MLB: COLORADO ROCKIES, LINING UP  /// NBA: ALL STAR RESULTS

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            “SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:     “Who are these guys?” That has to be a common response to the 2012 Colorado Rockies 40-man roster. More than half of the ballplayers listed are “unrecognizable,” to Colorado fans, anyway, the rest being the infielders, outfielders and pitchers who were in multiple games during the 2011 MLB season. 

So, who’s returning? Among infielders, Todd Helton, Jason Giambi, Johnathan Herrera, Troy Tulowitzki and Eric Young, Jr. For the outfield, Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Gonzalez. Among pitchers, Matt Belisle, Rafael Betancourt, Jhoulys Chacin, Juan Nicasio, Esmil Rogers, Alex White. Regarding a catcher, the three candidates for April’s lineup are new: Ramon Hernandez, Eliezer Alfonso, Jordan Pacheco and Wilin Rosario.

Spring training will, of course, determine who will constitute the starting line-up, and which hurlers will be mid-game relievers and closers. This means that a team with more than 25 new players could in April be mostly “the old Rockies,” a selection from the crew of years before, the new additions a catcher who can hit and field above the margin, likely Ramon Hernandez, obtained from the Cincinnati Reds, and at third base, Marco Scutaro, from the Boston Red Sox, and a third outfielder, Michael Cuddyer, from the Minnesota Twins.

New and promising for the Rockies pitching staff will be RHP Jeremy Guthrie, from the Baltimore Orioles, and RHP Guillermo Moscoso, from the Oakland A’s.

Of much value this year will be the Rockies pre-season schedule of games in March, when 11 of 31 challenges will be against teams within the division that the Colorado team hopes to be leading by late September, starting with a game versus the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 3. There will be two more contests vs. the Diamondbacks before April, and two each vs. the San Diego Padres, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. That’s roughly around 40 hours of playing time (equal to an average work week) for Rockies manager Jim Tracy to refine the existing roster and settle on an opening day lineup. Given how often most big league managers revise their line-ups during the regular season, maybe spring training isn’t long enough for any baseball team to ever be more than a work in progress.

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NBA:    The West beat the East on Sunday, 152-149, five of its players finishing with double-digit points, the rest of the West’s best accumulating their usual number of assists, rebounds and blocks roughly on par with the East relative to number of minutes that players received on the floor. The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant led the West with 36 points and became the All Star MVP, the L.A. Lakers Kobe Bryant completing with 27 ppg, the L.A. Clippers Blake Griffin with 22 ppg, the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook, 21.

At half time, the West led the East by 18 points, and at the deep end of the fourth period the West was ahead by 21, but the East pushed that down to a single point, unable to go further. Of certainty, the East had shining moments, the Miami Heat’s LeBron James scoring 36 points and the Heat’s Dwyane Wade, 24, the N.Y. Knicks Carmelo Anthony, 17.

Noteworthy is that from start to finish the 2012 All Star game reflected a professionalism not always seen at All Star events, that is, there remained a kind of seriousness without it being somber, no player taking his presence at the game lightly, yet no player being overly dramatic or seeking the camera, no false frivolity. Maybe it was a disappointment for fans who had hoped to see more dazzle from the Clippers Chris Paul, the Boston Celtics Paul Pierce, the Heat’s Chris Bosh, the Dallas Mavericks Dirk Nowitzki and the Phoenix Suns Steve Nash, but overall the NBA showed that it could be a class act and deliver images of the leading edge in basketball skills and how the modern game should be played (Wow, those LeBron three-pointers in the fourth Q, and Wade’s triple-double).

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