FanHouse Jim Thome

LOS ANGELES -- Jim Thome is happy with his decision to sacrifice playing time for the chance to win a World Series, but he said he's not ready to end his career as a pinch-hitter.

"At the end of the year I'd like to go back to the AL and go back to DHing for sure," Thome said Tuesday, before the Dodgers held their workout on the eve of the Division Series against the Cardinals.

Thome, 39, should have some kind of market next year. He hit 23 homers and had a .372 on-base percentage with the White Sox before he was traded to the Dodgers to be a pinch-hitter. Thome has 564 career homers, and he said 600 homers is one of his goals.

While some people around Major League Baseball are losing their jobs for failing to win games, others around the league are being rewarded for their success. The Los Angeles Dodgers are getting ready to make their third appearance in the postseason in the last four years, and it looks like the man who is in charge of putting the team together is about to be rewarded for it.

There's word out of Los Angeles that the team has begun negotiating with general manager Ned Colletti about signing a long-term contract extension with the team. Colletti is currently working under a deal that includes a mutual option for 2010, and now the Dodgers would like that to last a bit longer.

As a whole, the baseball season in Chicago has been a disappointment. The Cubs were expected to contend for a World Series title only to be thrown off track by injuries and Milton Bradley, while on the other side of town the White Sox have failed to exceed expectations. As is usually the case when this happens to large-market teams, wholesale changes are made.

The White Sox parted ways with Jim Thome and 2005 World Series hero Jose Contreras, and it's likely other players such as Jermaine Dye, Bobby Jenks and Paul Konerko could be following them out of town this winter. Still, that doesn't mean everybody in the White Sox organization is leaving.

The 1997 Cleveland Indians have finally been reassembled on the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers, and it is up to venerable Dugout protagonists Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez to lead them through the playoffs and to the promised land, whether they've been there already or not.

If you have not been reading our end of the season special event and want anything you're about to read to make sense, please catch up by reading the first seven parts linked conveniently below. Part "The End" is after the jump.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The "youth movement" continues in Los Angeles, as Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez continue their countrywide trip to reunite the championship hopeful 1997 Cleveland Indians on the championship hopeful 2009 Dodgers. If you've missed where they've been so far, check out the numbered links below. If you haven't, and you are still somehow entertained by caps lock and typos, continue after the jump to read part seven of our epic special event.

Previously on It's Tribe Time Now

1 2 3 4 5 6

At some point this October, Tony La Russa or Charlie Manuel is going to want to bring in one of his top right-handed relief pitchers, but he's going to look in the other dugout and see Jim Thome or Jason Giambi holding a bat, and he may think twice.

And then maybe he'll think of Matt Stairs. With one rib-jarring swing last October, a pinch-hit two-run homer that led the Phillies to a victory over the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS, Stairs left an impression that proved to the Dodgers and Rockies how important one at-bat can be.

"Even if you are only winning one or two games, that can be a difference," said Mark Sweeney, a Dodgers coach and one of baseball's all-time most successful pinch-hitters. "Obviously, what Matt Stairs did to us was huge. Even if it doesn't happen, there is that threat, and that definitely plays into a manager's head."

1 2 3 4 5

The Dugout favorites Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez have taken a break from danging dingers together on the playoff-bound Los Angeles Dodgers to travel the country and possibly fictional dreamscape lands to reuinte the 1997 Cleveland Indians and right the wrongs of the 97 World Series. The quest is almost complete, and now we learn what happened in the MLB Journeyman Chatroom, and where the dynamic twosome are headed next.

Part 6 of The Dugout: It's Tribe Time Now is after the jump.

Welcome to part five of our apparently 30-part series about how Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez play for the same team, just like when they were part of the 1997 World Series challenging Cleveland Indians.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Once you have caught up on the previous four parts, remember that none of this is newsworthy and that we've ingratiated ourselves enough at Fanhouse by this point to occasionally make the casual reader here to discuss how he feels about Prince Fielder's baseball-disgracing shirt tuck think we are on crack. Is this a real chat??? Part 5 of 30 is after the jump.

Not to ignore everything else that is happening in the world of baseball, but Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez are on the same team and you should be reading about it.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Part four of the quest to reunite the entirety of the 1997 Cleveland Indians on the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers takes us places we never dared go, to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where humanity is depraved and the skies are filled with ash.

Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez suddenly find themselves playing for the same team again. Their mission: to travel the United States on a tandem bicycle and reunite the 1997 Cleveland Indians AL Championship team in Los Angeles. Will they succeed, or will I stop when I get to like, Chad Ogea and run out of jokes? Only time will tell. Part 3 of the Dugout special event is after the jump.