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Spring Training is the pilot season of baseball, when almost every actor gets a look from the majors, knowing that few will be on TV in October.
As a writer, I used to live and die with pilot season, but now it barely registers. And in this, the third March of Dodger Thoughts, I notice that with each passing year I've also taken less interest in guessing who will end up on the Opening Day roster of the Dodgers - and here we're talking about casting an established show, one guaranteed to hit the airwaves next month.
As I've pointed out before, the peculiarities of Spring Training push you to spend disproportionate amounts of time discussing who will be the least important person on the team - the 25th man. (Do we ruminate this much over who will be "Man #4" on Law and Order?) We mitigate this misguided mishigoss with health concerns over a few prominent players (How is Lorraine Brocco of The Sopranos handling her depression?) and the uncertainty over some young talent (Is Jennifer Love Hewitt going to have a real career, or just a body of work?) But otherwise, Spring Training is probably more interesting for the casting calls than the actual casting.
This year, for the first time, most of the Dodger Thoughts readership seems to have adopted the same patient attitude. Whereas fervent appeals for the likes of Terry Shumpert (Somewhere out there, someone is demanding that CBS not cancel Yes Dear) have marked recent preseasons, folks in 2005 seem to have taken a big-picture approach.
Don't get me wrong - I do find it interesting to see who will win a job (tune in for The Apprentice) and I'm certainly paying attention to the daily Spring Training grind. But what you realize is that Spring Training mostly isn't meant to be covered on a daily basis. With players getting so few innings and so few at-bats, momentum swings too sharply. A couple of days ago, Norihiro Nakamura was swinging like the folks from Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. And now, Nakamura is suddenly as straightforward as Nightline. Tomorrow - who knows?
Jayson Werth, Brad Penny, Dave Ross, Odalis Perez ... there aren't many conclusions we can draw about them on any individual day. It would be like trying to determine from just one of the 162 games whether the Dodgers will win their division.
So I'm liking the balance this year. We're watching Spring Training, but we're not overthinking Spring Training. We're just gearing up for premiere week.
Certainly, the Dodgers don't have great programming in all their time slots - we may be staring smack at Small Wonder at catcher - but overall, we'll get what we need from our pilots, whether they are CSI: Erickson, Law and Order: Repko Victims Unit or The Aquilino Lopez Show.
Otherwise, I think that Spring Training can reveal something about the team's attitudes towards prospects. I think comparing Navarro's playing time with say, Loney's, may give an indication of who the Dodgers think is closer to being ready. No earth shattering revelation of course...
Three days without a post from Jon is all I can take.
Personally, I'm hoping Nakamura beats out Grabowski, but I think our short and long term outfield health questions make that unlikely.
It seems that all anyone wants to talk about this spring with the Dodgers is the front office, not the players.
I think there seem to be a lot of writers looking for the Dodgers to fall flat on their faces this year.
Strangely, the Giants are perceived as the franchise with all the wonderful acquisitions. Even though, two of the most prominent ones (Matheny and Vizquel) are old guys who don't hit well.
With no connection to the Entertainment Industry, I'm bemused by a culture that bestows such a sense of entitlement that the now unemployed former third lead of Beverly Hills 90210 thinks that he/she can still demand immediate seating at a restaurant ahead of those waiting with reservations.
That said, maybe you CAN use the showbiz analogy to Spring Training. After all,isn't this the time when we find out whether the phenoms are either Ashlee Simpson (manufactured out of hype, with no real talent), or Alicia Keyes.
At the same time, we see the baseball version of Jim Belushi, or John Stamos. You know, guys who have been around forever, are always employed, but no one knows why, like Erickson and Bako.
Does all of this mean that Joe Thurston's role has now been reduced to playing the dead guy poked and prodded on the coroner's table in a CSI episode?
Man, I've GOT to stop reading my wife's People Magazine.
A robot at catcher makes sense, due to the grinding nature of the position...
What I could talk about with a 19-year old is pretty limited unless it's a really nerdy baseball fan. I suppose I could I show the 19-year old girl the ancient music I have on my iPOD. And tell her about how my mom got on my case for buying a CD player as a graduation present for myself in 1987. It cost $99. She thought it was too extravagant.
But it appears they did get two innings in:
http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050314&content_id=966791&vkey=spt2005gamer&fext=.jsp&c_id=la
This might be a rare case of a starting pitcher getting shelled but wishing the game hadn't been rained out. If they had gone nine, perhaps Edwin Jackson's bad performance wouldn't have been the heart of the story.
This year it looks like Scott Erickson and A Lopez could play important roles. I'm hoping Nakamura shows enough to knock Saenz off the roster and not Grabowksi.
Steiner & Monday said that Jackson was all mixed up, but the real "story" was some horrible defense. Bad throw by Jackson, and pitches getting away from Ross, though that was blamed on Jackson getting his signals crossed. Oh, and David Ross struck out again. 0-for-14. I know spring training isnt supposed to be a big deal, but this guy is not helping himself out.
Yeah it looks like EJack's going to be a midseason callup?
Anyone else find it hard to believe that a guy with Ross' history can have a position (albiet platoon) almost locked up after he hits 0-14? Wait, "hits" 0-14?
He was released by Licey after posting a .111 average.
Is he really an above average defensive/game-calling catcher?
"I'm hoping Nakamura shows enough to knock Saenz off the roster and not Grabowksi."
My observations from last season was the Grabowski struck-out more than Saenz. Also, it appeared that Saenz did a much better job coming cold off the bench. Am I wrong? I think I would take Saenz...
19 year old girls just wanna talk about themselves. Nothing else. Nod your head, do your best to listen, once in a while buy her something cute and completely useless and then wait patiently between episodes of nudity. That's all it takes to date a 19 year old.
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