You might think with two days and no posts, that we had the weekend off, but in fact we’ve been here every day with little news to share. Everything is going well at camp and there are tons of fans right now watching the players go through the annual photo day, where are the various baseball card companies, photo agencies, etc. get a chance to get their official shots of the players.

The Dodger PR Department has made it an annual event to wake up really early on Photo Day (5:30 or so) and visit the local Cracker Barrel, which we did again today. Good eats, good company and we even found my daughter an outfit that said, "My First John Deere" with a picture of a tractor on it, so it’s been quite a morning. Plus, we found out that there’s a Cracker Barrel in Glendale, Arizona, so our annual tradition will continue even when we move spring sites.

There’s an intrasquad game today at 12 p.m. between team Koufax and team Drysdale. Here are the lineups:

Koufax: Abreu (2B), Hu (SS), Loney (1B), May (C), Tiffee (LF), Paul (RF), Chavez (3B), Logan (CF)…pitchers are Sturtze, Tom Martin, Falkenborg, Jones and Hull.

Drysdale: Young (2B), Ethier (LF), Sweeney (RF), LaRoche (3B), Lindsey (1B), Griffin (CF), Ellis (C), Martinez (SS)…pitchers are Myers, Johnson, Koplove, Shackelford and De La Cruz.

This is probably the first time Mike Myers has seen his name at the starting pitcher spot in quite some time. He’s appeared in 883 big league games, which is 22nd all-time, and none as a starter. He did make 80 starts in the minor leagues in 127 games, but the last time he started a game was 1994.

Game is at Holman Stadium, so come on down if you’re in Vero.

UPDATE: Drysdale beat Koufax. John Lindsey had three hits, Chin-lung Hu had two and Brian Shackelford threw the only perfect innning. While celebratin ghis 26th birthday, Diamond Leung of the Press Enterprise blogged play by play here.

In baseball, the term "honeymoon" usually refers to a new GM or manager who has a grace period after their hiring before fans start to get antsy. Today, I saw something that brought the true meaning of honeymoon to Dodgertown.

Waiting outside the Dodger clubhouse where the fans usually hang out for autographs were Tim and Danielle Monteath of Atascadero, CA. The couple was wearing Dodger jerseys and Mickey Mouse ears that had a top hat and a bride’s veil. They got married on Saturday and Tim, a lifelong Dodger fan, convinced his new bride to come to Vero Beach as part of their honeymoon. We posted a picture of them in today’s photo gallery and I brought them over to the clubhouse where they got a chance to get a close up look at the the players as they headed out to the field. Congratulations to the bride and groom!

Also, for those of you in Vero, there will be an intrasquad game on Tuesday so feel free to drop by. Here’s how the pitching lines up for the first few days of spring:

Tuesday intrasquad: Penny, Park, Kuo

Wednesday simulated game: Lowe and Stults

Thursday home opener: Billingsley and Jason Johnson

Friday on ESPN: Kuroda and Loaiza

To answer the two questions posed in the comments – there are lots of ghost stories from Dodger Stadium and I’m afraid I don’t know all of them. However, there’s supposedly a lady in a red dress who walks around the Top Deck late at night…or at least that’s what a security guard once told me.

And the Star on the Walk of Fame ceremony has been rescheduled for June 20. You’re right, it was originally on the docket in February but due to the passing of Johnny Grant, among other things, we decided to postpone the event. As a matter of fact, we were scheduled to have lunch with Johnny the day he passed, which was obviously quite a shock to everyone who knew him.

And finally, on a much happier note, I’m saving the best news for last, as Dr. Frank Jobe was named Special Advisor to the Chairman today in a well deserved promotion. This man certainly belongs in the Hall of Fame and he has changed the lives of so many baseball players over the years, it’s hard to fathom. We wish him a very hearty congratulations.

It’s official…Tommy Lasorda will manage the team in Joe Torre’s absence while the team is in China. He’s walking around on cloud nine here at Dodgertown and everyone here is very excited for him. He’ll have Larry Bowa and Bob Schaefer in the dugout with him to help with any decisions, but Joe made it clear when he met with the media just now that this is, in fact, Tommy’s team in the interim. He even joked about losing his job if he goes 0-2 in China and Tommy goes 8-0 in Florida, but something tells me Tommy will be glad to hand it back over when he’s finished.

As for the first full-squad workout today, nothing terribly exciting happened. There were the usual drills, batting practice, etc. and unfortunately, non-roster invitee George Lombard hurt his calf during conditioning, so he’ll be out a couple days.

