2 days until pitchers and catchers report!!!!


GAGNE'S BACK!!!!!

I have to admit, despite my depraved cynicism that pervaded last year, I am getting really pumped about the baseball season. The Dodgers have made a multitude of changes this offseason. They fired Paul DePodesta, the "moneyball" general manager who was a curse to our team. They hired the assistant GM from the Giants (blech, Giants).....Ned Coletti, and he has done an excellent job bringing in some really exciting veterans on short term contracts to be here while our own guys mature in Las Vegas(boy, there's two concepts you don't put together very often...."mature" and "Las Vegas". Of course, I matured in Las Vegas....)They hired Grady Little, who despite one BIG mistake, is well-known as a good manager. I'm stoked!!!

We even just got a DVR.....mainly because since Indiana was so wimpy as to give in to pressure and submit to the evils of Daylight Savings Time.....I realized that starting this summer, my Dodger games will start at 10 p.m. all Summer! So if the game was promising, we can go back and watch it again. It will also help my kids stay in touch with their "heritage," because raising our kids as Dodger fans is only 2nd in importance to raising them as good Lutherans! (ok, joking....kind of).

But now they will get to see Gagne.....

It will always break my heart to see the clips of Paul Lo Duca and the Goon walking out to the mound together, knowing the relationship they had...and knowing that trade will live in infamy forever amongst the True Blue.....It was my first real heartbreak as a Dodger fan (my son had one earlier...when the Dodgers traded Gary Sheffield. I suppose it didn't help any that I was jumping up and down about it when my son came in the room to ask what I was happy about....)
I don't know if it made it better or worse that I am so far away....but then again, maybe it was better to be away from the press.....but it might have been nicer to have people to commiserate with, who knew my pain.

But its a new start...the owners seem to be vindicating themselves, the GM, the manager, and most of the team are all fresh and new, and Gagne once again takes the mound in the 9th.....I suppose that is the beauty of Spring, of Opening Day. Play Ball!!!! Go Blue!

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oh yeah!
weight loss: 15 lbs!
inches lost: 3.5 chest, 6.5 waist, 2.5 hips