With the Lakers out of town, I took the opportunity to check in with the Dodgers Wednesday. Here's some of the material from Joe Torre's pregame media session:

Manny Ramirez's first semi-public appearance at Dodger Stadium since beginning his 50-game suspension -- visiting with teammates and talking briefly to a handful of reporters on Tuesday -- serves as a reminder that the outfielder's return (July 3, unless the Dodgers have a rain-out between now and then) is drawing near.
So does the fact that manager Joe Torre is starting to think about the minor-league rehab assignment that will precede Ramirez's return, telling Ramirez during his Tuesday visit that they'd discuss the matter next week when the Dodgers return from their brief road trip to Texas.
"Ideally, you'd want to do something where he's going to be in the same place for a while, as opposed to having a carnival atmosphere everyplace you go," Torre said. "That's not idea', but again, that's just something you have to deal with. Speaking of carnival, we're going to New York as soon as he gets activated anyway, and we know what that's going to be like. So it's just part of when you're a public person, and you're in sports, and as good a player as he is, you attract a lot of attention. That's just part of what goes with it."
It's not so much trying to avoid that carnival as much as minimize the number of times it moves to a new city, he said.
"I'd rather it be new in one place and then just stay there. But I don't know if the schedule's going to let us do that," Torre said. "It's not trying to run away from something. You're just trying to have him go someplace where he's playing baseball, and spend most of his time doing that."
Ideally, he said, that rehab stint would be with triple-A Albuerquerque -- "because the pitchers have a better chance of throwing the ball over the plate" -- and a quick look at the schedule for the Dodgers' minor-league affiliates would seem to make that a strong possibility.
Looking 10 to 12 games ahead of that July 3 return date -- the triple-A Isotopes are home from June 18-26, make one four-day road trip to Omaha (June 27-30) and then are home again July 1-2. Double-A Chattanooga has a six-game road trip in that same interval (although all six games are at Huntsville), and class-A Inland Empire of San Bernardino alternates home and road series.
Short staff: With off days Thursday and Monday -- as well as the one last Monday -- the Dodgers will be able to take three turns through the pitching rotation without calling on a fifth starter. Hiroki Kuroda, Randy Wolf and Chad Billingsley will pitch in the weekend series at Texas; Clayton Kershaw, Kuroda and Wolf in the Tuesday-Thursday home series with Oakland, and Billingsley in next Friday's opener of the three-game series at Anaheim. The Saturday game in that series will be the next time the Dodgers need a fifth starter, and Torre will have to choose who gets the start, since Eric Milton, who had been the fifth starter, is now on the disabled list.
More book reviews: Torre's book "The Yankee Years" was back in the news Wednesday, with a New York post story that outfielder Johnny Damon was unhappy with critical comments by Torre in the book.
Torre said he was "very careful" specifically in his comments about Damon specifically -- "I don't think there was anything in there that really shouldn't be discussed" -- and with the book in general.
In fact, when someone started to ask him a question about writing "a tell-all book," Torre interrupted with good-natured but clear exasperation.
"It's not a tell-all book!" he said. "I read that thing six times and said everything I wanted to say, knowing that I was going to read it and I wasn't afraid to work with Tommy (Verducci, the co-author) because I trusted him.
"If I had just retired from New York" -- rather than joining the Dodgers -- "that book still would have been written. When I won 1,000 games as a Yankee manager and people were asking to reflect, I said, 'I can't reflect. I'm still doing this.'
"This was a chance for me to enjoy it, finally. Everybody thinks because I left the Yankees, this is one of those books where I dropped it in a room and ran. This was a book I wanted to write because it was sort of therapy for me, too, to look back and admire and enjoy the time I spent there and the success we had.
"But I certainly spent a lot of time in not violating anything. But again, that doesn't mean that every single person's going to agree with my evaluation. But that's the way I approached it."
No hanging Chad: Torre is clearly pleased with the progress Chad Billingsley -- 8-3 with a 2.73 ERA after Tuesday's win over San Diego -- has made from last season, when he was 16-10 with a 3.14 ERA.
"He bends but won't break," said Torre. "(Tuesday) night was just frustrating as hell for him. He'd get to two strikes and he couldn't put people away. It's just foul ball, foul ball. I think a big part of that was his breaking ball wasn't probably as good as it normally is. That's usually a pitch he can use to put people away."
Billingsley gave up eight hits, two walks and three earned runs in 5 2/3 innings, laboring through 117 pitches, but did manage to pick up the win.
"He's in such a good place right now, even with a game like yesterday, to have a presence," said Torre. "Last year, he came unraveled a lot. He was young, learning, I think it's something you have to understand to make adjustments as you go along.
"Right now, especially after the last game he pitched last year in Philadelphia, and he carried that all winter" -- a playoff loss in which he went just 2 2/3 innings, giving up four hits, four walks and three earned runs -- "he came this spring with the understanding that there were certain things he felt he could do better."