Blue Blooded Ballers: Is The Grass Greener Grady?
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by Nate Gordon
(LOS ANGELES, CA) - The sports equivelent to watching your best friend date your sister and pretend like it's no big deal is being a Dodger fan watching Ned Colletti pretending like Grady Little as our manager is no big deal. Granted I will have to conceed that the '07 Dodger collapse can hardly rest on the shoulder of Little alone, but his managing style had a lot to do with it. Grady is a laid back, roll with the punches type of guy, not too much upsets his 'apple cart' and he does little to upset the ship as it sails. The bad side of that is that he is hesitent to take control of the navigation when the ship sails adrift, opting to allow the ship to right itself. This is a direct corralation between Grady's personality and 2 of the main faults in the Dodger line-up after the all star break:
- The voice of veterans upset about their roles on the team
- The voices of veterans upset with the profesionalism of the Dodgers younger stars.
A manager with a more hands-on approach would quickly resolve the issues of unhappy veterans and clear up the rookies lack of professionalism. Grady Little on the other hand continues to lean on the dugout rail, chin atop folded hands, glarring onto the prestine Dodger Stadium pitch. Not a sound, nor facial expression seems to come from this 'Art Shell of Baseball'. As the pitching staff continues to blow lead after lead and old grumpy veterans blow crucial at bats in the late innings, Grady continues to lean on the rail, with a stern look of indifference. It would take so much for him to do so little, yet that little could very well accomplish so much.
The Dodgers are set to go with Grady for another season so we as fans can only suck it up and hope he doesn't do nothing to blow it in '08. The pitching staff as of now seems set as follows: Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsly, Jason Schmidt and Estaban Loiaza. With Russell Martin continuing his backstop duites the Dodgers will turn to James Loney to take care of 1st base with Rafa Furcal and Jeff Kent continuing to run the douple play the Dodgers have a hole and a question at 3rd base. Matt Kemp and Andre Either will return to play either side of the outfield of Juan Pierre. That 3rd base question is a big one, with the Dodger looking for someone with both All Star defense and power. The answer that makes the most sense when not talking about money is Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod would recieve all the attention and endorsements he could ever ask for by coming to the Entertainment Capitol of the World. However will Frank McCourt be willing to shell out the $27-30 million a year that would be required over the next 7-10 years to put A-Rod in Dodger Blue? The next 6 weeks will have more answers to these nagging questions.
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