Prospects

One of my least-favorite sports terms: It's a process. Like everything isn't. Studying game film, learning to lay off that low outside slider, scratching your left earlobe, it's all a process. Normally this process malarkey is used to explain why things aren't as good as they're supposed to be. And since in sports there is only one winner, that pretty much leaves everyone else going through their little processes. Naturally, you hear it a lot around the Dodgers. Rejuvenating the fan base, upgrading the roster, adding depth to the front office - it's all a process.

DENVER - Ned Colletti performed a neat trick Sunday when the Dodgers general manager turned Matt Magill into Yasiel Puig following Sunday's 7-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies. The question now is, can Puig, perhaps the most hyped minor league outfielder since . . . well, since last year . . . bring enough magic to turn the Dodgers into a winner? With half the regular lineup out because of injuries and the last-place Dodgers ranked 28th in the majors in scoring, it was clear Colletti had to do something to shake up his foundering team.

The Pittsburgh Pirates removed James McDonald from their starting rotation last week, as they tried desperately to remain alive in the playoff race. That got us to thinking: Just how many of the prospects traded by Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti are playing a significant role in this year's pennant races? The Dodgers sent McDonald to Pittsburgh in 2010 for seven weeks of setup man Octavio Dotel. McDonald was 9-3 with a 2.37 earned-run average in the first half of this season, and it appeared Colletti had blundered badly.

Eric Garcetti held a narrow lead over Wendy Greuel late Tuesday as the two longtime city officials battled each other - and voter apathy - in the race to become the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles. With more than half the vote still uncounted, the contest remained too close to call. Greuel, addressing supporters at a downtown club, said she expected the election to go into "overtime. " Garcetti, speaking just before midnight, told supporters in Hollywood, "The results aren't all in, but this is shaping up to be a great night.

In the winter of 2007, Major League Baseball was shaken to its core as Congress, armed with the Mitchell Report, examined the single greatest threat to the integrity of the game: steroids. In the baseball-crazy Dominican Republic, home to one in 10 major league players, that threat collides with a harsh reality because finding performance-enhancing drugs here is as easy as buying aspirin. Take a stroll along the leafy Calle Independencia, a block from this capital's bustling seafront highway, and at every intersection there are two or three pharmacies where steroids are sold openly.

Now that the Angels' season is essentially over, I want to be the first to congratulate Bill Stoneman for a job well done. It is clear, from listening to Stoneman, that a general manager's job is to hold on to every single prospect in the organization and not trade him for anything unless part of a one-sided deal (viz., Erick Aybar for Alfonso Soriano). Why on earth would he have wanted to trade for has-beens like Carlos Delgado or Jim Thome when he could waste at-bats (and games) on guys like Kendry Morales, Reggie Willits, Tommy Murphy, Dallas MacPherson and Jeff Mathis and thus expose all but a few of these "prospects" as either not ready or not good enough, diminishing their trade value further?

For several years we have heard the local nines celebrate the virtues of kids so homegrown and homespun, you would have thought they came up from triple-A Farmers Market. Well, stash the nostalgia and stifle the sentiment. As for today, those kids have become chips in a World-Series-size gamble. The first-place Dodgers and Angels are betting a championship on them.

Say this about these Angels: They're not haunted by the past. The Angels traded three players and took on $24.5 million to get Scott Kazmir last year, a bust so far. They traded four players and took on $32 million to get Dan Haren on Sunday, with no regrets about the Kazmir deal. In the first inning of his first game with the Angels, Mo Vaughn tumbled into the dugout and wrenched his ankle. He had just become the costliest purchase in club history, and he was never the same again.

The Twilight of the Bombs Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons Richard Rhodes Alfred A. Knopf: 370 pp., $27.95

Microsoft: An article in Business on Thursday about Microsoft Corp.'s online prospects said Don Mattrick is an executive vice president for the software company's interactive entertainment business. He is a senior vice president in the division.

The courtship that has riveted the neuroscience world blossomed at a Saturday night dinner in a tony Brentwood restaurant. USC provost Elizabeth Garrett and executive vice provost Michael Quick kept the conversation light. Over chicken with braised leeks, onions, mustard bread crumbs and white wine at Tavern, they talked to UCLA neuroscientist Arthur Toga about his life. Not the brain imaging research for which his lab is renowned but about "the things that get you excited in the morning," Toga recalled.

