Kuzul

Just blame it on the manager. In Major League Baseball, when a team that appears dominant on paper but underperforms on the field, managers tend to take the brunt of the fault. Often times, they’ll lose their jobs because of it even though they aren’t the ones playing. Through the early stages of the 2013 season there have been three teams that haven’t played like many expected to: the Toronto Blue Jays (15-24, 9.5 GB), Los Angeles Angels (14-24, 10 GB) and Los Angeles Dodgers (15-22, 7.5 GB). But should fans be blaming John Gibbons, Mike Scioscia and Don Mattingly for their respective teams' woes? And if so, who deserves the most criticism?  Is It John Gibbons’ Fault?The Toronto Blue Jays made a slew of offseason moves in order to attempt to make the postseason for the first time since 1993. Toronto acquired several Cy Young-worthy starting pitchers and a ...

The Los Angeles Dodgers lost to the San Francisco Giants on Friday night, courtesy of a Buster Posey walk-off home run. But more importantly, they may have lost their starting shortstop for a significant period of time. Hanley Ramirez was helped off the field after he unsuccessfully attempted to go from first to third on a single by catcher A.J. Ellis. AT&T Park is not the field of dreams for Ramirez—he fractured his thumb in his last game there in March in the finals of the World Baseball Classic.Clutching his hamstring on the way into the dugout certainly wasn’t a good sign, nor was the pained expression on his face. Manager Don Mattingly wasn’t too thrilled about it either. In fact, in comments made to reporters after the game, it was clear he’s downright shaken by it. "We can't keep losing guys at this rate," Mattingly said. "This is going ...

With MLB's 2013 Hall of Fame voting discussions dominated by whether Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds are deserving candidates, another candidate with little hope of garnering the required 75 percent vote enters his 13th year of eligibility. His name is Don Mattingly, aka "Donnie Baseball", who played first base for the New York Yankees.By the tender age of 26, Don Mattingly had won a batting title and an MVP award. During his first four full seasons, Mattingly amassed an astounding 842 hits, blasted 119 homers and had 483 runs batted in. His batting average stood at a sparkling .331. Mattingly was one of the toughest batters in all of baseball to strike out (a rarity for a power hitter). For his career, Don struck out once every 15.7 at-bats.In the field, Mattingly was equally brilliant. With cat-like reflexes, and sure hands, Don won nine Golden Glove awards. Entering the 1990 season, Don Mattingly was recognized as ...

It isn't mentioned much because the New York Yankees didn't make the playoff series, but the 1985 season produced an unanswerable question. So has almost every season in baseball history. Which type of player has greater value to his team—the one who gets on base and sets the table to start a rally or the player who drives in the table-setter? The 1985 Yankees finished two games behind the Toronto Blue Jays. They won 97 games, which was six games more than the Western Division Kansas Royals won. Don Mattingly had a tremendous season. He hit .324/.371/.567 with 35 home runs and 145 RBIs.  Rickey Henderson had a tremendous season. He hit .314/.419/.516 with 99 walks and 146 runs scored. Henderson stole 80 bases and hit 24 home runs, but batted in only 72 runs.  Many believed that Mattingly was the MVP. Others supported Henderson. When Yankees manager Billy Martin ...

A victim of circumstance, or bad luck? That's what you have to ask yourself when reading the story of Don Mattingly. Throughout the history of sports, we've seen several players and coaches have tough luck in their respective sports. However, in my opinion, there is no figure in sports that has had worse luck than Don Mattingly. It seems his bad luck follows him wherever he goes. I looked at the standings today and noticed the Dodgers are only one game under .500 and in third place. Although they're out of the race for a playoff spot already, they haven't had too bad of a season considering their situation as a franchise.Since Mattingly has taken over as skipper, the Dodgers have run into all sorts of financial issues.  Sure the tragic events of the Dodgers had already been set in motion before Mattingly arrived, but it became uglier after Mattingly took ...

With spring training now at its peak and Cactus League play in full gear, the Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves in the national spotlight of the sports media in regards to a number of popular storylines.Team ownership is obviously at the forefront, as Frank McCourt was anticipating a $200 million cash advance from Fox until the transaction was blocked by MLB commissioner Bud Selig late last week. It's unclear exactly where the overall finances of the club lie, but the fact that McCourt was involved in plotting such a deal doesn't sound encouraging.In the meantime, the divorce ordeal between Frank and Jamie continues to trudge along. Frank's gun is loaded with the intention of new trials and appeals, while Jamie continues to express interest in gaining some type of control of the organization. However, the team, the fans and Major League Baseball itself would love nothing more than to see ...

With Spring Training rapidly approaching, the 2011 Los Angeles Dodgers' roster is nearly finalized. First-year manager, Don Mattingly, hopes to improve the team from the 2010 edition that was two games under .500. Expectations were high going into last season after the 2009 club won a National League-high 95 games in 2009. A combination of bullpen injuries, a fading Manny Ramirez, and the messy owner situation resulted in a fourth-place finish in the NL West and frustrated fans. "The question I have this year, that I didn’t have last year ago, is really rebounding from last season—'08 and '09 were two really good years," said GM Ned Colletti. "We gained a lot, players matured a lot, got more understanding of the dynamics of competing at this level and playing in October. Heading into the 2010 season, many thought that the Dodgers biggest issue would be their starting pitching. This was simply not the case ...

On Wednesday afternoon, Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame class for 2011 was announced and, as anticipated, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar amassed the number of votes necessary for their enshrinement in Cooperstown this summer. A Hall of Fame candidate must receive 75 percent of the vote from eligible Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) members to garner induction. Considered by many to be the best second baseman in baseball history, Alomar fell short of induction by only eight votes in 2010, which was his first year on the ballot. But after garnering 73.7 percent of the vote last year, the Puerto Rican native was named on 90 percent of the ballots to become one of only two players to comprise this year’s Hall of Fame class. Meanwhile, Blyleven, who was in his 14th year of eligibility, received 79.7 percent of the vote to warrant election in what has widely been considered one of ...

On Wednesday afternoon, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the induction of Bert Blyleven (among others) after a 14-year wait.  Blyleven's election comes on the heels of the elections of Jim Rice (class of '09) and Andre "Hawk" Dawson ('10) after comparably long waits.  With these three men all in, we can now turn our sights to other players who have spent many years (five or more for the sake of this article) on the ballot and are still waiting for the all-important call from Cooperstown.  I took each player who will be on their fifth ballot or late in 2012.  Players are ordered not by merit, but by time on the ballot to avoid any claims of favoritism.   Dale Murphy: 1977-1993 (14th Ballot in 2012): .265 BA, 398 HR, 1,266 RBIs, 1982 and '83 NL MVP, 7-time All-Star, 5 Gold Gloves, 4 Silver Sluggers (12.6 percent in 2011) With the exception ...

On Wednesday, the Baseball Writers Association of America will announce the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2011. There's no telling how the results will shake out, but after seeing how the voters have gone the last few years, one thing's for sure: they'll get it wrong. Roberto Alomar missed induction by eight votes last year, and Bert Blyleven fell just five ballots short. In 2009, Jim Rice earned enshrinement while Tim Raines is still waiting for his turn. And some of the best players of our generation will never reach immortality because of PEDs. Whether or not you agree with the BBWAA, it's easy to understand why others don't. With voters like Dan Graziano and Terence Moore already saying preposterous things like that they didn't vote for Jeff Bagwell because they have unfounded hunches that he took steroids, it looks like this year's election has the potential to again exude massive amounts ...