Your Hollywood Stars Game Popularity Contest

Here's the list of participants for Saturday's 2009 Hollywood Stars Game at Dodger Stadium. Straight popularity contest: Who is your favorite? Who would you most want to see?

No Sinatra. No Rickles. No Fairchild. You work with who you can work with:

Larry King (“Larry King Live”), Rob Lowe (“The West Wing,” “Brothers & Sisters”), Mario Lopez (“Extra,” “Saved by the Bell”), Dave Annable (“Brothers and Sisters”), “Sugar” Shane Mosley (Welterweight Champion of the World), Adam Carolla (“The Adam Carolla Podcast”), Joel Madden (Lead Singer for Good Charlotte), Jessica Lowndes (“90210”), James Denton (“Desperate Housewives”), James Van Der Beek (“Dawson’s Creek”), Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills, 90210”), Tom Arnold (Actor/Comedian), Tom Green (Actor/Comedian), Melissa Rivers (“Celebrity Apprentice”), Meat Loaf (Musician), Scott Stapp (Lead Singer for Creed), Neal McDonough (“Desperate Housewives”), David Charvet (“Baywatch,” “The Superstars”), Brian Baumgartner (“The Office”), Willie McGinest (NFL Linebacker/Three-Time Super Bowl Champion), Josh Henderson (“Desperate Housewives,” “90210”), Robert Hoffman (“She’s the Man,” “Aliens in the Attic”), Daren Kagasoff (“Secret Life of the American Teenager”), Aimee Teegarden (“Friday Night Lights”), Jake T. Austin (“Wizards of Waverly Place”), Jennifer Stone (“Wizards of Waverly Place”), Kate Linder (“The Young and the Restless”), Adrian Pasdar (“Heroes”), Kate Flannery (“The Office”), David Denman (“The Office”), Robert Griffith (13-year NFL Veteran), Kirk Morrison (NFL Linebacker/Oakland Raiders), Shaun Phillips (NFL Linebacker/San Diego Chargers), Will Demps (NFL Star/Model) and Michael Rosenbaum (“Smallville,” “Father of Invention”).

I'm voting for Baumgartner in a close call over Teegarden and Flannery. It's all about the sexiness.

Comments

[Phenomenal Smith]

I've tried to determine what order those names are in. But after King and Lowe, I think the names were just talked on when their publicists said they would show up.

[natepurcell]

got LATed!!!

natepurcell - Over at TBLA they have a post with top 30 prospects lists from CanuckDodger, Phil Gurnee and Kensai. Would be nice to see yours against theirs.
http://www.truebluela.com/2009/7/16/951827/mid-season-prospect-ranking

Their lists look good. I won't go 30 deep but heres my 15

Scott Elbert
Dee Gordon
James McDonald
Andrew Lambo
Josh Bell
Chris Withrow
Ivan De Jesus
Josh Lindblom
Ethan Martin
Nathan Eovaldi
Steven Johnson
Tim Sexton
Scott Van Slyke
Xavier Paul
Pedro Baez

[Tripon]

So you think Dee Gordon will be a better player over DeJesus?

[natepurcell]

De Jesus is going to be coming off a major injury and that is always a huge wildcard. I had to take that into consideration when doing rankings at this moment. Gordon might have shiny new toy syndrome but from everything i've read, Dodgers management is just as high on him.

[El Lay Dave]

James Denton has an ownership stake in the Orange County Flyers of the Golden Baseball League; it might be fun to talk baseball with him.

Meat Loaf should have some great stories to tell.

I predict Craig88 will comment on Willie McGinest.

Don't a lot of these folks back out at the last minute?

[El Lay Dave]

Cool Nate. You won't mind if I post it over at TBLA with proper attribution?

[Jack Dawkins]

Stars playing little league ball has never intrigued me. I want them remote, doing what they do best and not seeming ordinary. When they become like me, I resent it.

[natepurcell]

Go for it Dave. Like I said before, the other guys did a great job.

I definitely feel like our system is a bit underrated. There are a lot of players that have high end potential but are still only scratching that surface (gordon, martin, withrow, eovaldi, lambo, etc)

[El Lay Dave]

The lower minors, plus Lambo playing AA at a young age, have quite a few intriguing players that are going to be fun to track for the next few seasons, that's for sure, including every name you mentioned Nate.

[Dennis Cozzalio]

Wow. I know the Hollywood Stars games of the '80s weren't really all that impressive either, in terms of sheer star wattage, but I have to say, I don't know who a lot of these people are, and the ones I do know (um, Ian Ziering, for example) I've enjoyed more watching them play themselves and getting beat up in movies like DOMINO than watching them play baseball. I like James Denton-- good player, good actor, all-around decent-seeming guy-- but if going to the Hollywood Stars game is going to be worth it for me, I'll pick Adrian Pasdar, for his past work in Kathryn Bigelow's great vampire movie NEAR DARK... but more honestly because it raises the chances that I might see Natalie Maines, his lovely and talented wife, in person.

