Camelback Ranch

Stan Kasten, the veteran baseball executive leading one of three groups considered as front-runners in the Dodgers bidding, toured Camelback Ranch on Tuesday. Kasten and Mark Walter, the money man behind Guggenheim Baseball Partners, met in Phoenix with major league owners on Monday. The third primary partner, Magic Johnson, was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict. The other two leading contenders among the bidders: hedge-fund billionaire Steven Cohen, who toured Camelback Ranch on Saturday and returned as a fan on Sunday, and St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

Dee Gordon made an opening-day roster for the first time this spring, which meant he was also in a major league uniform Sunday for his first Jackie Robinson Day, baseball's annual tribute to the former Dodger who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. "I'm definitely honored," said Gordon who, like all big leaguers, wore Robinson's No. 42 on Sunday. "Wearing his number [shows] my respect for him. Last year I was in triple A and I watched those guys wear the jerseys and I thought, 'you know what?

The new spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz., where the Dodgers have been working out their preseason kinks, getting an extended look at their top prospects and welcoming their dreadlocked pied piper of a superstar, Manny Ramirez, back into the fold, might easily have been a public-relations disaster. The sprawling facility, which covers 141 acres and cost $100 million, is the largest and glitziest in the Cactus League -- by far. Known as Camelback Ranch, as if it were a high-end gated community instead of a baseball complex, it includes more than a dozen practice fields, including one that re-creates the dimensions of the Dodger Stadium outfield down to the inch.

PHOENIX - Only two Dodgers have pitched six innings in a game this spring. The first was Clayton Kershaw. The second was Aaron Harang, who did it Thursday in a 3-1 defeat to the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch. The Dodgers' No. 4 starter, Harang gave up one run and six hits. He struck out six and walked one. “I'm really pleased,” Harang said. “I felt the ball was coming out really good.” Harang also successfully bunted to advance Juan Uribe from first base to second in the fifth inning.

The Dodgers' pitchers and catchers will show up at Camelback Ranch in Arizona in a few days for spring training. And so will Sue Falsone. She won't be in the stands; she'll be in the dugout and the clubhouse, with the guys. She's the Dodgers' new head athletic trainer and physical therapist - and she is the first woman to become head trainer in any of the four major professional sports. This Buffalo gal has taken a career lap around the country, from her native upstate New York to a master's degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, to the boys of summer's spring training turf in Arizona, and a previous stint at Dodger Stadium, where she was first hired as an assistant trainer for the team in 2007.

Dodgers 6, Chicago White Sox 4 At the plate: The Dodgers had six hits in a five-run sixth inning that broke open the game. Four of the hits were by sons of former major leaguers, who combined for the cycle in the inning. "That's crazy," Scott Van Slyke said. Tony Gwynn Jr. singled, Justin Sellers doubled, Ivan De Jesus Jr. tripled and Van Slyke hit a towering two-run home run that cleared the Dodgers' bullpen in left field. The Dodgers started their projected opening-day lineup, except for third baseman Juan Uribe, who will start Tuesday.

? When the Dodgers were on the market in 2004, Commissioner Bud Selig endorsed their highly leveraged sale to a real-estate developer from Boston. That developer was Frank McCourt . So now that McCourt is dealing with the fallout of a costly divorce that has further clouded the future of what was already a cash-strapped club, does Selig feel responsible for the situation? "Well, Fox sold the club to him and we did approve it, but that's a normal process," Selig said.

If only my dermatologist could see me now, and she certainly will once Sunday takes its full effect. I went online and bought a $100 ticket for the Dodgers' first game in the middle of the Sahara, a beautiful spring training shrine rising in the middle of nowhere, but still the desert.

And then on the fifth day of March, they played baseball. Maybe it was only the Dodgers' spring training opener, but given the dearth of anything approaching genuine interest during the first two weeks of camp, it offered a welcome reprieve. It qualified as a nice spring opener too, the Dodgers rolling to a 6-4 victory Monday over their Camelback Ranch neighbors, the Chicago White Sox. The Dodgers mostly played fundamental baseball, received some good performances from several players and an absolutely monstrous home run from their reigning minor league player of the year, Scott Van Slyke.

Reporting from Phoenix — The Andre Ethier that Cory Hahn knows isn't short-tempered. He isn't moody. The Ethier that Hahn knows was among the first people to visit him in the hospital last year after he broke his neck sliding into second base in a game at Arizona State. "He's a genuine guy," Hahn said. "On the field, he's a gamer. Off the field, he's been nothing but nice and awesome to me and my family. " Hahn and his father visited the Dodgers' spring-training complex Thursday as guests of Ethier, who played college ball at Arizona State.

