VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher who made
more headlines for his rocks than his lobs during training camp
this spring was reassigned to the team's minor league camp Monday.
Matt White, a 29-year-old left-hander, discovered a valuable
rock quarry behind a house he bought from an aunt three years ago
in western Massachusetts. But while everyone else wanted to talk
about his possible fortune, White wanted to stay focused on
baseball.
The attention the quarry received wasn't to blame for his
reassignment, he said.
Talk of the rock fortune was strange for a week, "but it
settled down and I was able to do my job on the mound and that's
what they are looking at," White said. "I don't even want to talk
about rocks right now, but it wasn't a distraction to my
pitching."
The reliever allowed one earned run and two hits in 7 1-3
innings. He said he will be sent to Triple-A Las Vegas, where he is
likely to be a situational left-hander.
"Just go down and get your work in, keep your focus on what you
have been doing since you have been up here," White said the team
told him. "I will continue to work on my sidearm pitches and go
down and get some innings to get ready to be called up."
The Dodgers signed White as a free agent on Dec. 20. He has
spent less than a year in the major leagues since his professional
career began in 1998, and White entered camp competing for a job in
a deep pitching staff.
The bullpen already includes Takashi Saito, Jonathan Broxton,
Joe Beimel, Chad Billingsley and Elmer Dessens, and White also
would have been competing with the losers in the fifth-starter
competition that includes Hong-Chih Kuo, Brett Tomko and Mark
Hendrickson.
Still, he said he never once thought about being reassigned. His
one thought was on making the big club.
"I know there is a lot of numbers in here, I am not naive to
that, and I understand it is what it is," White said. "But it's
always a bad feeling to get sent to minor league camp."
In other Dodgers transactions Monday, pitchers D.J. Houlton and
Eric Stults and outfielder Delwyn Young were optioned, and pitcher
Jon Meloan, infielder Tony Abreu and outfielder Choo Freeman were
reassigned. Abreu ended his spring training with a mild bone bruise
on his left shoulder, sustained sliding into second base headfirst
during a game Saturday.