And make Charlie Steiner ump at home base again-- that was... interesting!

[VA Blueblood]

Tom Green gets my vote because, well, I thought he was dead.

[miketink]

The Dodger team in the rookie Pioneer League is located in Ogden, Utah. Their opponent tonight was the team from Casper, Wyoming known as the Casper Ghosts (although their logo does not look friendly at all).
Btw the Dodger team started the season 0-3 but is now 17-11.

[Jon Weisman]

Off-night activity: Sucked into "Torchwood: Children of Earth." Episode two and counting.

[Alex41592]

Dodgers.com:

"His fastball is one of the liveliest in the National League. His call to the Majors came when he was just 20. And now he's on the cusp of putting it all together during his first full-season with the Dodgers.

In his last seven starts dating back to June 16, Kershaw (8-5) has allowed only three runs in 42 2/3 innings, dropping his ERA from 4.50 to 2.95."

http://tinyurl.com/nb5u7p

[CanuckDodger]

Jon, I recorded Children of Earth: Day Four earlier in the evening. I have loved the first three parts. Were you a Torchwood fan before? What about Doctor Who?

[Bob Hendley]

Lovely off day at DT. Chance to relive last night, see a couple of nice videos (loved it Marty), talk trade rumours and the whereabouts of Jay scouts, and to dream about the kids in the minors (trade bait or not).

[Bob Hendley]

Oh, y el Perfecto with the catch of the day!

[Bluebleeder]

Don't know what the out come will be but the Halos game is pretty intertaining (sp)

[DBrim]

I read "intertaining" as "interesting" and went to see if there was another no-no going. Nice.

[Bluebleeder]

Free baseball in Anaheim!!!

[Jon Weisman]

Canuck - no, first I've seen of any of it. I'm near the end of day two. One thing I'm not clear on is why the home office wants to kill Harkness. I'm sure it's obvious but somehow it has escaped me.

[KG16]

I'm a big fan of Doctor Who, only a passing interest in Torchwood - though Capt Jack is a great character. Looking forward to Planet of the Dead on Sunday. I'm thinking I need to get caught up on Torchwood.

[Jon Weisman]

I love that Danny from Local Hero is in it.

[Linkmeister]

"I might see Natalie Maines, his lovely and talented wife, in person."

Ooh. I'd immediately say to her, "Ok, "Taking the Long Way" came out in 2006. When's the next album coming?

[CanuckDodger]

Jon, why the Home Office wants to kill Jack is explained in the third episode.

[underdog]

Jon, speaking of Peter Capaldi, have you seen "In the Loop" yet? Talk about a role 180 degrees from Danny, and he's awesome. The best foul-mouthed role in many ages.

[Jon Weisman]

Thanks, Canuck.

Haven't seen "In the Loop."

[underdog]

Oh jeez... just saw this on ESPN tonight:

"Instead of 2 marathon days over the weekend, the NFL has gone to 3 days - First Round on Thursday Night, 2nd and 3rd Rounds on Friday Night and Rounds 4-7 on Saturday...."

[johnnie b. baker]

meatloaf

[Eric Enders]

I'll pick the two folks pictured at top. Teegarden over Baumgartner in a photo finish.

[Eric Enders]

If the game was being played in New York I would have rooted for Meat Loaf to do something significant, only because I love reading about "Mr. Loaf" in the New York Times.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Dee Gordon is the Dodgers' #1 prospect right now and ends up being ranked as such by BA at season's end. He's probably passed Elbert by at this point, not that Elbert (or Lambo) has done anything wrong. (In fact I fully expect Elbert to be a dominant force in our bullpen by September, if given half a chance.)

[Craig88USC]

Like our future star JMac and ol' Milton B, Willie was a Long Beach Poly Jackrabbit! (Which btw, is an SC's football feeder school , if you know what I mean.)

Some of McGinest's classmates at Poly included Snoop Dogg and Warren G. as well as Cameron Diaz.

Now that would be a fun crew to suit up for the celeb game especially Cam... ; )

[Craig88USC]

El Lay Dave, There's my Willie post. : )

[CanuckDodger]

Eric, I think Goldstein at BP said something about having a hard time thinking of a prospect in the Dodger system he would rank higher than Gordon. what BA will do, I don't know, but it is possible they will be on Gordon's bandwagon. I usually find myself in the position of defending Dodger prospects that I think are being under-rated, but on Gordon I have to say I am having a hard time buying the hype. At TruBlueLA I called the hype surrounding Gordon an example of the prospect world's version of Juan Pierre syndrome: people fall in love with a guy who runs really fast. At the age Gordon is now, DeJesus, last year, was in Double A, and hitting for better average, walking a lot more, and even out-slugging Gordon, a guy two levels behind where DeJesus was. Ah, but DeJesus was a shortstop who doesn't steal bases, and that just bugs some people.

[Craig88USC]

Footnote - I just happened to catch American Beauty again tonight. School scenes - LB Poly!

