Roger Arrieta
Alanna Rizzo… I miss you… ahem, I mean WE miss you! I’m pretty sure I speak for most, if not ALL Dodgers fans when I say we miss her. We are just 7 games into Spring Training (as of the moment I’m writing this blog) and already fans have been vocal about missing the University of Colorado Boulder alum’s broadcasting talents and their feelings about her replacement.
Yes, 100 percent we were spoiled to have such a professional grace our televisions sets day in and day out with in-depth coverage and knowledge about the team we all love.
Recently, Alanna’s been doing some media rounds, Molly Knight interviewed her for the Athletic and Alanna was also a guest on Christopher Russo’s show: “High Heat”
Some of the things that caught my attention during the interview with the “Mad Dog” was her recap of how difficult it was to cover the Dodgers during a pandemic. She specifically describes the World Series and how she felt robbed when the Dodgers won the October classic:
Yeah it was difficult. We go to the World Series in 2017, 2018 and then they go back in 2020 and finally win it and because of the way things were, they were in their bubble; I was in my own bubble. They win the World Series I didn’t get an interview for an hour and typically I’m on the field with them and interviewing them while they’re experiencing that raw emotion. You can see there Dave Roberts, the team having a great time and because of the pandemic I wasn’t able to do that so there’s this sense that I feel a little bit robbed having been with this team for 7 years and not being able to experience that celebration with them. I’m grateful we had baseball and all but it certainly wasn’t the same.
Alanna also commented on where she thought Justin Turner free agency during the off season:
Justin Turner is really the face of that franchise in terms of position players, Justin Turner didn’t have a job in 2014 and honestly after his tenure with the Dodgers I could not imagine him in another uniform. He is the glue that keeps that team together, I realize there aren’t captains in baseball but Dave Robert says he is the captain of that team and Justin Turner had every right to test the free agent market he earned that right but I can’t imagine JT in another uniform… I can’t imagine a guy in a clutch situation that I would want more in the box than Justin Turner. He plays a good defensive third-base he’s the guy that always post to the end of the game he gets it in terms of what it means to be a leader of the team and I can’t imagine him any place else.
The former Dodgers sideline reporter gave her take on Nolan Arenado leaving Colorado and drops a controversial comment regrading Mike Trout… (you let me know if it’s controversial, if you do think so then you my friend might be an Angel’s fan :D)
I’m not surprised it ended badly because they didn’t build around him, the whole reason that Nolan Arenado wanted to stay with the Rockies is because they said they were going to build around him and build to win and they didn’t do that and you can’t fault a guy as competitive as Nolan is who grew up in Southern California as a Dodger fan to want to stay someplace where he’s not going to win. I almost feel, not to compare Nolan Arenado to Mike Trout but I almost feel like Nolan, had he stayed in Colorado would of wasted his career like Mike Trout is wasting his career in Los Angeles with the Angels. I think Nolan Arenado wants to win, he needs to win he’s a guy that has proven he can play that third base position better than anybody in the game and the way that they handled that situation soured Nolan and it wasn’t gonna be a good situation.
To end my recap of Alanna Rizzo’s interview with Christopher Russo, which by the way you can watch in it’s entirety below, Alanna feels the same way we all do about that team in San Diego.
It’s Dodger Stadium south, it’s an opportunity to go and walk around the Gas Lamp District and have a great time and take in a Dodger game really. It’s not… in the seven years I’ve covered that team and even the five years I was with the Rockies I see a lot of fans that are not Padres fans at Petco Park, which is a great stadium to play and it’s a great city to walk around in. I understand what the Padres are doing in terms of being tired of being second best… they went for it this off-season obviously… UNTIL the Padres can legitimately beat the Dodgers over the course of a season series to me it’s still not the rivalry. Is it more of a rivalry in recent years than it used to be absolutely but the last time these two teams met was in the postseason right out of the building.
Clearly Alanna still has a lot of love for the Los Angeles Dodgers even though she packed up and moved to Wrentham, Massachusetts, which is roughly about 45 minutes south of Boston. We wish her the best and hope to one day have her grace our podcast or pages with her baseball knowledge!
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