With the World Series now underway, here are some Dodgers stories to head into the weekend.
On the eve of the World Series, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times talked to a handful of Rangers about the possibility of Clayton Kershaw perhaps joining his hometown team. “I would give him my No. 22, happily,” Rangers pitcher Jon Gray told Shaikin.
After Dusty Baker’s retirement from managing this week, after over 50 years in a major league uniform, Mark Langill at Dodger Insider caught up with Ramon Alvarez, who while in eighth grade in 1976 started the Dusty Baker Fan Club and developed a bond with the then-Dodgers outfielder.
In the Arizona Fall League, Dodgers right-hander Kendall Williams has 17 strikeouts against only two walks in Glendale, including striking out six of 13 batters faced on Wednesday in three scoreless innings. MLB.com had more in a prospect roundup earlier in the week.
Josh Beckett, who pitched in parts of three seasons with the Dodgers after coming over in the infamous Nick Punto Trade, and who pitched a no-hitter for Los Angeles in 2014, still has the ball from the final out of the 2003 World Series with the Marlins. He told longtime Marlins beat writer Joe Capozzi that the ball has never come out of his glove, and is currently stored at his house in Texas:
“I had a case built for it,’’ he said. “The glove is in a case in a memorabilia case. You’d have to unlock two things to get to it. I couldn’t even tell you where the keys are to that thing.’’
A pair of flight attendants filed a lawsuit against United Airlines for racial and religious discrimination. Part of the suit alleges the duo were passed over for certain assignments, including Dodgers charter flights. From Tony Saavedra at the Los Angeles Daily News:
“Major American corporations like United Airlines must understand that it is illegal to make staffing decisions based on an employee’s race and looks, even if it is meant to please major clients like the Los Angeles Dodgers,” attorney Sam S. Yebri said in a prepared statement. “United’s blatantly discriminatory staffing decisions allowed the cancer of racism and antisemitism to metastasize on the flights themselves.”
The team did not comment on the lawsuit.