Bobby Cox should be proud of his record

Congratulations to Bobby Cox, who on Tuesday, broke the record for most career ejections with his 132nd, passing John McGraw.

This is definitely a record he should be proud of. Despite being ejected so many times, Bobby Cox isn’t famous for arguing with umpires like Lou Piniella and Earl Weaver are. Cox isn’t famous for throwing temper tantrums like Lloyd McClendon or Phillip Wellman. Cox became famous without going crazy on the field, unlike so many other managers who have been ejected.

The main reason Cox got this record is he’s been managing forever, since the 1970s! That’s why he should be proud of this record. In today’s sports world, coaches and managers are fired quickly and often for a bad season or two. Cox has stuck around and almost always had good teams too since the 1990s.

Out of Cox’s 3979 games, he’s been ejected from 132 of them, or 3.3% of them, or an average of 5.4 times a season, or an average of once every 30 games. That’s not that much when you think about it. He’s just been around forever.

So hat’s off to you Bobby. May you keep getting ejected from games for years to come.

More about Bobby Cox’s record from around the blogosphere:
The Fynal Cut
Babes Love Baseball
Epic Carnival
One More Dying Quail

Wednesday Links

Jose Offerman, who I referred to as E-Offerman when he played on the Dodgers, got into a major fight in an independent league game. He swung a bat at the opposing pitcher and was later arrested. How low he has fallen.

Don Imus is getting sued by a Rutgers player. Yes, just now, well after the controversy. I agree with most of what We Suck at Sports said. What Imus said was horrible and awful, but he’s a shock jock. That’s what he does. And I’m no sexist pig — I do love women’s sports, and have always said we should cover them more.

An interesting story about meeting an enemy of Bartolo Colon. (Diamond Hoggers)

A bug has been found in Madden 2008 (Nyjer Please)

Ladies… celebrates its six-month anniversary. Congrats to them.

Plaschke thinks the Dodgers are a small-market team

LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke, who for whatever reason seems to have a lot of influence in the region, wrote a column today saying the Dodgers should start playing all of their young guys and make this a rebuilding year, essentially. 

There are so many reasons why this is stupid. Here are some that came to my head:

The Dodgers play in the 2nd-biggest market in the country and despite the Angels’ recent success, are still the most popular team in the region. They shouldn’t have to settle for rebuilding years.

The Dodgers have the 6th-highest payroll in the league at about $108 million. They’re not exactly a Kansas City or a Pittsburgh that need to rebuild and play their young guys.

The Dodgers signed several free agents with the intent of winning this year, guys like Juan Pierre, Jason Schmidt, Luis Gonzalez, Randy Wolf and Nomar Garciaparra (again). Most of those weren’t great signings, but they were signed with the intention of winning this year.

The Dodgers returned most of their players from a roster that went to the playoffs last year.

As bad as the Dodgers have played lately (and they’ve been bad), at 60-59, their winning percentage is about the same as the 2006 Cardinals who won the World Series. Why throw away a chance at the playoffs when anything can happen if you get in?

It was only three weeks ago that the Dodgers had the best record in the National League. The current Dodgers are only 4.5 games back of the Wild Card, and again, return most of a roster that saw an extremely streaky team a year ago (with stretches worse than this year’s team has been through) make the playoffs.

And if any of you haven’t read me closely — I’m an Angels fan, not a Dodgers fan. I’m not being a homer here.

I just despise Bill Plaschke and his clear biases in favor of some people (like current Dodger GM Ned Colletti, who Plaschke would have you believe is the greatest GM ever) and biases against people (like former Dodger GM Paul DePodesta, who Plaschke ran out of town, despite both GMs having similar track records up to now).

Plaschke says as much in today’s column, where he says he complained when past GMs didn’t make moves at the trading deadline to help their teams. But this year, it’s different, because he has a man-crush on Ned Colletti, even though the Dodgers are filled with veterans who were supposed to win this year. So when this year’s team struggles, it’s not Colletti’s fault, even though he was the one who devoted a huge chunk of the payroll to veterans who either get hurt or aren’t very good anymore.

To any Dodger fans who are reading this, ask yourselves, is this what you want? A rebuilding team? I’d be outraged (more than I already am) if I was a Dodger fan. That team has the talent that should be able to win now and in the future.