Dodgers Roll Out Kasten and Colletti at 5th Annual Blogger Night

Friday night at Dodger Stadium was pretty special, as the Dodgers hosted the 5^th Annual Blogger Night, inviting a wide range of Dodger blogs to experience the game from a luxury box while getting a chance to hear from a few special guests.

Blogger Night had a few of the old stalwarts in attendance, including Craig from True Blue LA, a few of the “new Sons” from Sons of Steve Garvey, Roberto from Vin Scully is My Homeboy and Roger from Dodger Dugout, among others.  There were also some new blogs that made the cut, including Save the Dodgers and something called Angry Albert.

Alex and I arrived around 6 p.m. via lot P and the Top of the Park entrance and secured our tickets to the suite after a few ID checks and a long wait for those aged Dodger Stadium elevators.

We made our way to suite #232 (down near the Stadium Club) which was packed with lots of snacks and Dodger Dogs. 

General Manager Ned Colletti and Director of Contracts, Research and Operations Alex Tamin arrived shortly thereafter and we launched right into a wide-ranging Q&A session on the state of the Dodgers for about 30 minutes. Tamin is pretty new to the organization but has worked in arbitration cases where Colletti had a chance to evaluate him and is a whiz with Sabremetrics and other quantitative aspects of the organization

Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten was the next to arrive, and brought along two former bloggers from the former Washington Nationals blog Nats320 that he’s still friendly with.  Kasten made a point of emphasizing his support of the blogging community, noting that one of his first questions he asked after arriving was “What are we doing with the blogs?”

We’ll have more on Kasten’s views on the Dodgers soon, but he seems like a super passionate, dynamic, accessible and engaging leader.  It’s still very early on, but it seems like we may have struck gold with Kasten.

The rest of the evening featured a few more special guests popping by to chat, including team historian Mark Langill, Dodger legend Ron Cey, LA Times beat reporter Dylan Hernandez and of course the entire Dodgers PR team.

If you haven’t met Mark Langill, the guy has an incredible memory.  When he learned that Alex and I grew up in Pasadena, he immediately began reciting key players and specific games from our high school the early 90’s when he was a local sports reporter.

All in all, a great night was had by all.  Special thanks to Joe, Yvonne, Garrett, Jon and H.J. for putting together a great event.