Mattingly rests Gordon, Loney vs. lefty Richard

Mattingly rests Gordon, Loney vs. lefty Richard

LOS ANGELES -- With the Dodgers facing Padres left-hander Clayton Richard in Friday's series opener, manager Don Mattingly decided to rest a few of his left-handed hitters.

Justin Sellers started in place of Dee Gordon at shortstop, while Juan Rivera was at first base in place of James Loney.

After Gordon went 0-for-4 with three fly-ball outs in Thursday's game against the Pirates, Mattingly felt Gordon looked a little fatigued and could use the day off.

"Dee hit some fly balls yesterday and kind of got out of his game. So, we'll give him a day off and get Justin out there," Mattingly said. "That is the beauty of having Justin. You get a guy who can really pick it at short. It is just the day for it."

With Gordon in his first full Major League season, Mattingly wants to make sure he's not overworked.

"He has a lot of responsibility, playing short and stealing bags," Mattingly said. "We are just giving him a mental day off, and it won't hurt him a bit."

While Loney did get his first hit of the season in Thursday's contest, he's struggled in his six starts this season, batting just .050 with two RBIs.

Mattingly said Loney will start the final two games against right-handers Joe Wieland and Edinson Volquez.

"I like playing our guys, and if James was crushing it, he would be in the lineup tonight, but he has struggled," Mattingly said. "It gets him a day.

"I just wanna get him going and let him line up and get him going against right-handers. We have two the next couple of days, and he'll be in there then."

Dodgers defense living up to expectations

And only seven games in, the team has yet to disappoint. Committing only two errors so far, Los Angeles has a .993 fielding percentage, the best in the National League.

"I kind of expected the team to be this good defensively this season," Mattingly said. "We were third in the league last year in defense. James [Loney], Mark [Ellis] and Juan [Rivera] can all pick it. I really thought we'd be good defensively."

With Kemp, Ethier and Kershaw all receiving their Gold Glove Awards before Friday's game against the Padres, Mattingly believes the Dodgers will put out a solid defensive team every night.

"Defense is one of those things that you should be good at every day. It is just a matter of wanting to be a good defensive player," Mattingly said. "To be in the right spot, to throw to the right base, that is all just a matter of wanting to be a good player. That should be there every night."

Scully misses fourth straight game with cold

The Dodgers said Scully is improving and could be back as soon as Saturday.

Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons called the game on PRIME TICKET, while Rick Monday and Kevin Kennedy were behind the microphone on AM 570 Fox Sports Los Angeles for the opener against the Padres.

Flirting with history, Dodgers turn to Lilly vs. Padres

Southpaw returns from disabled list to face rookie Wieland

No one is making any grand comparisons between the 1981 Dodgers and the 2012 club just yet, but a 7-1 record has Los Angeles off to its best start since the '81 world champions opened 9-1.

On Saturday, the Dodgers will look to keep pace against the 2-6 Padres.

Highly touted prospect Joe Wieland will make his Major League debut for San Diego after being acquired in last season's Trade Deadline deal that sent reliever Mike Adams to the Rangers. Wieland will face Dodgers lefty Ted Lilly.

"One of my favorite days is when a guy makes his Major League debut," Padres manager Bud Black said. "Joe will never forget today [Friday, showing up in his first big league clubhouse], and he won't forget tomorrow."

Wieland, who wasn't made available for comment Friday, was pulled from his start Tuesday while pitching for Triple-A Tucson and was told by manager Terry Kennedy that he was heading to the big leagues. His start comes on the day the Padres will need their fifth starter for the first time this year.

In two starts with Tucson, the 22-year-old was 0-1 with a 3.52 ERA in 7 2/3 innings. He had two walks and 11 strikeouts in that stretch.

"You like the arm and like the delivery," Black said. "In the spring, we saw a guy who has four pitches. I liked his composure, and he looked like a well-rounded player. He showed poise on the mound and is a clear thinker."

Wieland will be facing Lilly, who is 14 years his senior. Lilly returns to the rotation after starting the season on the disabled list with neck stiffness. In his lone rehab start, Lilly struggled, allowing seven runs in six innings.

But most importantly, Lilly said the rehab start let him know that he was healthy enough to pitch. He is coming off a roller-coaster 2011 season that saw him finish 12-14 with a 3.97 ERA.

"It has been a long week, not being able to be out there with the guys," Lilly said. "Everyone wants to get out there, and I am happy I finally am.

"As far as health goes, I really don't have anything that is keeping me from going out there and doing my job. My neck feels really good."

Padres: Using the whole roster
Black likes to say it -- and he did so again on Friday -- "you've got to use your bench, all 25 guys."

On Friday, Black mixed up his lineup, giving Jeremy Hermida his first start of the season in right field, and catcher John Baker his second. Both recorded hits in a 9-8 loss.

The moves gave catcher Nick Hundley -- hitless after his first 24 plate appearances -- and outfielder Jesus Guzman -- hitting .172 in 29 at-bats -- the night off.