[El Lay Dave]

I think because Devaris Gordon wasn't drafted from a four-year college, people get fooled into thinking he was drafted out of high school and is 19. I know I made that mental error. Because Gordon missed a year of playing time, his physical age and his mental baseball age are out of sync, in some sense like Matt Kemp being raw because he spent less time playing baseball, so perhaps he's a little behind the curve. In the longer run, some of pitching prospects may end up ranking higher; Martin and Eovaldi are coming along pretty nicely, for instance.

I wonder how DeJesus' recovery is going. Very unfortunate to lose all of this season, or at least the vast majority of it, due to that injury.

[El Lay Dave]

Craig88 - I knew I could count on you.

[Benjamin Miracord]

Plaschke's new column "borrows" Jon's "Four Plus One" description of September 18, 2006.

Don't be surprised if, in a year from now, Plaschke claims it was HE who nicknamed Kemp "The Bison."

[das411]

Still trying to catch up on DT but a few points:

Ken Noe, I caught your reference to James Hansen's "First Man" which is indeed a terrific book...so much so that I cited it in a story for our local paper: http://tinyurl.com/nx8pdx

Eric Stephen, thanks for the link, I did indeed get ahold of Ken, and:

Related - are any DTers going to be in the SF/Oakland area for Rickey Henderson day next weekend? If the A's do need a LFer after trading Matt Holliday by then, and there's no danger of resetting Rickey's HoF clock because he gets inducted this weekend...am I the only person wondering if he'll actually get into a game, like there were rumors he would a few years ago?

Finally: If anyone's interested in a terrific book about the early years of MLB, "July 2 1903: The mysterious death of Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty" by Mike Sowell does a great job of not only describing the life of the first Phillie to hit 4 HRs in a game, but also how he was caught up in the war between the leagues (ex: the Phils, Senators and Giants all thought he had binding contracts with them when he died)...and makes you wonder how different the world would have been if ESPN were around in those days!

[arbfuldodger]

I vote for Aimee ...Hell I'd vote for anything FNL.

[jim hitchcock]

Neal McDonough played a UCLA catching star sent to war in `Band of Brothers', so he's the ringer here.

[jim hitchcock]

"Off-night activity: Sucked into "Torchwood: Children of Earth." Episode two and counting."

I saw the listing on satellite last night. Plan on watching it.

[jim hitchcock]

Fairchild? Morgan Fairchild?

There is no Flamingo road in baseball!

[regfairfield]

Has Torchwood actually become watchable, or am I going to have to change my opinion of a lot of you?

[Jon Weisman]

New post up top.

[nsxtasy]

Wow, slim pickin's on things to discuss after an off-day. Movies and television. So are we done with 19th Century novels now? ;)

[nsxtasy]

To follow up...

>> Quiz time. The longest anyone on the 2009 Dodgers has been on the team is since the 2005 season, and there are two such players. Who are they? :)

>> (Intervening years with other teams are a disqualification.)

>> Broxton and Mota
>>
>> Posted by: Eric Enders | July 23, 2009 at 06:51 PM

Broxton yes. No on Mota, who played on four other teams during 2004-2008.

>> Kuo first appeared in 2005.
>>
>> Weaver is disqualified, but was on the '05 team also.
>>
>> Posted by: El Lay Dave | July 23, 2009 at 06:57 PM

Kuo is correct also.

>> Broxton became the longest-tenured Dodger on March 19 (when Brazoban was released) at age 24 years, 9 months. I'm going to assume he's the youngest person ever to hold the distinction of being the longest-tenured Dodger.

I bet you're right about that. It's a relatively recent phenomenon, with the advent of free agency and massive pre-deadline trading, that almost all players change teams every few years, and very few players - especially those good enough to play over a long period of time - remain with the same team for all that many years. So on a historical basis, it's unusual for the longest tenure to be only five years. And also unusual for that person to have started with the team at such a young age.

[nsxtasy]

>> Remember the Koufax perfect game?

>> Uhhh, I remember that like it was yesterday.

If you want to hear Vin's call of the ninth inning, go here:

http://tinyurl.com/aa2yl

[nsxtasy]

At what point is a player considered a member of the major league team rather than a prospect? For example, are Leach, Paul, DeWitt, and McDonald no longer considered prospects?

Hey, do we have a nickname for Paul? How about "Windows"?

[nsxtasy]

Tonight's game might be a good pitcher's duel, with two aces on hot streaks.

Too bad that MLB EI free preview is over. Gameday, meh.

[Jon Weisman]

Um, again, new post up top.

[samhain31]

Meat Loaf is the only one whom I'd walk across a room at a party to speak to. Most of them I wouldn't acknowledge if i was stuck in a line at the DMV...

Off hand I'd say the Dodgers ought to consider doing better outreach to music industry celebs
About a decade or so ago MTV/VH1 did a televised celebrity softball game with a lot better known "stars"than this event, though I think Mr. Loaf (*wink*) played in that one too.

Rapper Warren G back then showed evidence of having been a pretty damn good high school athlete btw...

[kerr]

Adam Carolla...that is all