Dodgers Diaries

I’m back from my third visit to Camelback Ranch in two years. Let me first say I’m ecstatic at the notion of being able to see Dodgers baseball within a six-hour drive of my home. Spring training visits used to be something of a necessity when I lived in the bleak northeast; now, they’re more of a diversion.

Camelback is big and beautiful and fits in with its desert environment beautifully. The sight lines are excellent, it has the kind of grass berms that picnickers prefer over bleachers, and the parking is even free. It’s a long way from anywhere you’d actually want to spend time, but that’s the price you pay for having this much land. And it’s a cash cow for the Dodgers, who must be wondering why it took them 50 years to move their spring headquarters to within driving distance of Los Angeles.

But Camelback has always seemed lacking for reasons I couldn’t articulate until this most recent trip. Then I realized what I dislike about it: It’s completely charm-free. It’s anonymous. There’s nothing that identifies it as being related to the Dodgers or the White Sox, save for two small logos on the scoreboard. There’s no Dodgers (or White Sox) lore about the place, no retired numbers, no banners hanging in the outfield, no photos of the teams from years gone by. If I told you the stadium was hosting a game between the Seattle Mariners and the Milwaukee Brewers, you’d hardly know the difference.

There’s nothing that even identifies it as being a part of the surrounding community (perhaps because Glendale, a former cowtown in the desert, doesn’t really have much of a surrounding community. There’s no local advertising on the outfield walls the way there is at other stadiums. In fact, there are no billboards at all, no O’Flaherty’s bar and grill, no local Chevron station, not even a Spongetech ad. Budweiser has stuck a banner over the tarp in right field, but that’s it.

It’s as though Camelback were built to be uprooted and moved to another place in the desert to house two other teams at a moment’s notice. Given the way the Cubs are trying to hold the city of Mesa hostage -- just 13 years after getting the city to build them a state-of-the-art stadium, the Cubs now have White Sox envy -- that may not be such a bad idea. If the White Sox were to try to force Camelback to sweeten their deal (not so farfetched if the Cubs’ proposed $84 million complex in Mesa soon raises the bar for cutting edge facilities), Camelback would have little trouble calling their bluff and replacing them with a new tenant. Just rip down the SOX logo and put up an MB, a KC or an AZ (The Diamondbacks want a new park too!).

For now, I’ll enjoy the beauty of the place. It’s still a little too manicured and anonymous for me. But it beats a cross-country flight to Florida.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Being a travel writer, I have to name Brian Barton as my new favorite Dodger. Being well-traveled isn’t exactly a feather in one’s cap in baseball terms. And indeed, the 28-year-old outfielder has seen his share of minor and major league towns since being drafted.

If he never sticks with a big league club, Barton has a promising career ahead of him as an aerospace engineer. I’m rooting that he gets to go out and play for a while before he settles into a desk job.

For a complete interview with Barton see the following story from the Riverfront Times.

Barton is among the 33 players who will make the Dodgers’ trip to Taiwan next week. Of course he is. With experience visiting more than a dozen countries, he’s better traveled than the rest of the roster put together. What’s interesting to me is how little international travel experience the rest of the roster has. From the Dodgers’ PR staff:

SEEING THE WORLD – A survey of the Dodgers’ Taiwan roster reveals that there are several international travelers in the group. Among the more unique places that Dodger players and coaches have traveled are Spain and Morocco (Jon Link), England (Josh Towers), Holland and Cuba (Chin-lung Hu), Brazil and Japan (Manny Ramirez), Belgium (J.D. Closser), Colombia and Panama (Ronnie Belliard), Germany and Italy (Lucas May), Argentina and China (Xavier Paul) and Saudi Arabia (John Shoemaker). Brian Barton is the most seasoned traveler, having visited more than a dozen countries, including Ethiopia and Peru.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Included on the list of players who will accompany the Dodgers on their March 10 trip to Taiwan is Ronnie Belliard. Yes, the same Ronnie Belliard who showed up to camp a couple of pounds over the 209 his contract requires. It’s a pretty lenient contract, however. All he has to do is be 209 or under at any point during spring training. A long flight across the Pacific might be enough to dehydrate the last two pounds out of him.

Others on the Taiwan excursion include James Loney, Manny Ramirez (the optimist says it’s so the Dodgers can keep an eye on him; the pessimist says it’s so he can restock his supply of performance-enhancing herbs), Eric Stults, Xavier Paul, Lucas May, and of course Taiwan natives Chin Lung Hu and Hong Chih Kuo.