As they say, baseball is a marathon, not a sprint, but we’ll leave you today with this note geared towards anyone who is planning on running in the REAL L.A. marathon next month.

The Dodgers are forming a team that will run together in the L.A. Marathon on Sunday, March 2. Interested fans will represent the Dodgers and help celebrate the Dodgers’ 50 years in Los Angeles as they run together throughout the city. 

The Dodger team will be outfitted in Dodger gear (nothing too fancy since you obviously have to run in it) and be given a pair of tickets redeemable during the 2008 season. L.A. Marathon registered runners interested in representing the Dodgers, can send their contact information to pubintern@ladodgers.com.

Good luck to everyone during the final few weeks of training for the marathon (that is, the real one and the Dodger season).

Not much to report from here…Schmidt and Brazoban both threw without issue today, which is obviously a positive. Sandy Koufax was back out again today, this time working with Greg Miller, among others. 

With nothing else really to blog about, here are our daily notes from Dodgertown.

FULL SQUAD ON THE HORIZON: Dodger pitchers and catchers worked out for the sixth time this spring, and tomorrow will be joined by all position players for the first full-squad workout.  Nearly all position players this morning were out on the field taking batting practice, fielding grounders, and catching fly balls to get an early start.  Sandy Koufax was on the grounds for the third day in a row to offer advice to the pitching staff.  Maury Wills was also on hand, helping pitchers with bunting drills in Wills Pit.

DOUBLE NICKEL: As most are aware, Dodger catcher Russell Martin wears uniform No. 55.  Yesterday, while the Canadian was filming for DodgerVision, he discussed his favorite baseball memory as being his major league debut on May 5, 2006.  When a public relations staffer asked Martin if that was the reason why he went on to wear No. 55 permanently, he replied, “Oh, I didn’t even think of that.”  A true coincidence, indeed.  Martin explained that 55 was the number that he and the club agreed to.

HOMETOWN HEROES: There are six Dodgers on the 40-man roster who are Southern California natives, including Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, James McDonald, Greg Miller, Rudy Seanez, and Delwyn Young.  The high schools these men played at are St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower (Garciaparra), Edison High School in Huntington Beach (Kent), Long Beach Poly High School (McDonald), Esperanza High School in Anaheim (Miller), Brawley Union High School (Seanez), and Littlerock High School (Young).  Not to go unnoticed is Esteban Loaiza, who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and attended Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, CA.

FIRST THING’S FIRST: The Dodgers have eight first-round draft picks in camp, including four who are supplemental first-round selections.  Of the eight first-round players, Chad Billingsley (24th overall in 2003), James Loney (19th overall in 2002), Miller (31st in 2002), Justin Orenduff (33rd overall in 2004), and Jason Repko (37th overall in 1999) were selected by the Dodgers.  The other three are Rick Asadoorian (17th overall by Boston Red Sox in 1999), Garciaparra (12th overall by Boston in 1994), and John-Ford Griffin (23rd overall by New York Yankees in 2001).  Both Asadoorian and Griffin are in Dodger camp as non-roster invitees.

TAKE IT TO THE HAUS: Longtime Seattle Mariners’ broadcaster Dave Niehaus today was named the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, and will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this summer.  Upon graduation from Indiana University, Niehaus worked for the Armed Forces radio and TV service, calling the action for Dodger games before moving to New York to handle Yankees baseball as well as basketball and hockey. After leaving the Armed Forces Network, he returned to Los Angeles to broadcast the Dodgers, Rams, and Lakers.

YOU COMPLETE ME: In going 12-8 with a 3.56 ERA in 26 starts last year for Hiroshima, Hiroki Kuroda tossed seven complete games.  In Major League Baseball in 2007, there were four teams with as many as seven complete games.  The Toronto Blue Jays led the way with 11, followed by the Chicago White Sox (nine), Cleveland Indians (nine), and Arizona Diamondbacks (seven).  Individually, Toronto’s Roy Halladay led the Majors with seven complete games in 2007, followed by Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia and Arizona’s Brandon Webb with four apiece.

GREAT SCOTT!: Dodger reliever Scott Proctor ranks second in the Majors over the last two years with 166 appearances, trailing only Washington’s Jon Rauch, who has 173.  Proctor’s final 31 appearances of 2007 came in a Dodger uniform.  Jonathan Broxton, meanwhile, is tied for seventh among big league relievers in that same span with 151. 

