Get Ready for Spring Training with Orel Hershiser

At last, our national pastime's suit-and-tie season — from new-player press conferences to congressional hearings — gives way to actual Major League Baseball as ESPN's 10-game spring-training schedule opens with the Dodgers and Braves on Friday (1 pm/ET). Fifty years after leaving Brooklyn for L.A., the Dodgers are marked by more westward movement with the arrival of manager Joe Torre from the Yankees, outfielder Andruw Jones from the Braves and pitcher Hiroki Kuroda from Japan. In mid-March, the team leaves Vero Beach, Florida, for Arizona after 61 years in "Dodgertown." ESPN analyst Orel Hershiser, star of L.A.'s last World Series winner in 1988, gets us loosened up for spring.

TV Guide: What kind of impact will Joe Torre have in L.A.?
Orel Hershiser: It'll take Joe a little bit of time to get his arms around the players out there, but from everything I know from playing against him and covering him, he is a genuine human being who really understands people. The problem with the Dodgers last year was there was a gap between older veteran players and younger players, and I think Joe can bridge that gap.

TV Guide: In general, what's a pitching staff's main goal in March?
Hershiser: The biggest thing in spring that you look for is health in the last 10 days of training, because you know deep down you're going to use 17 to 19 pitchers throughout the year. And you don't want the competitive juices of the players to take over too soon, when their bodies aren't ready for it. The biggest guys that are at risk are the ones who come into camp to win a job, the borderline veterans and the young guys.

TV Guide: What's spring training like for all the pitchers coming off injury?
Hershiser: For someone who spent the off-season in rehab, sometimes you can empty the tank thinking there's this "due date" of opening day, and then your body is worn out once you get into the season. Then there's a guy like [the New York Mets'] Pedro Martinez, who spent an off-season getting ready for spring training instead of rehabbing, so he's going to feel like this is a breath of fresh air.That's why spring training is six weeks long, for the starting pitchers to add an inning every outing. If it were up to regular players, they'd make spring about three weeks.

TV Guide: What are your thoughts on two top relievers who are switching to the rotation: the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain (in the summer) and Philly's Brett Myers?
Hershiser: I think we can always go back and make Joba a reliever, because he proved he can do that, but starters are such a rare commodity, especially at the level at which he looks like he can pitch. He's the real deal because every one of his pitches is hard to hit, even when you know it's coming. I'm really surprised in Myers, because he sold it to us that closing is what he wanted to do, but if you know the young man, you know he'll do anything for his team; and if you know him in another way, you know he can change focus in a heartbeat.

TV Guide: A lot of starters are only asked to go six or seven innings these days. Whatever happened to the complete game?
Hershiser: There are so many factors in the game as to why they only go six or seven.... Seven innings today is the equivalent of a complete game of yesteryear. They've taken so much foul territory away from the field. So now any ball hit into the first six or so rows is out of play and it goes back to the pitcher's hand and the batter's still standing at the plate. Every time you see that, add a third of an inning to the game. We really play probably 11- or 10.5-inning games. Balls barely clear the fence, the balls are tighter, the strike zone's smaller, and the hitters are stronger.