On a separate note, Dodger Stadium looked a little bedraggled on Sunday for the college tournament. The signs on the outfield wall looked like they hadn’t been changed since October; there was still a “Postseason on TBS” banner in centerfield.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

There were Dodger Dogs. There were marching bands. There were beach balls in the stands, and for a moment, on the field. There was the execrable wave. And there was baseball at Dodger Stadium in February on a glorious 70-degree Sunday afternoon.

No, not the major leaguers, or even the world’s best from 20 nations like there was in 2009. This was a four-team college tournament, featuring USC, UCLA, and, as they said on the Gilligan’s Island intro theme, the rest. Vanderbilt and Oklahoma State played a 10 a.m. game to round out the foursome, but USC v. UCLA was the main event.

More than 14,000 people showed up for the event, filling the first deck, and causing stadium management to open the pavilion to house the overflow. Tickets were $10, which seemed like a deal if you got to sit in the seats normally reserved for Frank and Tommy and Kobe and Alyssa, not so much if you’re in the bleachers, hearing the ping of the bat for almost the same price as a major league game. The entire loge, meanwhile, sat empty save for a few photographers. Don’t know why the Dodgers couldn’t have opened that section instead.

The team also half-assed the concessions, opening only about 2/3 of the stands on the main level. Canter’s was not among them. And I counted only one lone vendor roaming the aisles. That meant every fan who wanted something to eat or drink had to stand on line for it, and the lines were so horrendous that they prevented people from walking the concourses. It never ceases to amaze me how the Dodgers throw money away by not having enough concession staff to satisfy the thousands who want to be parted from their money $8 at a time for beer and $4 for dogs.

Parking was free, but lanes to get in were closed, meaning more traffic on Sunset. And only the field level entrance was open, so you had to walk all the way around. The Dodgers turned on the scoreboard in center field, but refused to turn on the ones overhanging the loge, so you couldn’t tell the count if you were sitting in seats without a view of center field.

Oh, and there was a game. With a college rivalry and bands in the stands, you might have expected an animated crowd, but the biggest gasps were reserved for videos of football players tackling each other and Olympic hockey results: a cheer when the U.S. tied it in the third, and a deflated sigh when the final was posted. The game was kind of a dud, with both teams stranding runners through the first four innings, then pushing across single runs in the fifth. UCLA blew it open in the eighth to win 6-1. Niko Gallego, son of Mike, hit a homer. Jordan Hershiser, son of Orel, did not pitch, but looked imposing at 6-8, 245 in the dugout.

Another observation: So few black players. None on the field for either USC or UCLA. I counted three in the USC dugout, and none in UCLA’s, though they do appear to have Adrian Williams on the bench.

Still, it was baseball in February, and that is better than nothing.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Doug Glanville’s column in today’s NY Times reminds me of a piece I did from a fan’s perspective about Spring Training. My wedding anniversary falls during spring training every year, but because my wife is a baseball fan, we get to spend the weekend revisiting the game we love almost as much as each other.

View the spring training piece here.

Russell Martin says the 25 pounds he put on over the winter includes no love handles. It’s all muscle. Sorry, Russ, but count me as dubious, especially after the part about working out with Eric Gagne over the winter. Even if you’re not taking anything to bulk up that quickly, you probably shouldn’t mention that you’ve been associating with guys implicated in the Mitchell Report.

The Dodgers are holding “Viva Los Dodgers” days every Sunday there’s a home game in 2010. But when I called to find out exactly what the days will encompass, the PR dept. couldn’t tell me. All they knew was that the celebration will be held inside the stadium, it will be a tribute to Latinos in some way, and will include live music and presumably concessions.

You gotta hand it to the McCourts. They find ever more ways to part people from their money. No tailgating, but come on inside and enjoy our $8 beers and equally overpriced lousy food before the game even starts.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL

Manny Ramirez says this is his final season in LA.

Thanks for stating the obvious. Sure, you put up sick offensive numbers. Or you did before you were caught using female fertility drugs. We don’t really know what you’re good for in 2010. But even if you had a repeat of 2008, when you could do no wrong, it’s doubtful the Dodgers would sign you for 2011.

You’ll be 39 by that time, and even more in decline than you were in the second half of 2009. Your antics won’t seem that forgivable if you’re hitting like Juan Pierre, or even like Casey Blake. Your defense will become a bigger liability.

More to the point, you and your agent will be demanding the contract that you couldn’t get after the 2008 season. And the Dodgers just don’t spend that kind of money on old guys. They spend that kind of money on broken down pitchers instead.

Thanks for the memories, Manny, but come the end of 2010, we wish you well in your new career as the Yankees' DH.

-- JOHN ROSENTHAL