Dodgers news: Kenley Jansen’s sinker, Vin Scully on radio games, MLB starting pitchers

This postseason marks the 100-year anniversary of the first Major League Baseball game broadcast on radio, a milestone celebrated and profiled by Jared Diamond at the Wall Street Journal.

Among the interviews in the story is Vin Scully, who turns 94 in November and has almost quite literally seen it all in baseball. As a Dodgers announcer for 67 years, Scully called games on both radio and television. He explained the difference to Diamond:

“Radio means freedom,” Mr. Scully said. “You have the radio on and you can paint the garage. With television, it’s a commitment. Radio is your associate—you have it with you and you’re listening while you’re doing something else. Television, you’re saying, ‘You’re the boss. I can’t leave while you’re on.’”

Links

• Kenley Jansen has a great sinker that is a lot like a four-seamer, but also has qualities of both pitches, making it quite effective. Brian Menéndez at Baseball Prospectus digs deep into the success of Jansen’s primary secondary offering.
• Michael Ajeto at BP wrote a thought-provoking piece on the importance of proper identification. “Getting people’s names right can be a complex issue at times, but it’s also the bare minimum,” Ajeto wrote.
  
  One of the two player examples highlighted was the former Dodgers utility man extraordinaire now playing in Boston. Ajeto’s argument was convincing enough that, going forward, I will follow his advice: Enrique Hernandez in print, Kiké when said aloud.
• Bill Shaikin at the Los Angeles Times opined that starting pitchers should be showcased more in the MLB playoffs, a perfectly fine article and sentiment. But I’m still cleaning up the vomit after reading this quote within from Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten:
  
  “Unlike basketball, hockey and soccer, we have 300 discrete breaks in the action every night,” Kasten said. “That’s an opportunity for us to program it, with trivia or social media or betting or texting, whatever it is. That’s an opportunity for us to relate to customers in the way that they consume games.”
  
  How do you do, fellow kids?
• The origin story of old friend Joc Pederson’s pearl necklace is ably chronicled by Stephanie Apstein at Sports Illustrated, but don’t sleep on the wonderful “Pearls before swing” headline.
• “In 2021, nothing communicates civic pride quite like a Dodger hat,” wrote Dave Schilling at the Los Angeles Times.