Dodger Jeff Kent stays mum on whether this will be his final season

Jeff Kent strolled into the Dodgers’ clubhouse this morning, the last position player to report to camp.

“I just left my family that I’ve been with for four months and I probably won’t see them for three weeks, so today’s not such a great day,” Kent said.

But buttoning up his uniform, rolling up his socks and giving blood for his physical on the day of the first full-squad workout put him back in what he called “a professional mode.”

“No doubt when I get out there and start running around the bases, that excitement will come back,” Kent said. “There’s a passion to play this game. I love to play this game. And I play it with passion. I don’t make excuses. I’ll be happy to be here, absolutely.”

Whether this will be the 40-year-old Kent’s last season was something the second baseman wouldn’t address.

“That’ll come at another time and another place,” Kent said. “Is that rehearsed enough?”

Kent said that his decision to return for the final season of his contract with the Dodgers, which will pay him $9 million, was based in part of the moves the club made in the winter.

“You go into the off-season optimistic and you end up sitting back and watching them bring in Joe Torre,” Kent said. “That’s a big addition to accountability, accountability of your losses. And then you watch some player moves that have been made to bolster the team. You can’t help but to get excited.”

Kent said he understood owner Frank McCourt’s reluctance to part with the club’s promising young players “because he has a long-term investment in this organization.”

Kent was critical of the team’s young players late last season, his comments revealing tensions in the clubhouse between the veterans and the up-and-comers. But Kent said today that he didn’t have any problems with any players.

“My frustrations don’t lie with anybody,” Kent said. “They lie with wins and losses. You don’t win, if anybody’s not frustrated, they shouldn’t be playing this game. There’s no frustrations with players, there’s no frustrations with management. Anybody who sits back and is complacent, it is not worth being a professional athlete. I think the McCourts and [General Manager Ned Colletti] have realized that and obviously have made progress in not being complacent.”

The new clubhouse rules implemented by Torre claimed their first victim, as left-hander Joe Beimel came to work with his hair shortened. Beimel said he was told by Torre on Tuesday to cut his hair, which was previously shoulder-length.

The last time Beimel’s hair was short was in 2004, when he was cut by the Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training and spent most of the year with the Minnesota Twins’ triple-A affiliate in Rochester, N.Y. He pitched in three big league games, giving up eight runs in 1 2/3 innings.

Torre, Beimel said, wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to affect Beimel on the mound.

Will it?

“I’m a little stronger mentally than that,” Beimel said.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com