Get Ready For Bogusball Spring Training Camps Ready For Replacements

Ah, spring training.

A special time that baseball fans wait all winter for, a magical period when anything seems possible. And this year, the possibilities are stranger than ever.

Because this week, when pitchers and catchers begin to report, they will be joined by plumbers, cooks, truck drivers and anyone else who dreams about being a major-league player - or, at least, playing in a major-league uniform at a major-league park.

“This team will be better than what I managed at Tacoma at the Triple-A level,” new Kansas City Royals manager Bob Boone says. “Of course, I didn’t have a very good team at Tacoma.”

Good or bad, a replacement world filled with Oil Can Boyd, Herm Winningham and perhaps 44-yearold Gorman Thomas will be unusual.

The Toronto Blue Jays, who plan to keep manager Cito Gaston away from the strikebreakers, are preparing Dunedin Stadium for regular-season games. A provincial law in Ontario bans them from using replacements at SkyDome, so they intend to play between Tampa and St. Petersburg in a ballpark seating 6,218.

The New York Yankees may be giving their no-names jerseys with numbers in the 70s, 80s and 90s, uniforms usually reserved for guys who get cut early. Matt Stark, who played briefly for Toronto and the White Sox several years ago, is in line to become Don Mattingly’s pinstriped replacement.

The Baltimore Orioles, meanwhile, are taking a different approach. Owner Peter Angelos is refusing to field a replacement team or play exhibitions where an admission price is charged. Their first spring game is March 3 against Philadelphia in Clearwater, Fla.

Many teams won’t use their majorleague fields or clubhouses. Most won’t name their replacement players until the last week of training.

The Yankees, St. Louis, Seattle and San Francisco will be the first teams to open camp when pitchers and catchers report Thursday. Milwaukee and Boston are the last clubs to start, on Feb. 21.

The first game is March 1 when the California Angels play Arizona State in Tempe, Ariz. Ticket sales have been down all over, even with most teams dropping their prices, some as low as $1.

Among those who will not be there, it seems, are the umpires. They’ve been locked out by owners. And, with teams trying to keep secret their list of replacements, no one is quite sure what to expect from the players.

Some clubs have gone after former major leaguers, such as 41-year-old knuckleballer Daniel Boone, who signed with San Diego. Some dipped into their own organizations, such as the New York Mets, who checked whether minor-league coach John Gibbons was interested in catching. Others held tryout camps, such as Atlanta, which cut Corky Swindell, brother of Houston pitcher Greg Swindell.

Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty said most of his replacements will not be familiar.

“Rather than going out and signing a bunch of middle-aged, retired players, we decided to try and identify as many players as possible from our own system,” Jocketty said. “Guys who are young, aggressive and hungry, and want to play for the pure sake of playing baseball.

“I think some of these retired guys and older guys are coming back purely for a paycheck,” he said.

So, what will it look like when baseball returns?

“It’s not going to be real outstanding,” Phillies general manager Lee Thomas said. “We know the ability is not going to be the same as if they were watching bigleague players.”

True, but it won’t look like Central Park slo-pitch softball, either. Even the biggest long shots will have played somewhere. That may be only Class A or college, and it might not be enough to draw fans, but it should at least look like baseball.