Someone went to training and all I got was this lousy post

By: Bob Kellett | March 12th, 2008

You’ve got questions and, well, I probably don’t have the answers to your questions. I stopped by PGE Park this morning to check out a bit of the Timbers training session. By “a bit” I mean I caught about ten minutes of the action. My lame excuse is that I was running late after doing a volunteer stint with SMART — a great program that I would encourage you to consider joining. Anyway, PGE Park was sun splashed and looking great. The new turf is a sight for sore eyes and a relief for sore bodies. It also is going to elevate the level of play we see this year. That was clear to me after watching a couple of long passes hit the turf and not react like a super ball.

The field was set up so that the Timbers were practicing on the south end while a maintenance crew was working on the baseball cutouts. The team was scrimmaging with the signed players wearing white shirts and green shorts, and the trialists wearing a hodgepodge of gear. The signed players were pretty much taking it to the trialists. The lineup was:

James
Thompson Knowles Karalexis Higgins
Lara Gregor (Poltl) Dombrowski Guante (Ready)
Brown Asian Trialist (Bagley)

Olum was also there. I’m not sure about Oka.

A few observations:

* Chris Brown is a class player. He and Scot with one T were working especially well together on the right side.

* Karalexis has good size. If he didn’t have long hair I would have confused him for Justin Thompson. He and Knowles are imposing in the back.

* The Asian Trialist up front also is tall with long hair. I heard the name “Suki” but I could be confusing things with the massage parlor woman listed in the backpages of the Willy Week. He was the only player I didn’t know playing for the “signed” team. I was told he hadn’t signed yet. Considering there are two signed forwards in camp, he could just be an extra body. Or he could be our next hero. Who knows.

* Bagley was moving around well. No signs off his offseason sports hernia injury impacting his mobility.

* Jaime Ambriz was in attendance but not suited up. He told me that he is still working on his paperwork but that he hopes to be back. The ankle he busted playing against Toronto has healed. Something about lying on a beach in Mexico for a week will help do that.

* No word on Wicks and Jordan. They weren’t at the training session. Marc Kostic described the situation as “interesting” but gave no further details.

* At the end of practice, Wilkinson gathered a handful of the trialists around. As someone who was a marginal athlete growing up, I recognized this as the time when the coach tells the guys that they worked hard but they should think about a new career. Nothing official, but that is what it looked like to me.

* Sorry, I didn’t pick up any info about the trialists’ names or the new Kiwi (he wasn’t there). Since I was the only “media” person there and I don’t think the team even knows most of the guys trying out, I don’t feel terrible about this. The names will leak out once the exhibitions start up.

* I talked to Dan Zusman and he told me that season ticket sales have been very good. He also said that everyone who buys season tickets will receive a TriMet pass for the day of the games. This will be a separate pass that will be stamped with the game date. The passes will be mailed along with the season tickets in late March. You now have no excuse for not taking public transport to the stadium.

This is the only training I’ll be able to attend this week. I’ll try to gather more dirt next week and, as always, if you know any of the players or trialists or have any good info, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email: timbers [at] theoffside [dot] com.

Knowledge is power, my friends.