Dodger Stadium

HAMLET NALBANDYAN Random thoughts on a Tuesday morning... Radar guns are about as believable as today's major league sluggers who deny steroid use. Call me a skeptic, but I don't buy some of the numbers they spit out. I was at Friday's baseball game between La Canada and Temple City, where Ryan Tucker was on the hill. Tucker is of course the highly touted righty for Temple City who's headed to Cal State Fullerton, that is if he doesn't sign with a major league team first.

Charles Rich Make that two cherished moments celebrated by Phil Torres on the hallowed grounds of Dodger Stadium. Torres wasn't about to compare coaching the Crescenta Valley High baseball team to the CIF Southern Section Division I championship to guiding the North San Gabriel Valley Babe Ruth All-Star team to the World Series crown in August. Either way, Torres knows a good ceremony at Dodger Stadium. North San Gabriel Valley -- which featured eight local players -- was honored prior to Thursday's San Diego Padres-Dodgers contest at Dodger Stadium.

Hamlet Nalbandyan The line stretched far beyond the boundaries of Macy's in the Glendale Galleria, overflowing onto Galleria Way and Broadway Avenue. The occasion? Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Paul Lo Duca was in town, signing autographs for the more than 500 loyal fans who waited patiently, some arriving nearly four hours before the event. The signing was hosted by Glendale Macy's and Dockers, which will sponsor Fan Appreciation Day on Sunday at Dodger Stadium, when the Dodgers take on the New York Yankees for the final game of a three-game series.

On Memorial Day 2004, there were 12 Major League baseball games around the country. If Dodger Stadium is any indication, the holiday turnout was good. Even without specific figures, it seems safe to assume that hundreds of thousands of Americans decided to spend at least a portion of their day in big, sloppy, sunburned, junk-food-filled family time -- in a way that only the quintessential American pastime can provide. Like laughing children and sizzling barbecues, I do not see anything wrong with this.

COLLEGE GOLF CLASSIC AND DINNER IS TODAY The 22nd annual Glendale College Foundation and Union Bank of California Golf Classic is today at Oakmont Country Club, 3100 Country Club Drive in Glendale. Golfers tee off at 10 a.m. for the event, which is the largest annual fundraiser for Glendale Community College. The golf tournament is sold out. A margarita bar will open at 3:30 p.m., and dinner will be at 5:30 p.m. A live auction will start at 7 p.m. in the dining room at the country club.

Charles Rich It's the stretch that's been known to be the bane for major league baseball players. Mark Loretta managed to avoid the dreaded June gloom, and finished the month with the third-most hits in the National League. The San Diego Padres' second baseman and 1989 St. Francis High graduate batted a sizzling .356 in 27 games. There are no immediate signs to indicate that Loretta will hit the wall. He's been able to flummox National and American league pitchers throughout the first half of the six-month marathon season by spraying line drives around the park.

Karen S. Kim NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- Employees delivering 24-hour room service at the Hilton Glendale might see a wide variety of guests on their rounds -- including business executives, tourists, political delegates, college sports teams or even Major League baseball players. The 19-floor, 351-room hotel often serves baseball teams playing the Los Angeles Dodgers because of its proximity to Dodger Stadium. The Arizona State University basketball team was scheduled to arrive Friday night.

Alex Leon Jose Mota knows he was fortunate to grow up at Dodger Stadium. He knows how lucky he was to have the playing field and locker room of a major league baseball stadium as his playground for many years. Every time he visits the famous stadium in Los Angeles where his father Manny, who holds the major league record with 150 pinch hits and is still a coach after many years as a player for the Dodgers, Jose gets the feeling that he is back home again, and that is comforting to him. "Playing with the kids of Dodger players like Reggie Smith and Derrel Thomas, it almost seems like yesterday when we were pretending we were big leaguers and the game was on the line and it was up to us to win it for the home team," Mota said.

future holds for Dodger manager Chuch Benedict The 2000 baseball season wears down, L.A. Dodgers fans in Glendale (with the Jewel City limit less than three miles from Dodger Stadium) are wondering about the future of manager Davey Johnson, a pleasant enough man who lives in the La Canada area. Davey sports a wealth of good results in his baseball past. There's a future for him, as well, but it may be elsewhere. The Dodgers' new Fox ownership, unlike the solid-citizen, family-owned O'Malley organization of yesterday, makes many moves.

Edgar Melik-Stepanyan GLENDALE -- R.J. Brown was primed and ready to play Friday for the Los Angeles Dodgers Elite baseball team. During batting practice he was impressive. The St. Francis High senior hit three home runs, including a shot over the center field wall at Dodger Stadium. It was too bad that the real game wasn't until Saturday. Saturday was a different story for Brown and his teammates. In an afternoon contest, Brown, a third basemen and catcher Team Bobby Darwin, batted one for three with a single, a walk and two strikeouts in his team's 6-5 loss to Team Bump.