What a perfect day. I had found just the right music to greet arriving guests for "Scully & Wooden" on the Internet, the Hollyridge Strings doing their instrumental version of the Beatles' work, 40-some years ago -- back when I was in the seminary.
Don't worry. I discovered girls, in fact as I recall in front of the Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House. She would tell me years later she was gay, but I swear I had nothing to do with that.
Anyway, I was in a great mood when I called Ned Colletti, the Dodgers' GM for now.
"Let's do this right away while you are in a great mood," Colletti said, but then we started talking Dodgers.
Colletti is a great guy. When the Dodgers hired him, I predicted he would last longer on the job than his predecessors because the media here really liked the Schmoozer.
I've seen him with the kids from Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. He was touched, and so were they when he made the extra effort to give each family a chance to join him at Dodger Stadium when all was well.
He's terrific with kids, which you would think would make him the perfect baby sitter for a team counting on Loney, Kemp and Kershaw. Add a free agent here and there.
Yeah, swell guy, all right, but a bust so far as GM -- although we disagree about that.
Colletti began his career as a PR guy for the Cubs, so he knows how to spin disasters into steps necessary to move forward.
When I mention Jason Schmidt and Andruw Jones, he talks about a "snapshot in time," the moment when he had to decide how to improve the Dodgers and what was available out there.
When I suggest it probably all comes down to Schmidt and Jones, and so goes Colletti's future with the team, he says, "I don't think it just comes down to two players."
OK, so I could have mentioned Bill Mueller, Randy Wolf, Kenny Lofton or signing Juan Pierre for five years and $44 million.
"I know people want to win every day," he says, while taking over a team that finished 20 games below .500 in 2005. "I get it. But you have to look at what we had when we started and who was out there -- while still hanging on to our nucleus, the young guys of the future."
Colletti says he "always feels" under the gun, because he knows his cliches, but no, he doesn't feel his job is on the line because Jones can't hit his weight and because Schmidt has given the Dodgers one win in exchange for the $47 million he received to leave San Francisco.