DATES TO REMEMBER

February 20 – First Full-Squad Workout

February 29 – First Spring TV Game (at Atlanta, 1:05 pm on ESPN)

March 2 – Ticket On-Sale Day at Dodger Stadium

February 28 – First Spring Game (vs. Atlanta, Holman Stadium)

March 15-16 – Dodgers vs. Padres in China

From a late broadcasting legend to a legendary current coach, today we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to Manny Mota, who turns 70 years old. The work he does for his international foundation is often overlooked and few realize he’s the longest tenured coach in Dodger history and a key part of the organization. We wish him and his family a very happy 70th.

Of course, we can also move from a legend who we see every day like Manny to one we never see, Sandy Koufax. Sandy stopped by Dodgertown today for the second consecutive day, but given his preference for privacy, I didn’t mention it yesterday when he stayed behind the scenes.

Today, he gave pitching lessons to Scott Proctor and Chan Ho Park and it created quite the scene. All of the fans at Dodgertown flocked to the new bullpen area where this was taking place and when Sandy signed a few autographs, it was hard to believe the chaos it created. In any event, Joe Torre talked at length about his friendship with Sandy so that will be all over the various media outlets that cover us.

There will also be plenty of coverage on Juan Pierre, who arrived in camp today and spoke to the media about his role, as well as Don Mattingly, who made his first appearance at Dodgertown and chatted with several writers, too.  It’s all part of the ebb and flow of early Spring Training, which will start to pick up tomorrow when the remaining position players arrive.

Also, I forgot to respond to one question about why Rick Monday wasn’t on the press release we sent out the other day. Simply, it’s because it was a release about our TV schedule and he only does radio.

Hall of Famer Red Barber, who called play-by-play of Brooklyn Dodger games on the radio from 1939-53, would have celebrated his 100th birthday today.  He was born Walter Lanier Barber had the distinction of broadcasting baseball’s first night game on May 24, 1935 in Cincinnati and the sport’s first televised contest on August 26, 1939 in Brooklyn.  Barber was born on February 17, 1908, and he passed away on October 22, 1992. He also served as a mentor to Vin Scully, for which we all owe him a great deal.

You can listen to a tribute to Barber on the front of dodgers.com in the rotating panel.

Also, I just picked up Joe Torre’s autobiography, Chasing the Dream,  and the word "Dodgers" makes its first appearance 185 words into the book. Torre refers to the World Series game in 1956 which he attended as a 16-year-old and saw Don Larsen pitch a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

A pretty quiet day on the baseball front. All workouts went as scheduled and the front office is going to head out at 5 p.m. for a game of football.

More on Monday…

The hot topic around Dodgertown today was Russell Martin and the amount he’ll play this season. Joe Torre said that he’ll try to watch out not to overuse Russell and that he’s had experience with a player like this, as he’s had Jorge Posada as his catcher in New York for a decade. However, he said that he wouldn’t make any decisions about how often Russell will play until the two of them get a chance to sit down and chat. For his part, Russell said that last year he often lobbied Grady to play even when Grady tried to give him days off and that he’ll probably do the same again this year, but that he understands the need not to wear himself down over the course of a season.

Additionally, everyone came away impressed with Jason Schmidt, who threw a bullpen session today and used four different pitches. Joe Torre said he thought Schmidt was further along in the process than he expected but that he’ll still have two days off before his next bullpen (like Yhency Brazoban), whereas the rest of the pitchers will throw every other day.

A gorgeous day in Vero Beach and it was just as pretty to watch the pitchers and catchers working out for the first time.

Joe Torre addressed the team this morning and as you can imagine, when someone with his resume speaks, the room is all ears. That’s not to say that our previous managers were chopped liver by any means, but obviously very few in the history of the game have four World Series rings to hold up and grab someone’s attention. (Don’t worry, Joe didn’t hold up four rings in the meeting today).

Generally speaking, there were two mobs at Dodgertown today and I was unsure which one I was supposed to be following. The first was a group of about 25-30 Japanese media members, who followed Hiroki Kuroda’s every step on his first day of Spring Training. What jumped out at me was that even during PFPs (pitchers fielding practice), there would be about 10 photographers taking a shot, then busting out their laptops and sending the photo immediately to Japan for the entire world to see within minutes. The speed of information truly amazes me these days and this was one example that really spoke to that.

Meanwhile, just as Kuroda was leaving the field I was at, Joe Torre was coming towards it and he had about 50 fans chasing him down for autographs. He was gracious and signed for just about everyone, but obviously he has to also be able to watch practice, too, so I was going to try and help him wade through the masses. But, with the dozens of media members chasing Kuroda, I had to make a decision and figured I’d help him out, as he’s the new guy in town.

