The View from 18th Street

By: Bob Kellett | March 17th, 2008

After a gloriously fun weekend in which I slept about two hours total, I didn’t want to drag my arse out of bed early, but I did because of you, fair reader. I knew that you are hungry to know the names of the new players who will deliver a championship to the Rose City in 2008. I knew that you couldn’t make it down to the Timbers training so that you were counting on me to be your eyes and ears. I knew that you were counting on me to deliver lots of juicy dirt. So against my body’s wishes, I woke up early and headed down to PGE Park where I proceeded to learn next to nothing.

Here’s a valuable lesson for all of you aspiring undercover journalists out there. If you want to go unnoticed, don’t wear a jacket that looks like it has been dipped in uranium. The unnatural yellow is great for being seen on the roads, but not so great at avoiding the eyes of Gavin Wilkinson. The Portland Timbers boss saw me slip into PGE Park and immediately came over to inform me that the stadium was closed. He joked about not wanting to let out state secrets. I joked that I wasn’t going to buy him a green beer after practice. I then slinked out of the stadium with my tail between my legs asking myself what a real journalist like Woodward or Bernstein or Bickle would do in such a situation. The answer was clear. They’d stand on 18th Street and watch through the fence.

I did this for about an hour – an hour which saw the Timbers and the trialists being put through a bunch of fitness and ball skills drills. In other words, an hour that would have been better spent in bed dreaming about the upcoming season. Even with the lack of interesting activity, I did pick up a few tidbits. Here they are:

• There were 22 players participating – 15 players under contract and 7 trialists.

• The players under contract were: Dombrowski, Olum, Thomspon, Poltl, Gregor, Lara, Knowles, Bagley, Brown, Ready, Higgins, Guante, Oka, James, and Karalexis.

• There was no sign of Bryan Jordan, Josh Wicks or Jaime Ambriz.

• Troy Ready sat out of the ball drills with an injury. He did the running drills, however. Has he ever been healthy?

• My notes on the seven trialists. Keep in mind that they weren’t scrimmaging, merely running in circles a lot:

Trialist 1 – Suki. The guy is hanging with Timber Jim. That is a good sign he has made the team.

Trialist 2 – A guy who makes Tom Poltl look tall. He has excellent speed.

Trialist 3 – A sturdy guy with a beard. He looks a bit like David Henning, but it isn’t David Henning.

Trialist 4 – A tallish, thin guy wearing red boots. Runs a bit like a moose.

Trialist 5 – Another taller dude with thinly cropped blonde hair.

Trialist 6 – A guy in a black jacket who looks a lot like Cameron Knowles but is not Cameron Knowles.

Trialist 7 – A player who could be Scot Thompson’s twin. Are the women of Portland really ready for another Scot Thompson?

Apparently a couple of guys – David Mueller and Martin Clayes – who played for St. Louis’ PDL team were in camp or still may be in camp or may be out in the woods camping.

Pulitzer-winning information this is not, but that is what I came up with today. I’ll try to visit training again later this week. Without the butt ugly jacket, of course.