgers wanted to force the Braves into wasting a pinch hitter. The Braves hitter waited and waited and finally had no choice but to go to the plate. Usually, t he home plate ump will signal up to the booth the said player is now in the game, but--and make no mistake about this---sometimes they either forget or simply don't do it.

That's a risky time for the announcer--when do you go ahead and make the announcement? Generally, i erred on the side of caution, and waited for a pitch to be thrown, but on this night, I took the rule book literally (and when there are only about four rules regarding announcements during a game, you tend to learn them and know them pretty well).

The batter stepped into the batter's box and I made the announcement and the Dodgers made their pitching change and Cox came out and told the ump that he had never officially put the batter into the game, removed him and replaced him with the original batter instead. Lasorda blew a gasket when the home plate ump, the late Bruce Froemming agreed with the Atlanta skipper. he played the game, rightfully, under protest, for it says in the rule book, clearly, that a batter becomes official when he steps into the batter's box, a pitcher when he assumes his place on the rubber, a position player when the first pitch is thrown.

Froemming called me on the dugout phone into the press box and absolutely reamed me. used the "F" word about thirty times in three minutes.

The game continued, the Dodgers won, the protest forgotten. i got to=2 0appear on the post game show with Vinny.

Froemming called me the following morning and apologized to me for being wrong (the only time an umpire has ever admitted that to me).

I hear good buddy Kenny Levine talked about that episode last night on the post game show.

McCourt thanked me for the story, and went back to his day spent with MG.

It was one of the four or five really memorable moments that I had as Dodgers PA announcer, other than watching some great baseball accomplishments during those years, such as a perfect game, 18 K's game, a no hitter, knocking the Giants out of the playoffs, good things like that.
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I see some news service is reporting that Angelo Johnson has left the SC basketball team.
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We held our every other year media type meeting to help select the next class for the USC Athletic Hall of Fame. On hand were MG, Tom Kelly, Mike Walden, Steve Bisheff, Carol Dougherty, Tim Tessalone and me. You can hardly ever go wrong with the selections, but it is a tough thing to do: to pick one or two persons per sport to be enshrined.
I feel extremely honored that they trust me enough to be a part of that group. We are also empowered to choose one of our own as the "media" entry into the hall. I made a nomination, a small speech and my nominee was accep ted whole heartedly.

I thought of bringing up Fred Gallagher, but our honoree fully deserves this tremendous honor. I can't tell you who it is, of course, you'll find out at an October football game.

The Hall of Fame dinner is next spring at the Galen Center.

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We are about to put the finishing touches on a recap of the 83 season for use at Salute to Troy, and am about to begin work on a retrospective of the 78 National Champs as they celebrate their 30th anniversary.

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Off the grid for a few days, going up north to visit my pop. See you at the first pad practice Sunday night if I get back in time. And I'm NOT taking the bus! Enjoy the weekend, and Olympics opening up. Fight On to all our Olympian Trojans. Let's see those victory fingers up in the opening ceremony!