Nonetheless, both made it through just fine and there wasn’t a ton of new news otherwise today. Russell Martin is celebrating his birthday while Ron Cey turned 60, which is almost hard to believe. Then again, just as I typed that, it dawned on me that this blog is almost two years old so I went to look up the first post and sure enough, it was two years ago today that we started to take the fans Inside the Dodgers. It appears I was a lot better back then about adding photos, but for some reason the site doesn’t seem to let me do that anymore.

Nonetheless, hopefully it’s the regular feedback that’s far more valuable than the photos, as you can get those every day from Jon SooHoo’s gallery on the front of the site.

Speaking of feedback, to respond to the comment about joining your Fantasy League, I’m honored to be invited but I don’t think you want someone with inside info going up against the rest of the group. Seems kind of unfair. And to the question about photos from Dodger Stadium renovation, we will post some new ones next week. SooHoo is here with the team, but I’ve reached out to Mark Langill, our team historian, to see if he can shoot some and put them on the site soon.

Anyway, back to today…After Joe met with the media following workouts, we sat him down with Tim Kurkjian of ESPN, so he will be the Sunday night conversation in case you want to see it.

Also, be sure to vote for your favorite Dodger outfielders, as that category opened today at dodgers.com/anniversary.

And finally, for those of you who were awaiting the TV schedule for the regular season, here it is.

A busy morning, with plenty of people trickling in…

The day started with breakfast in the dining room, where I joined several of our coaches including Bob Schaefer, Mariano Duncan and Triple-A manager Lorenzo Bundy. The newest member of the front office/coaching staff also joined us, Jose Vizcaino, who is back with the organization as a special assistant to baseball operations. Mariano was telling us about how impressive Rafael Furcal looked this winter in the Dominican Republic, which is great to hear. Certainly a nice way to start the spring…

Over at the clubhouse, pitchers are trickling in, with Jason Schmidt giving a state-of-the-Schmidt address, so to speak. That is to say that most of our beat writers talked to him this morning about his progress and he said things are going very well and that in the past couple weeks, he’s really started to feel good. There’s still no real timetable for when he’ll pitch in games this spring or if he’ll be ready to go by Opening Day, but we’ll obviously see how that unfolds throughout the spring.

Otherwise, most of the national media that was here yesterday left after they got Joe Torre’s inaugural address, but ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian is still here, so keep an eye on Baseball Tonight/Sportscenter for his updates. And of course, the usual places of news are the four media outlets covering us daily from here, MLB.com, the L.A. Times, Daily News and the Riverside Press Enterprise.

It’s amazing how quickly the comments ramped up as soon as Spring Training arrived.

We are here in Dodgertown, having arrived last night around 8 p.m. to a welcoming committee at the airport. Actually, those welcoming us at the airport were mostly autograph seekers who make a living putting that stuff on eBay, as Saito and Kuroda were on our flight and they got bombarded as soon as we got into the main area of the Orlando airport. I guess the autograph is worth more if it’s in Japanese, as they were all saying "Kanji," which I guess means, "Japanese." In any event, they were both gracious and signed as much as they could and with that, Spring Training was officially underway.

Also on our flight were the rest of the PR department, Ellen Harrigan from Baseball Operations and Mike Borzello, the new bullpen catcher this year who comes to us from the Yankees. He will join Rob Flippo down there and hopefully bring with him some of the success the Yankees have had over the last 10 years. Mike grew up in Southern California and we actually went to Joe Torre Baseball Camp together in the late 80s, so it’s good to have him in the Dodger family.

The entire clubhouse staff is here and we’ve already seen Mariano Duncan, too. From what I hear, we’ll have about a dozen players here today, with the rest showing up tomorrow. Billy DeLury, who joined the team in 1950, has been here holding down the fort since late January for the start of the two Adult Baseball Camps that just concluded.

As we settle into the office, we’re hoping the weather will cooperate this morning, as we have a media conference scheduled for 1 p.m. ET with Joe Torre. Not surprisingly, there are tons of New York and national media members who have been checking in with me almost daily to see when Joe will first speak here at Dodgertown so they can document it all for the papers in Manhattan.

For those of you who don’t want to wait to read the written reports, ESPN should be carrying it live on one of their multiple channels (maybe "The Ocho"), so be on the lookout for that. I’ll try to post any highlights later this afternoon.

Otherwise, it should be a relatively quiet, albeit exciting, day at Dodgertown.

UPDATE: It’s pouring at Dodgertown, but we have a tid bit of news. Takashi Saito signed a one-year deal today, which was really never in question but nonetheless, is nice to get done.