Ready or not

Players welcome the end of camps, start of real thing

PEORIA, Ariz. -- The end is near. Not near enough, maybe. But near.

Baseball's spring training camps are wrapping up in Florida and Arizona as teams begin to depart for their season openers. It's been a full six weeks or so since pitchers and catchers reported, six weeks filled with minor aches and pains, weird weather, rumors on the labor front, rumors on the injury front, competition for jobs, endless drills, cramped clubhouses, meals on the run, optimism, a little realism, rookies making their mark, managers trying to make theirs and a month's worth of meaningless, undecipherable exhibition games.

Ready for the regular season? Yeah, just about everybody else is, too.

"This is the time of the spring," a player said the other day at the Seattle Mariners' training facility here in the desert, "that you realize that spring training is about a week too long."

By this time of the spring, most of the roster moves have been decided on, if not yet announced. There are still some to be made, for sure, but most players know already what their jobs will be. And where they'll be doing them.

Although he was torched in his final spring start, The Big Unit has his game face on. AP

By this time of the spring, too, most players are nearly back to full-readiness for the season. Pitchers have started to air out their arms to make sure they're strong for the start of the season. Starters are already on some semblance of a schedule so they're ready to pitch when their turn in the rotation comes around for real.

It is time, simply, to get serious for them.

"If I were to go out there and pitch mediocre from my very first spring training start to my last one, what will I have gained out of pitching bad?" Arizona's Randy Johnson asked rhetorically. "Most likely, it will carry over. You just can't turn it on and off."

Hitters have had their at-bats in game situations by this time in the spring, too, along with their daily swings in the cage. The younger players already are getting their minor-league assignments, while the veterans have started to ease their way back into the everyday lineup.

Everybody, it seems, is about ready for the next step.

"If you're getting a lot of playing time, a lot of at-bats," explains the Mariners' John Olerud, "you're going to be ready. The guys who feel good up there, that are healthy, they're like 'Let's go!'"

For those that are recovering from injuries or otherwise struggling, the season approaches a little too quickly. Guys like Oakland's Jermaine Dye, not yet recovered from a broken leg he suffered last October in the playoffs, could use some more time. The same goes for Jeff Kent, the San Francisco second baseman whose offseason accident has used up the most newsprint this spring.

Whatever the case, the opening of the season waits for no player. Cleveland and Anaheim start the 2002 season with a Sunday game. Everybody else begins on the real Opening Day, Monday, or on Tuesday.

Ready or not, here they come.

The wet blanket

As teams begin to gear up for the season, commissioner Bud Selig vowed that the owners wouldn't lock out the players this season or this postseason. He also said the owners wouldn't change the labor agreement so that the players would be forced to strike.

It was a nice public relations move. But the fear is that the owners will change the rules right after the season. If the players think that'll happen, they may be forced into doing something during the season -- while they still have leverage. The alternative is to wait 'til after the season and risk an offseason free-for-all that would make the tiptoeing of this offseason look tame.

What are the owners' plans? Simple. They want a better deal. And part of that deal still is the elimination of two teams. At least two teams.

Yeah, contraction lives.

"We still expect to contract two teams in November of this year," Selig told users in an answer to a question during a type of town hall meeting the other day on MLB.com, the league's Web site. "The clubs are really committed to it."

Selig said that not only has no team ever dissented on axing teams as a step toward economic health, but that many teams -- most, Selig said -- want to kill four teams.

"I think two is enough," Selig said. "I do think it's one of a myriad of solutions that will help solve baseball's problems. Is it a panacea by itself? No, of course not. But is it, in the overall framework of a settlement -- [will] it help solve problems? Yes, it absolutely will."

Sigh.

Camping out

B.J. Surhoff was so unhappy in Atlanta earlier this spring, seeing that Chipper Jones had taken his job in left field, he openly wondered about his future with the Braves. After hitting .435 this spring (through Tuesday's games), it seems the sometimes surly ex-Oriole has grabbed the first base job away from Julio Franco and Wes Helms … Among those pitchers making their last spring starts was Boston's Opening Day pitcher, Pedro Martinez. He pitched four scoreless innings, giving up six hits and striking out six Wednesday against the Reds. He's ready … Man, how big will the contract have to be to keep Mike Sweeney in Kansas City? Whatever it is, it'll have to get done before Monday or the whole thing will have to wait until after the season. And then it will really get expensive … It looks like Jose Canseco will end his career with 462 home runs after he was released by the Montreal Expos. Of course, we thought Canseco was done before … See where Reds phenom Austin Kearns kicked and screamed, missed a workout and moaned about getting sent down to Class AA? There's a guy ready for the bigs … Note to Mo Vaughn: Get over it, big fella. You weren't a leader in Anaheim, it seems. So be it. Let them talk and move on … Don't adjust the dial on your set. There are reports that there will be redder dirt -- more red, you know? -- in Fenway Park this season. Goes well with that big green thing out in the outfield, evidently … Rickey Henderson, hitting leadoff for the Red Sox against lefties. Dads, teach your kids to be good leadoff hitters. They'll have long, prosperous careers … See where the Cardinals have decided not to play Albert Pujols at third? Instead, Tony La Russa is moving him out to left, where he has played before, and the manager is putting Placido Polanco at third. Polanco was supposed to play left, but he never had before, so La Russa figured keeping Polanco in the infield would cause the least trouble.

 

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