Absolute lock-down predictions for the Dodgers’ 2013 season
Here is this year’s list of 25 things I positively guarantee will happen with the Dodgers this season. If you will examine last year’s list of predictions, you will note I hit every single one. It’s a gift.
1. On opening day fans will marvel at the new high-definition screens, and then complain the concession lines are still too long.
2. Much to his surprise, Zack Greinke will discover he actually loves the media.
3. Guggenheim will announce it is buying AEG, two movie studios, the Los Angeles Times, two small South American countries, and build an NFL stadium in the Dodger Stadium parking lots.
4. Despite saying he did not want to discuss a contract extension during the season, Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers will announce a monster deal.
5. Hanley Ramirez will return in two months as scheduled from his thumb surgery, but his bat will take another month to arrive.
6. In the biggest news of the summer, nice guy A.J. Ellis will finally snap at a question asked by a grinning radio goof.
7. Don Mattingly will bunt too much. Hey, I always take an easy one.
8. One player will be lost in the new labyrinth of tunnels and rooms surrounding the Dodgers’ clubhouse, never to be seen again.
9. Matt Kemp won’t duplicate his outstanding 2011 season, but he’ll come close.
10. A turf war will break out in the new stadium kids’ area.
11. Nick Punto won’t be happy the new life-size bobbleheads around the stadium are actually taller than he is.
12. The cramped Dodger Stadium press box will suddenly look spacious and ideal after writers get a look at the new, squeeze-box Angel Stadium press box by the right-field foul pole. Worst press box in the history of sports.
13. Left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu won’t strike out 200, but will prove every bit as effective as the Dodgers hoped.
14. Reliever Matt Guerrier will announce in June he is retiring to become Dos Equis’ new most interesting man in the world: Guerrier: “Find out what it is in baseball you don’t do well, and then don’t do that thing.”
15. Fifty percent of all batters who line a single to Carl Crawford in left will try to run it into a double to test his elbow.
16. The new owners will continue with Jamie McCourt’s annoying playing of “God Bless America” in a seventh-inning stretch designed for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
17. Late bloomer Luis Cruz will prove last season was no fluke.
18. Brandon League and Justin Sellers become enraged in May when Josh Hamilton is selected as the major leaguer with the most tats.
19. Kershaw’s hip will prove fine, his plantar fasciitis will have a flare-up, but he’ll win a second Cy Young.
20. Dodgers radio broadcaster Charley Steiner will refer to Skip Schumaker as Scott Schumaker. Wait, too late.
21. Juan Uribe will actually prove a helpful addition off the bench, causing chaos to everyone on the Internet constantly making fun of his weight.
22. Magic Johnson, the face of ownership, will barely be seen until after his NBA broadcasting gig ends in the mid-June. Unless he takes another Mediterranean vacation afterward, then catch him in August.
23. Mel Brooks will ask Stan Kasten to assume Peter Boyle’s role in his next movie, “A Little Older Frankenstein.”
24. Vin Scully will bless us with every game he calls. OK, I took two gimmes.
25. Oh, yeah, and the Dodgers finish 92-70 and edge the Giants by a game.
ALSO:
Dodgers finalize 25-man roster, place four on disabled list
Dodgers’ other kind of relief: Matt Kemp finishes spring strong
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