• The Padres will have to make a move before officially adding Wieland to the roster on Saturday. They won't have to adjust the 40-man roster, however, because they have an open spot remaining.

There's a chance the team could option a position player to the Minor Leagues and carry a 13-man staff for a few days. Outfielder Mark Kotsay is due to come off the DL on Monday. However, a four-man bench doesn't hold much appeal for Black.

Dodgers: Dazzling on defense

"Defense is one of those things that you should be good at every day," manager Don Mattingly said. "It is just a matter of wanting to be a good defensive player. To be in the right spot, to throw to the right base, that is all just a matter of wanting to be a good player. That should be there every night."

• Legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully missed his fourth straight game Friday with a nasty cold, but the club said he is improving and could be back for Saturday's contest.

• Matt Kemp has been on a tear to start the 2012 season, and he added to it with a two-run homer Friday night. Kemp is now hitting .419 with three homers and 11 RBIs.

Worth noting
• The Padres and Dodgers have become accustomed to playing low-scoring games recently, so Friday night's 9-8 final was a bit of a rarity. It was the highest scoring game between the two clubs since an 11-10 extra-inning victory for Los Angeles on Sept. 18, 2006.

• The Dodgers have beaten the Padres in 14 of their last 17 games dating back to last July.

Robinson started a national change that continues to this day

By Richard Justice | MLB.com Columnist | Archive 04/13/12 10:00 AM ET

In the end, they could not strip Jackie Robinson of his dignity, and 65 years later, that's perhaps the most incredible part of his story. Lord knows they tried. Through the years, we've come to associate him with words like grace and courage, but the truth is, they don't begin to describe the hell that was Robinson's life.

We use those words because they're the best we can do. In truth, it's impossible to know or understand what he endured. He was spit on and cursed, routinely. Pitchers threw at his head, routinely. He was drilled in the legs and ribs for sport. Fans threatened him, often loudly. He was constantly confronted with people who despised him because of the color of his skin and nothing else.

Can you imagine standing there on the field smothered by the sounds of hate? How many times did he fear for his life? He had agreed not to respond to the insults or retaliate to the physical punishment. He had an aggressive, abrasive style on the field, a style that probably agitated people who already were prone to dislike him.

Bottom of Form

Please, let's not sanitize Robinson's story. He indeed was a man of grace and dignity, but the truth is, he was treated like an animal, actually worse than an animal. He was a member of the Dodgers only on the field.

Some of his teammates treated him well, but he was never really one of them. While they stayed in fine hotels and ate great food, Jackie was forced to stay in hotels so hot and filthy that he'd sometimes soak the bed sheets in ice water to cool the room. He ate his meals in the backs of kitchens, often alone, at least until Branch Rickey added Roy Campanella in his second season and Don Newcombe in his third.

To get back to a part of town that accepted him wasn't easy, and Robinson sometimes waited an hour on street corners for a cabbie who would stop for a black man. He was proud and stubborn, and he knew people were counting on him. The editor of a black New York weekly wrote that Robinson "would be haunted by the expectations of his race. ... White America will judge the Negro race by everything he does. And Lord help him with his fellow Negroes if he should fail them."

Robinson loved baseball more than baseball loved him, and he wanted to show the world that a black man could succeed in a white man's league. Nothing has been the same for baseball -- or America -- since April 15, 1947. And on the 65th anniversary of Robinson's first game -- a game that drew just 25,600 at Ebbets Field, a moment that drew little mention in New York's newspapers -- Major League Baseball will again honor Robinson.

He always seemed to understand that his real impact would extend far beyond the baseball diamond, and one of the many things that made him special is that he saw his sport as a means to an end.

"Jackie basically started the civil rights movement," Newcombe said. "In those days, there was no civil rights movement. People like Martin Luther King were too young then."

Maybe that's why King said Robinson had a dramatic impact on the civil rights movement, because he forced people to confront the possibility of change.

"Back in the days when integration wasn't fashionable," King said, "he underwent the trauma and humiliation and the loneliness which comes with being a pilgrim walking the lonesome byways toward the high road of freedom."

Robinson paid an ugly price. Did you hear the one about the opposing catcher spitting on Robinson's shoes in the batter's box?

Robinson wasn't a patient or passive man by nature and wasn't inclined to look the other way on injustice either. During his Army days, he was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a city bus in Texas.

"I know you're a good ballplayer," Rickey told him. "What I don't know is whether you have the guts."

Robinson asked: "Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?"

Rickey shot back: "I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

Perhaps the real lesson of Robinson is about social responsibility. He was determined to leave the world better than he found it. After his playing career ended in 1956, he attended rallies, fired off angry telegrams and lent his name to causes. There was a 1957 letter to President Eisenhower.

"I read your statement in the papers advising patience," he wrote. "We are wondering to whom you are referring when you say we must be patient. It is easy for those who haven't felt the evils of a prejudicial society to urge it."

And there was a 1961 note to President Kennedy.

"I thank you for what you have done so far," he wrote, "but it is not how much has been done, but how much more there is to do?"