TEHRAN - Iranians must wait until next week to find out who will be on the ballot in next month's presidential election, a key electoral panel said Thursday, as it continued to mull the fate of two prospective candidates who have shaken up the race. The Guardian Council, which vets office seekers, said it needed an extension until Tuesday to judge the suitability of the nearly 700 presidential aspirants. A council official told reporters that 10 or more candidates may be approved, a relatively high number that could make it difficult for one to win a majority without a runoff election.

Andrew Wiggins caused quite a stir Tuesday when he finally decided what college he was going to attend -- and, therefore, which basketball team's hopes for a national title would be lifted into the stratosphere. Fans of the four schools the Huntington (W.Va.) Prep star had named as his finalists -- Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Florida State -- had gotten themselves whipped up into a frenzy during the days leading up to Wednesday's deadline for recruits to sign with NCAA Division I schools.

Google's stock price climbed above $900 a share for the first time as Wall Street waited to hear what the company will announce later Wednesday at its annual developers conference. The stock opened Wednesday at $895.75 and continued climbing. At last check it was trading at $907.35, up $20.25, or 2.3%, from Tuesday's close. The company's shares hit the $900 mark despite CEO Larry Page disclosing Tuesday that he has had trouble speaking because of a vocal cord ailment. In a post on the company's social network Google+, Page said he remained fully capable of running the company.

Nearly two years after being canceled by the ABC network, soap operas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" have been brought back to life on the Web. The two daytime dramas made their online debut Monday on the video site Hulu and Apple's iTunes store. In a sign of the shows' persistent appeal among fans, the soaps quickly bubbled up in the rankings of most popular TV shows offered by the two services. ABC canceled the programs in 2011 because they were becoming too expensive to produce, particularly as the median age of the audience marched past the 55-year mark, and advertisers became less interested in the format.

Los Angeles' oldest museum site, the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park, is celebrating its centennial this year with the debut of a new entrance halland outdoor nature center, capping a full makeover that's already yielded new halls for dinosaurs and mammals, and the return of the museum's core domed 1913 building to its original glory. But will there be any reason for festivities surrounding next year's centennial of the Southwest Museum building in Mount Washington? For the past ten years, the castle-like, hilltop structure has been like a very old aunt whose care is a strain on the family, with different factions fighting over what should be done, and who should pay. Legally, the Southwest is the obligation of the Autry National Center of the American West.

"You take the best darned player. If you have two players who are equal, take the bigger one.... Hopefully, you learn to speak Chinese." Jerry West, president of the Memphis Grizzlies, on 7-foot-5 Yao Ming's prospects in the NBA draft.

It has been rumored that Bill Stoneman is considering letting Adam Kennedy go at the end of this season, when his contract expires, because there is a great minor league prospect available to step in behind Kennedy. We have two of those former great minor league prospects playing for the Angels right now, Casey Kotchman and Jeff Mathis, and we see how well they're doing. Maybe the Angels should let Stoneman go in favor of one of those bright, young GM wannabes coming up behind him. FRED FERKETIC Newport Beach

Dodgers prospect Yasiel Puig was arrested by police in Chattanooga, Tenn., early Sunday and charged with speeding, reckless driving and driving without proof of insurance. A spokesman for the Hamilton County jail confirmed that Puig was booked Sunday morning and released a short time later. He has a hearing scheduled for the afternoon of May 14 in Hamilton County court. Puig, a 22-year-old Cuban defector, signed a seven-year, $42-million contract with the Dodgers last June. An impressive spring -- during which he hit .517, homered three times and drove in 11 runs in 27 games -- had him in the running for a spot on the opening day roster.

DALLAS - A day of festivities leading up to Thursday's dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library cast attention back to his tumultuous presidency and ahead - perhaps - to the next presidential contest. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hired to speak in Dallas to the National Multi Housing Council, a group of apartment firms. The Wednesday dinner was closed, and officials did not disclose how much Clinton was paid. Earlier, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke before wealthy Republican donors - and also students, teachers and office workers - at an event sponsored by the nonpartisan World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth.