Ten storylines to watch as training camps rev up

In with the new, out with the old: First-year Dodgers manager Joe Torre arrives just in time for the Dodgers' last spring in Vero Beach. AP

With full squads stretching and groaning their way into semi-action for the first time this week, let's concentrate on what's worth watching for the next month and a half. These next six weeks can make -- or at least not break -- a whole lot of major-league teams.

Here are 10 reasons to pay attention this spring:

Torretown

The calmest hand in the skippering business takes his act back to the other league this spring when Joe Torre assumes control of the Dodgers. If ever a team needed some controlling, this is it.

Remember the 2007 Dodgers? They were actually in great shape in the National League West -- three games out of first place near the beginning of September -- before some in-clubhouse sniping between the young guys (James Loney, Matt Kemp and others) and the veterans (Jeff Kent, Luis Gonzalez and others) sent the team into a death spiral. The Dodgers went 9-15 to finish the season -- worse than the nose diving Mets over that span -- ending up eight games behind the Diamondbacks. The whole thing cost manager Grady Little his job.

The first task for Torre, 67, is to repair the damage from the great September skid. Torre was a magician at managing crises in his dozen years with the Yanks. If he's to do that with Los Angeles -- if he's to instill that same type of businesslike professionalism with his new team -- it'll start in Dodgertown.

Toriitown

It's always been pretty easy to find Torii Hunter in February and March. For most of the past 15 years, ever since he was picked by the Twins in the first round of the 1993 draft, Hunter camped out at the Lee County Sports Complex, in Ft. Myers, Fla.. Now Hunter has moved on, taking a five-year, $90 million offer from the Angels to be their new centerfielder. He was, by far, the most notable free agent to switch teams this winter.

It'll be interesting this spring to see exactly how Hunter, one of the most likeable players in baseball, takes to new surroundings (the Angels train in Tempe, Ariz.) and a more-veteran team. Will he be deferential to Vladimir Guerrero, Garret Anderson and Chone Figgins? Will he be low-key with the media, or will he remain his usual gregarious self? How will he interact with Gary Matthews Jr., the man he's pushing out of centerfield? How will he handle the pressures of his first huge contract?

In short: New team, new Hunter?

Dodgertown

Sites to see around Vero Beach, Fla., 30 years ago: Tommy Lasorda in a too-tight uniform, players baking in the midday sun on the slightly sunk-in benches at Holman Stadium and snowbirds from New York.

Sites to see around Vero this spring: Lasorda in his uniform. Players on those same benches. And some of those same snowbirds.

But aside from Torre, the reason the place is notable this spring is that nobody will ever get to experience those rites of Dodgertown quite like this again. As many teams have over the years, the Dodgers are pulling up stakes for a move to the Cactus League. In 2009, Glendale, Ariz. -- the site of the new University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Super Bowl was held earlier this month -- will be the Dodgers' new home.

So if you want a chance to see current players work on the same mounds that Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax climbed, or the famous heart-shaped lake, or those funky roof-less dugouts, or Lasorda in his element, this is it. Your last chance.

Ghost town

Ahhhh, Winter Haven. Central Florida base of the Indians since 1993. And ... and ... and ... well, it's kind of hard to come up with a whole lot of nice things about Winter Haven. Which may be why the Indians are making this their last spring there.

Chain of Lakes Park, where the spring Indians play, certainly has its charms. It is, in a lot of ways, a prototypical spring training park, with small seating areas close to the field, a quaintly covered grandstand with some obstructed views and meek amenities.

In this era, though, no one wants meek or quaint, so in 2009 the Indians are going back to Arizona (they used to train in Tucson) for a state-of-the-spring park in Goodyear, Ariz. That this move is getting a whole lot less publicity than the Dodgers' defection to the Cactus League says scads not only about the popularity of the Dodgers, but also about the differences between historic Vero Beach and not-quite-so historic Winter Haven.

Light 'em up

McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Fla., has been a spring training home to some team or another since 1923, save for a good-sized break during World War II. One constant in those 85 years is that every game that has been played at the downtown park at 17th Avenue and Ninth Street West has been a day game.

McKechnie, of course, hasn't had lights.

Until now, that is. The lone lightless holdout among parks to host pro games, McKechnie has finally given in. The Pirates, who have trained in Bradenton since 1969, will hold a night game on March 7 to break in their fancy new electric lights, part of a multi-million dollar upgrade to the stadium and to the nearby practice facility at Pirate City.

Will all that help the Bucs? Doubtful. But, heck, it can't hurt.

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