Chad Billingsley can be everything. Good and bad, exciting and deflating, an All-Star one year and post a career-high earned-run average the next. And sometimes, he can even be all those things in one game. It was only spring - - sorry, the mantra is required - - but Monday afternoon at Camelback Ranch, Billingsley showed all his sides in a 4-3 victory for the Dodgers against the White Sox. For the first three innings, Billingsley looked a lot like the guy his detractors are absolutely certain will never reach his potential.

Designated hitter Kendrys Morales is scheduled to play with the Angels on Tuesday against the Kansas City Royals, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said Sunday. It will be Morales' first time in a major league lineup since he fractured his left ankle May 29, 2010, while jumping on home plate in celebration of a game-winning home run. Scioscia is aiming for Morales -- who took a rainy Sunday off after playing in minor-league games Friday and Saturday -- to get 40 to 50 spring at-bats before the Angels' April 6 season opener.

The Dodgers and Angels played to a 1-1 tie through 5 1/2 innings Sunday when the rest of the game was canceled because of rain at Camelback Ranch. Angels starter Dan Haren, throwing bare-armed despite the chilly conditions, retired the first 12 Dodgers he faced. The Dodgers then scored their run in the fifth inning when Juan Uribe singled home Adam Kennedy, who had doubled. The Angels opened with a run in the first inning off Dodgers left-hander Chris Capuano when Kole Calhoun singled, advanced to third base on Albert Pujols' single and scored on Mark Trumbo's sacrifice fly. There were concerns that the game, which was sold out, might not be played.

Reporting from Phoenix   Designated hitter Kendrys Morales is scheduled to play with the Angels on Tuesday against the Kansas City Royals, Manager Mike Scioscia said Sunday. It will be Morales' first time in a major league lineup since he fractured his left ankle May 29, 2010, while jumping on the plate to celebrate a game-winning home run. Scioscia is aiming for Morales, who took a rainy Sunday off after playing in minor league games Friday and Saturday, to get 40 to 50 at-bats before the Angels' opener April 6. Morales has nine at-bats.

Ivan DeJesus strained his left oblique abdominal muscle, harming the infielder's chances of being on the Dodgers' opening-day roster as a key bench player. "It's hard to compete [for a job] when you can't be out there," Manager Don Mattingly said Sunday before the Dodgers were to play the Angels at Camelback Ranch, weather permitting. DeJesus, 24, inured himself while swinging during an at-bat Saturday night in the Dodgers' game against the San Francisco Giants. He's scheduled to have an MRI exam on Monday to evaluate the damage.

Angels starting pitcher Ervin Santana was forced from Wednesday's Cactus League game against the Chicago White Sox after being struck on the front of his right shoulder by an Alexei Ramirez line drive. Santana fielded the ball that gave him a right shoulder contusion and threw to first baseman Albert Pujols for the out, but clearly was in discomfort after being hit by the liner. Santana walked back to the mound area and bent over, placing his hands on his knees, then stretched as an Angels trainer and Manager Mike Scioscia came to attend to him. Seconds later, Scioscia was escorting Santana to the dugout and reliever Eddie McKiernan was summoned.

Ivan DeJesus strained his left oblique abdominal muscle, harming the infielder's chances of being on the Dodgers' opening-day roster as a key bench player. "It's hard to compete [for a job] when you can't be out there," Manager Don Mattingly said Sunday before the Dodgers were to play the Angels at Camelback Ranch, weather permitting. DeJesus, 24, inured himself while swinging during an at-bat Saturday night in the Dodgers' game against the San Francisco Giants. He's scheduled to have an MRI exam on Monday to evaluate the damage.

Steven Cohen, the hedge-fund billionaire bidding to buy the Dodgers, received a private tour of the team's spring home on Saturday. Cohen flew to the Phoenix area in advance of Monday's meetings between Dodgers bidders and a committee of Major League Baseball owners. Cohen is widely considered one of three favorites to buy the team, along with St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke and a group led by Magic Johnson and veteran baseball executive Stan Kasten. Cohen has an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion and Kroenke an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion, according to Forbes.

Reporting from Phoenix — A new season beckons with an old question: Can Chad Billingsley be a more consistent winner for the Dodgers? The right-hander is coming off an 11-11 season with a 4.21 earned-run average, his third consecutive year of being on or near the .500 mark in wins and losses. Billingsley, 27, particularly struggled on the road last year, with a record of 5-7 and a 5.34 ERA. "Bills is obviously looking to — I won't say rebound — but be better than what he was last year," Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt said.

Reporting from Phoenix — Albert Pujols hit his first home run as an Angel on Wednesday, then added another in his next at-bat — confirmation the slugger's power was not diminished by a change in uniform. "I don't look for that; I just try to put my best swings on the ball," Pujols said after the Chicago White Sox defeated the Angels, 9-7. "A good, quality at-bat. " After being hit by a pitch from Chicago White Sox starter Chris Sale in the first inning, Pujols answered in the third with a towering three-run homer over the left-field wall at Camelback Ranch.