TBDS Late Night: Manny Ramirez Returns

I'm not going to bore you with a Manny shot. Here's hottie (and Dodger fan/baseball enthusiast) Alyssa Milano via Chickipedia. I know I'm not the only guy out there that finds a pretty girl with a baseball glove to be attractive.

A long time ago in a blogosphere far, far away, this blogging outfit presented a feature called TBDS Late Night which reported on late-breaking news and provided games to watch for and links to read at your own peril. Once in a while, yours truly will revive that segment when necessary.

This is one of those times.

The Los Angeles Dodgers welcome the return of All-Star outfielder Manny Ramirez from his 50-game drug suspension, much to the chagrin of L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke. The Dodgers went 28-21 in Ramirez's absence as Juan Pierre starred in left field and the bats of youngsters Matt Kemp and James Loney rose to the occasion in ManRam's stead.

And yet, in the 50 games Ramirez was gone, no one was able to pass, let alone catch, the Dodgers. The San Francisco Giants are 7.5 games out of first, but are still one big bat short of being a real threat to Joe Torre's bunch.

The return of Ramirez makes me wonder if the Dodgers are now the team to beat in the National League.

The Cubs were favored to win the NL Central for the third straight year, but faceplanted coming out of the gate and really have not been able to find the "Cubbie Swagger" that has eluded the team since last September. The Mets have so many injuries, they're one step away from having an entire farm system on speed dial and on a direct flight to New York City. And the Phillies have the highest starter's earned run average in the senior circuit.

Meanwhile the Dodgers seemingly have the perfect mix of youthful exuberance and veteran know-how to get something done not only in the NL West, but in the entire league.

But they will only go as far as the beautiful Alyssa Milano will go. Somewhere, Dodger fans hope she goes all the way.

Quality Linkage:

• The 24 hours of Independence Day. [Made Men]
• Athletes who drank their American haterade. [Deadspin]
• Kissing Suzy Kolber's sexy tribute to the 4th of July. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• The history of fireworks in 60 seconds. [Asylum]
• The Celtics are looking for a few good (looking) women for their dance team. [SportsByBrooks]
• Eastbound and Down, coming to a DVD set near you. [Netflix]