Odds and ends from football to baseball..........

Today marks the first day of Louisville spring football practice. Some other schools have been started for a week or two. For UL there exists some HUGE question marks left as a hangover from a horribly unsatisfying season in 2007. The personnel holes at LB and along the OL, not too mention QB, safety and WR, are nothing compared to the much large question marks currently over whether or not Kragthorpe has fixed the assistant coaching holes. Holes that were created by him, and that must be fixed by him. The off-season moves and coaching acquisitions have been welcome changes. But the question marks remain as to how effective these coaching changes will be.

The key will be in how fast these coach's all come together. And that is the real thing to watch for.

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On Monday of this week, the LA Dodgers closed down and bid farewell to their old spring training facility in Arizona called, "Dodgertown". While it did make some sports media talk shows, it did so only because there existed a small break between the end of the college basketball conference championships, and the beginning of the NIT and NCAA tournaments. (Oh, and that other thing call the CBI...a note about that in a minute.)

While I can not even remotely be considered a Dodgers fan, the closing of Dodgertown was a little sad for me. Sad partly because it completely brings to an end a chapter of Dodger history that stretches back to the days when the Dodgers played in Brooklyn, and were not part of that "California culture". Dodgertown, and the Dodger management created that facility in time and in a place that ran against the current mainstream of major league baseball at the time. That being that the real reason that Dodgertown was created was to give a home where ALL of the Dodger players could train, practice and play together. Both black and white. Built in 1948, at the time, it was the only franchise of its kind to show forethought and social conscience in dealing with its black players. And the names of the players that went through Dodgertown is a HOF list. Players like Jackie Robinson, PeeWee Reese, Roy Campanella, Sandy Koufax, Duke Snider, all from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not to mention all the HOFer's from the LA Dodgers after 1958. Even managers like Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda. All of them had their time in this small Florida oasis of baseball.

It is sad to see it go. But that is why baseball is so rich for so many baseball fans. History. Baseball is the longest, continual running professional sport in America. And Dodgertown was a large part of that history.