And a 1965 telegram to President Johnson:

"Important you take immediate action in Alabama. One more day of savage treatment by legalized hatchet men could lead to open warfare by aroused Negroes. America cannot afford this in 1965."

He died too young, at 53 in 1972, but because of him, America was pushed a little bit in the right direction. Today, baseball will take a moment to remember one of its proudest moments. The men who run the game will be pressed about racial progress and new programs and the like. Players will offer opinions. The issue will be out there.

Robinson surely would be pleased about that.

"A life is not important, except in the impact it has on other lives," he said.

Grandson proud to tell Robinson's message

By Terence Moore | MLB.com Columnist | Archive 04/13/12 3:17 PM ET

For so many reasons, Jackie Robinson deserves even higher marks in the history books as a national icon. Sixty-five years ago this weekend, he didn't just shatter the color barrier in baseball, but he became the Great Emancipator of the 20th century.

He really did. In fact, he was all of that and more, and this was before he spent April 15, 1947, trotting to first base at Ebbets Field for his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Who was the first athlete in the history of UCLA to win varsity letters in four sports? Uh-huh. Not only that, Robinson was impressive while playing semi-professional football and basketball.

More striking, three years before Robinson became baseball's first African-American player, he already was into social justice. On July 6, 1944, for instance, he was Rosa Parks before Rosa Parks, when he refused to move to the back of an Army bus while serving in the military. He was court-martialed, but he was acquitted by an all-white jury.

This can't be stressed enough, and it hasn't been: Robinson's act of defiance on behalf of integration occurred 11 years before Parks refused to move from the front of that bus in Montgomery, Ala.

Bottom of Form

So what else has society forgotten, underplayed or overlooked regarding the legacy of Jack Roosevelt Robinson?

"I think there are a bunch of things," said Jesse Simms, 33, Robinson's proud grandson.

Simms is a special assistant these days for Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Conner, and his emphasis is on the educational and outreach aspects of something in baseball that would make his grandfather smile -- the Diversity Initiative Program.

Added Simms, "There are things that haven't been said enough about what my grandfather wanted to accomplish in his lifetime but what he wasn't able to do. And I think it's our job -- as those who are living his legacy -- to highlight his accomplishments, and to talk about the things that we all need to do in society to honor his name."

In case you're wondering, Simms was born seven years after Robinson died at 53 from complications involving his heart and diabetes on Oct. 24, 1972. Even so, the grandson carries the grandfather in his soul, partly because of Sharon Robinson, his mother and Jackie's daughter, who works for the Commissioner's Office, and his grandmother, Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow, who will turn 90 in June.

The mother and the grandmother continue to give Simms the deepest meaning of those Jackie Robinson stories, and he internalizes them. Plus, he understands better than most what his grandfather overcame to slay obstacles with conviction and courage.

"I was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 29, and I was in a coma, and I didn't come out of it for two weeks," Simms said. "Me, being a diabetic, and having to fight through that, with my kids and everything. ... So you know what I'm really proud of regarding my grandfather? It was his ability to fight through this disease.

"There were two battles he was fighting. He was fighting for his life, and he was fighting for his family. He was just a fighter."

That is among Simms' eternal messages.

While most of the Robinson family will be in New York this weekend for baseball's yearly Jackie Robinson celebration, Simms is in Atlanta, where he will deliver several of his eternal messages.

Simms will attend the Braves' three-game series at Turner Field against the Milwaukee Brewers, and Sunday's game will be an official part of what baseball calls Jackie Robinson Day. Before that, Simms will be the inspirational speaker on Saturday for the Braves' inaugural Jackie Robinson Baseball Invitational, featuring 16 teams of mostly African-American youngsters from ages five through 12. They will play in a free tournament from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m ET.

Braves African-American outfielder Michael Bourn also will join Simms for this event, which is designed to help black youngsters stay motivated to play a sport that has seen its number of African-American players decline on a percentage basis since the 1970s.

"I think we all would agree that we want more African-American involvement inside the game of baseball, and that's just the bottom line," Simms said. "I can't speak for my grandfather, but I feel that he would be happy with where we've come, but he also would be fighting for where we've got to go."

As for Simms' background, he was born in New York, but he grew up in Stamford, Conn., where his grandparents lived for years. Simms was a standout middle linebacker in high school, and he eventually tried to follow in his grandfathers' cleat steps at UCLA, but he transferred to play at Penn State for a brief stint.

Simms never played baseball.

"I think that just because of my size and everything else, weighing 285 pounds and running the 40 [yard dash] in 4.6 [seconds], football was a natural for me," said Simms, who spends much of his time with his wife and family in Tampa, Fla., where he talks "Jackie Robinson" to anybody who wishes to hear his eternal messages.

As for Simms' decision to deliver those messages this weekend in Atlanta as opposed to somewhere else, he cited a restaurant venture he is trying to bring to the area. Then he added, "It just seems right to be in Atlanta [for Jackie Robinson Day], with such a multicultural environment. And, obviously, you have my grandfather coming from Georgia."

Robinson was raised in Pasadena, Calif., but he was born to a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Ga.

You know, something else folks likely don't know.

LA TIMES