THE LAST FIVE ...

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Friday, Apr. 4, 2003 - 2:58 p.m.

Is this still spring?

For the first time in three years � and the first time in team history � I am not preparing for the Lakewood BlueClaws' home opener in a week. In its third season, the team will be without two mainstays from its first two campaigns: Jeff Manto, who was the hitting coach in 2001 and manager last season, and me. I'm over emphasizing my role, of course, but it will certainly be a different atmosphere around the ballpark on game nights. I'm still heading down for the home opener on Thursday, and I'll make my way to several games throughout the season, but it won't be the same, both for me and the staff that works the games each day (and they've told me as much).

Frankly, if I were there I wouldn't be as excited for the season. Manto is a funny, personable guy, and I felt much more comfortable in my second season covering the team than I did in my first. At spring training, I knew my way around and was welcomed and introduced to others when Manto and the coaches would head out to the Clearwater restaurants for dinner and beers. On the Sunday after the teams were announced � and the BlueClaws were basically assigned � Manto took a moment out from talking to a group of players during batting practice and pointed my way. "See that guy right there?" he asked the players. "That's Dan. He covers the team up in Lakewood and you'll be seeing him a lot this season. You give him the same respect you'd give me or anyone else."

With my situation at the Pre$$ (catch that, Google) far from acceptable (forget ideal), I couldn't trade my work and living situation now for what I had then. But I will miss the minor league beat. Whether or not I get back into writing, or sports writing, I'll be able to say I covered a minor league baseball team for two years. I traveled on occassion, visiting North Carolina (twice) and spring training in Florida in March (twice). I drove around New Jersey, out to Reading, Pa., up to Staten Island and Shea and Yankee stadiums, all to interview major and minor leaguers, to watch baseball and write about it.

In some ways, it increased my love of the game, but I learned other things as well. I'm pretty damn sure I don't want to be a major league beatwriter. Sure, I'd love the travel and the cities and the games, not to mention a month in Florida or Arizona in March, but unless you're covering one of about eight teams (and it's not always the same eight, with the exception of say the Yankees, A's, Braves and Mariners in recent years), there's a lot of losing. It's tough to come up with different ways to say "they came close." Granted, when you're covering only home games for a minor league team on the Jersey Shore, where the readers really only care about what their team did, your subject matter is limited. But I've seen major league beat writers: I've seen how they move around in flocks like sheep. I've seen how Joe Torre can come out and sit on the dugout bench on a sunny June Sunday at Yankee Stadium, two dozen reporters crowded onto the steps, and no one speaks for several seconds, all waiting for someone else to ask the first question. I've seen 10 writers crowded around Scott Rolen in a corner of the visiting clubhouse at Shea Stadium all break out in exaggerated laughter at the smallest joke from the man who was then the Phillies' biggest star. I've seen writers kiss up and suck up to players, and make up quotes and maybe even stories, just to get an angle or a comment or a story that the others don't have.

But I also learned that it's a great job to be able to drive to the ballpark on a summer morning for a weekday afternoon game, or to stick around late on a Friday night after all the lights have been turned off. It's wonderful to feel the sun warm on your shoulders and the grass soft under your feet on an early spring day when the cold of winter is still a short-term memory. It's great to watch a minor-league game and know they players are playing for something � for a chance, a shot at the majors � and getting paid, for the most part, less than a school teacher. Sure, there are the bonus babies and the prospects with the big signing bonuses, but the majority of the guys on the fields of Lakewood and Greenville and Round Rock and Ogden are essentially working a summer job, facing the reality of finding offseason work back home when September rolls around.

I also learned that for every disgruntled, me-first superstar; for every all-star shortstop who won't talk to a minor-league writer, for every hard-nosed competitor seen as a cocky bastard, there are three baby-faced kids who play hard and speak humbly. There are hundreds who give their time to the community, who walk, talk and act like they're still in high school or college despite having just used their signing bonus to buy their siblings new cars or their parents a new house.

In two years, I've had the chance to meet some exciting young players who are already known by national writers who have been putting together their prospect lists for the not-too-distant future, and I look forward to following their continued progress and to seeing them in the major leagues before long.

And I'll be able to say I knew them when they were kind, quiet minor-leaguers, and there's no reason to think they aren't still as pleasant to know.

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