Trolley Dodgers, Day Game Rants and Historic Losses

Three-Dot Friday 7.11

I was listening to a San Francisco Giants fan disparage the Los Angeles Dodgers the other day, appropriate with the rivalry resuming this weekend, and he derisively called them the “Trolley Dodgers,” and since I never hear that name used any more I was impressed that at least somebody else knew the origin of the nickname.

In the 1880’s and ’90’s when the team began, Brooklyn was a fast-growing city. At the time, streetcars and trolleys were enough of a moneymaker that every railroad had their own private lines, and nothing was run by the city. (It explains why, for example, in old photos of San Francisco’s Market Street by the Ferry Building there are multiple lines and it looks like total chaos). Brooklyn’s streetcar lines were apparently very convoluted for such a relatively small place.

Things weren’t too bad when the cars were pulled by horses, but in the early 1890’s every company switched to that new-fangled electrical power, and as a result the speeds of the cars increased dramatically, and nobody gave a damn about hitting pedestrians- although primitive traffic signals had been around since the 1870’s, the first stop sign was not installed until 1914 in Detroit.

So, in order to get around Brooklyn on a daily basis in the mid-1890’s and not get killed by one of the almost dozen streetcar companies, you had to… dodge a trolley. The legend goes that things were especially hairy around Eastern Park where the team played at the time and that’s how the nickname arrived, but apparently there weren’t any streetcars in that area.

Plus, the nickname was originally given to fans of the club and not the team itself. Back then, nicknames were interchangeable depending on what newspaper you read, or which crowd you hung out with. The point of pride was the city itself, not the nickname. Teams had multiple nicknames based on the manager, the color of their socks or something the team did. For instance at this time, the Brooklyn team went mostly by the Bridegrooms, for several players had gotten married around the same time- or Ward’s Wonders, for manager John Montgomery Ward- and, starting in 1895, Trolley Dodgers, which was soon shortened just to “Dodgers,” to make it easier to put in a newspaper headline.

The team’s uniforms, meanwhile, didn’t include any nickname at the time- hardly any team did- they just had “Brooklyn” or a gothic-style “B.” The team didn’t acknowledge any nicknames until they won the 1916 NL Pennant. In the World Series programs they printed the matchup as “Dodgers vs. Red Sox,” with a picture of current manager Wilbert Robinson on the cover- himself the origin of yet another team nickname, as they were mostly known as the “Robins” during his tenure, winning two pennants in 18 years…

(Oh, have I mentioned yet today I wrote the book on the 1916 MLB season, focusing on the New York Giants still-record 26-game win streak and it’s available on Amazon and it’s still Prime Days and you should get it? Well, I have now.)

In 1932, the year after Robinson retired, they finally put “Dodgers” on the uniform and made it their official nickname, and that is what it has it stayed to this day. But almost no Dodger fan can tell you what exactly they were originally dodging.

Lee Elia will never go into the Hall of Fame for his managerial record, which lasted less than four full seasons, and his career mark is well under .500. The former skipper of the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies died this week with little fanfare. There was a little paragraph in all the obits that said something to the effect of “he was most known for a profanity-laden rant early in the 1983 season.”

That sentence is an extreme undersell in many ways. First of all, profanity-laden implies something less than dropping an eff bomb every three seconds for almost three minutes. Second, “well known for?” try a first-ballot manager tirade hall of famer. It’s him and then you can argue about who else is on that particular Mount Rushmore. The Hal McRae meltdown is more well known now because it was captured on videotape, but I’ll put Elia’s rant higher because it is a complete blasting of Cubs fans.

You see, at the time Wrigley Field was the only stadium in the majors without lights, so all of their games had to be day games (and they still should be, but you know, the almighty dollar rules all). So, anybody who came to a game during a weekday was considered to be skipping work or school (which is why Ferris Bueller had to get there at some point, or it wouldn’t have been a true ‘80’s Chicago day off). So, Elia’s issue is entirely with the fanbase. It is truly unhinged and that makes it all the better.

Did hearing it as a kid, even censored versions, inspire me to always go to day games whenever possible? You can figure that one out on your own…

I have to share the rant, obviously, but just be warned: it starts out hot and only increases. It’s not safe to be played out loud… pretty much anywhere…

The thing is, Elia was ultimately correct. The ’83 Cubs found their footing and were within a game of first place by Independence Day before fading, and Elia was fired in mid-August. The next year, the Cubs won the NL East and made their first postseason appearance since the 1945 World Series, albeit with a reasonably different team, trading for pitcher Rick Sutcliffe early in season and allowing this 24-year-old second baseman named Ryne Sandberg to really come into his own…

The best part about the Dodgers suffering their largest loss ever in Dodger Stadium against the Houston Astros on Independence Day, an 18-1 shellacking, was somehow not that it was the Dodgers biggest ever margin of defeat at Dodger Stadium, despite how fun that is to repeat.

No, the best part was that despite Houston winning 18-1, Astros pitcher Jason Alexander (no, not him, which is a joke that’s made every place he goes and everyone thinks they’re the first one to think of it) got a save, which is typically given to pitchers who finish close games. And he got the save because of the part of the rulebook that everybody forgets (well, except me) that says you can get a save by pitching three innings and finishing the game.

Which is exactly what the Windsor, California native did (home, by the way, to the Russian River Brewery, and one-time home of summertime staple Windsor Water Works Waterslide Park. But I digress, as usual). Starter Lance McCullers pitched the first six innings, left with the score 17-1, and Alexander finished the game, allowing just two hits and striking out a couple as well.

But this brings me to my favorite part of the rule. It used to say that one had to pitch three innings “effectively,” but they took that out at some point. So Alexander could have pitched three innings and given up 13 runs and the Astros could have won 18-14… and he still could have been credited with a save, because the four-run margin of victory is still big enough in the regular rule book to not count as a typical save situation (but the official scorer could always say, “Naaahhhhh”).

And of course, because it had to be, it is the only save of his (very short) major league career to date. His brother Scott has been a major league reliever for 11 seasons and has… 10 career saves (though none since 2023).

Scott actually made his season debut with the Giants Tuesday night. He started the 8^th inning, got two outs and then allowed two hits. Manager Bob Melvin then lifted him for Ryan Walker, who got the last out of the inning on one pitch. Scott came literally one pitch away from getting the win in the now-legendary first catcher inside-the-park walk-off home run game in 99 years. Instead, the credit goes to Walker, who threw that one pitch…

(If you have yet to hear the perfect call of the play- or just need to get chills again, Giants play-by-play man Dave Flemming delivered on the radio.)

But 17 runs isn’t even the largest margin of victory for a save this season! And I know that because I wrote it up when it happened… but it’s always worth repeating when it does. It’s worth noting that the pitcher who got the save in that Cincinnati Reds 24-2 win, Randy Wynne, was immediately sent back to triple-A and hasn’t appeared in an MLB game since, so he might hold the record (which I’m not going to look up) for fewest career innings pitched to earn a blowout save…

And the Dodgers have not won since… they’re on a six-game losing streak… and now here they are, dodging their way into San Francisco for the last series before the All-Star Break…

not Lee Elia’s favorite baseball fans. (photo by author)